I like what C.S. Lewis’ stepson Douglas Gresham says about friendship in his biography on Lewis called Jack’s Life.
Gresham writes, “Now friendship in those days was a bit different from what it is today; friends did not have to agree on everything and often agreed on practically nothing.”
He goes on to say, “In today’s world we seem to have lost the real meaning of friendship. If someone disagrees with us, it is fashionable today to dislike them for it. This is silly and robs us of the best kind of friends we could find, for if we are always agreed with, we can never really have a serious conversation; we cannot learn from someone who agrees with whatever we say.”
Ken:
Doesn’t this parallel our turning the understanding of “tolerance” upside down?
Tolerance really means to treat with respect persons with whose ideas or beliefs you disagree. But in postmodern culture, tolerance means that you treat all ideas as equally valid.
Then, if someone disagrees with you–and truly believes that their idea is more correct than yours, you disavow friendship (you become… intolerant toward them).
What an intolerable comment! Just kidding…
The bottom line is that I think we have ego’s that are way too fragile these days. We can’t BEND with good dialogue – rather we splinter.
The result is that our friendships last about as long as NFL head coaches.
I’m hoping for something qualitatively different in our community… something more like the Inklings (Lewis and his friends) that the quote referred to.