Pints With Aquinas - 135: How to make friends, with. Dr. John Cuddeback

Episode Date: December 4, 2018

Today we're joined around the bar table by Dr. John Cuddeback, philosopher at Christendom College, to discuss the importance and beauty of friendship. SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer. If you could sit down. So sometimes I think of what I'm going to say before I click record. Most of the time, I think just as I'm saying it and for some reason it made me laugh, you'll see why in a second. Ah, wow. This is the show where you and I pull up at, oh my gosh, start again. Welcome to Pints of Aquinas. My name's Matt Fred. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with the big man, Thomas Aquinas, and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we're going to ask Thomas Aquinas how to make friends. That's why that's funny. I don't know why you would ask him that, but seriously, we're going to ask him how to make friends.

We're going to ask him how to make friends. And that wasn't supposed to be as funny as it came out. But today we are joined around the bar table by a philosopher, John Cuddeback, who is a professor of philosophy at Christendom College, who's written a lot on friendship, to chat with us about what Aquinas has to say on friendship. Great to have you. Here we go. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Oh my gosh, why is it so funny?

It's like... I just think it's funny that it's like you're in a pub and it's like dark and there's candles and you have your beer, Stein, you know. And Aquinas is like, all right, one question. What is it? You have a question on metaphysics or you're like, how do I make friends? Okay, so that's why that's funny.

But no, today is a great episode. I thoroughly enjoyed it. John Cutterbeck, he runs the blog Bacon and Acorns. He is the professor of philosophy at should be pursuing, and how to have good and healthy friendships. This is a radical episode in a day and age where everybody, you know, you get the sense that we can live as little atomized individuals cut off from the rest of society and be happy and be fulfilled. And that's just not true. So we talk all about friendship. You're going to really love it. Welcome to Advent, by the way. It's Advent now. So I mentioned this last week, but I have edited and recorded a book called Advent with Aquinas, and this is free for my patrons. So if you give me $10 or more a month on Patreon, you can just download the app and every day play a meditation. It's not really meditation. It's a reflection from Thomas Aquinas on the incarnation and the birth of Jesus Christ. I've also made it an

EPUB book, so you can read it on your e-reader, and it has a clickable table of contents, which will take you directly to the day. So, it's pretty cool. Somebody said, that's great. I'll read it to my kids. And I'm like, oh, no, it's not that kind of Advent book that's like syrupy sweet and kids would like it. Now, this is pretty, you know, high octane philosophy and theology. So, it's not like, oh, I feel warm and fuzzy. It's like, no, here's Aquinas like battling out heresies regarding the incarnation and stuff. But anyway, I've drilled into Aquinas' works, as I've already said, and just taken out a reflection of each day that could accompany you through Advent. So even though we're

a couple of days into Advent, if you became a subscriber right now, you would have access to all those audio bits, things you can listen to every day and you can also read it. So go to patreon.com slash donate to get access to that as well as a bunch of other free things that our patrons get. But if you are a patron and you don't know about it until now, quick, go over, go over right now, get the ebook and start listening to the audio recording so you can better prepare yourself for Christmas. All right, time to chat with Aquinas and Professor Cutterback about how to have a friend. John Cutterback, thanks for being on Pints with Aquinas. Great to be here with you.

Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Before we delve into today's topic on friendship, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I've been teaching philosophy at Christendom College for approaching a quarter century. I absolutely love it. I'm blessed to have a lovely wife and six children. And one of my children just got married. And so I'm getting ready for that next stage of life and live in the Shenandoah Valley where things couldn't be more beautiful. Where is that? Well, it's about one hour west of Washington, D.C. Okay. Yeah, beautiful. I've heard good things about Christendom College. Well, we have a lot going for us, honestly. I'm blessed to have great colleagues.

We have wonderful families that send their children here and a great miscellaneous of people. Nothing like having students that are interested in what you're teaching. Oh, absolutely. No, I would love to maybe one day teach philosophy. I just, I love it myself and I'm sure it's a real joy. What areas of philosophy do you specialize in or what ones get you excited? Well, just about anything that Aristotle or St. Thomas Aquinas write on or interested in is something that I would be interested in. I've always focused in

the area, especially of ethics. I wrote my dissertation on natural law as a foundation for ethics. After that, I really started to focus on friendship because I found that that was particularly what most, I'd say, changed people's lives as we were studying that together. And then most of late, I've been focusing especially on Aristotle and Aquinas' notion of the household. And I've been thinking a lot about how to try to support family life in the household and renew it based upon an ancient wisdom. That's fantastic. Yeah, friendship is one of these things that's so important for us to talk about, especially in this digital age where, you know, it seems more and more difficult to create serious, deep

friendships as opposed to just acquaintances. Indeed. Indeed. I think you're absolutely right that we have a special challenge, and that's why I feel particularly blessed to be able to go back to just certain kernel insights, basic principles that go back to Aristotle and St. Thomas really expounded to that really can make a difference for trying to address these things. Well, let's start off with a really basic question. What is friendship?

Well, you know, that is a great place to begin. That's exactly where they would begin. And one of the tricky things is you have to recognize right at the beginning, then as now and always will be that the word is used in different ways. So, we absolutely have to be careful about that. There are different kinds. Any friendship is a sharing of life together. Any friendship is a mutual and recognized relationship of goodwill of some kind. but as Aristotle is great in pointing out, it can be really rooted in different things and about different things. So, he famously makes the distinction of the fundamental three kinds, a friendship of utility, a friendship of pleasure, and a friendship of virtue. And frankly, just making the distinction already itself is very helpful. I like most of

all to focus on the insights that he has into, I always call it the third kind of friendship, the true friendship, the full friendship, the real deal, the one where life is really most of all lived. He has so much to tell us about it. Yeah. Well, maybe just go over those three that Aristotle talks about here. You said utility, pleasure, and on virtue. Because I imagine for most of us, the majority of our friendships are based on maybe the first one, then the second one, and then finally, the third one, probably have the few most occupants within that category for most of us. Would you agree? I would. I would. And I mean, maybe,

even at times, sometimes we can can the closer we look at these things we can realize it's it's really harder than we think to get the real deal going i mean everybody certainly has friends of some kind and really i'd say we probably all have at least something that's the beginnings of that third kind but let's let's just rather let's go ahead and sort it out a little bit. It's most of all going to be what the friendship is rooted in. So the friendship of pleasure is most of all rooted in we have a good time together. We enjoy one another's company. This can be something that is a very shallow and even possibly bad relationship, but it's important that we not immediately characterize it in that way. It's not unnatural. He says

it's particularly characteristic of young people. They spend time with the people that they most enjoy being around. This is just kind of natural that we, hey, we enjoy the same things. We enjoy one of those companies, so we spend time together. Right there, all of a sudden, we refer to those people as our friends, right? Hey, we're enjoying doing this or that. So just enjoying the same things gives us something that's truly called friendship. Then we got the utility one, which is very similar to it.

I mean, we're useful to one another. We help one another in various ways. And that's basically the root of the relationship. You can see this in people that have maybe worked together in some form or fashion. I help you and you help me. And, you know, again, we naturally start to use the word friend for that. You know, I've got this friend, I've got this buddy that I'm working with, and that gives a certain kind of shared life. In both certain extent, I'm kind of looking out

for one another, but it is what it is. It's both of those kinds of friendship then, they kind of lump together, as Salma Aquinas is explaining it, lump together and just say, what you really need to notice here is not so much what's there as much as what's not there. These do not require that there be any deep knowledge of one another. It doesn't require that there be any really deep, true goodwill towards one another. Yeah. Yeah. And I can think of my friends in high school, you know, how many people do most of us speak to from our days in high school?

It's like we leave the same area where we were congregating five days a week, and then we gradually drift apart because maybe most of our friendships were just those two, you know, utility and pleasure. Whereas I think of a couple of people from my childhood, you know, I haven't seen them in years, but we still dialogue on a regular basis. And when we meet up, it's like no time has elapsed because I know him or he knows me and we really care about each other. Right, right. No, exactly, Matt. And this is the thing that I love how Aristotle and St. Thomas focus us in on. It's especially in getting to know one another and know one another well. getting to know one another and know one another well, and really having that amazing thing. It's so easy to say, and it sounds kind of dry when you say it, true goodwill towards one another.

I mean, really, both of these things, it's so easy to say it. Yeah, break that down for us. What's true goodwill? Yeah, well, I mean, I like to say it's a masterpiece that you recognize when you see it. I mean, this is real love is an astoundingly powerful and beautiful thing. And, of course, it comes in different levels. I mean, we don't want to talk about it as though it's a bridge too far. It's something that so few of us are doing. Although on another level, in its fullness, in what we really could and should be doing, it often is a little out there from what we're actually achieving. I mean, are we really being motivated and moved and inspired by

I am all about your true happiness, your flourishing. This is something that has moved me. This is something that inspires me. And I am putting this up front and center in our kind of living together, our working together, that how can I help you be you? So, it's, you know, there's different ways we can try to capture it in words, but again, when we actually start to, well, be either on the receiving end or the giving end, either one is really kind of life at the cutting edge. Yeah, I'm trying to think this through as we're speaking, you know, I think it was Aquinas going from Aristotle who said, when we, at least when we love the other, we want what's best for them for their sake. You know, so when I want the good

for my wife, I want her good for her sake. You could think of maybe a husband who wants the good of his wife for his sake. You know, maybe he wants his wife to eat better and work out more so he finds her more attractive so he can sort of maybe lust over her or something like that. That might be wanting her good for his sake in a sense. to want the others good for their sake and then i'm supposed to go back to utility and pleasure i suppose you would say so i want your good for your sake and and even even if a common pleasure that we both enjoy should sort of interfere with you with your good then i won't be about that, if I've got a friend who struggles with drinking, say, and we've always got together and drink, and all of a sudden we can't do that,

well, I still want your good, and so I'm going to refrain from drinking. That might be a way to see that there's a genuine friendship there, huh? Exactly, exactly. Well said. One way that also then we can focus on what you were just focusing on is in a true friendship, in this friendship that's ultimately rooted in virtue and is fundamentally about knowing the other for who he is and wanting what's best for him, there ends up being true pleasure, the most important kinds of pleasures. There ends up being utility of the highest kind. And this is the beautiful thing that Aristotle and Aquics both focus our attention on that, this third most true kind of friendship. It really does have it all precisely

because in this kind of paradoxical way, it's not rooted in, hey, I'm really enjoying this a lot. Hey, I'm getting a lot out of this. And the way that you put it also helps us realize it's often at those times that we have to suffer, we have to forego something that we can kind of really show or even discover for ourselves. We are willing to kind of work for the other for his or her own sake. Would you address this for me for a bit? You know, Voiti in Love and Responsibility talks about the two types of uses, you know, and sometimes you hear people say, well, you shouldn't use someone, but I'm like, well, I'm using you for this podcast. Like I use my wife, you know, for kids, you know, what's the difference between using someone and then perhaps you would say merely using them?

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'd say at the end of the day, well, yeah, that can be a little bit tricky. There are situations where, let's just say you and I have a friendship of utility. I think it's important to recognize that as long as there is the fundamental respect for the other person as a person. You and I could have a relationship where I understand that you're able to do something for me and I do something for you. And we're using, you can say that in English, although this is the fine thing. We normally wouldn't say that, right? That's right.

say that, right? When you say you're using someone, I think what we mean by that is that we're taking in such a way that we're really, we're being oblivious to their dignity. We're being oblivious to their true good. If I'm not being oblivious to your true good, if I'm looking at, if I'm not neglecting your true good, again, it doesn't mean that I have to be pretending to be your deep, true friends. This is an interesting thing, Matt, because I do think part of sorting out the friendship thing is once we talk about these three levels, it's not as though you have to pretend that you've got this third kind of friendship with everybody. You don't run around, okay, you and I are this deep, true friends. I'm going to be sharing my deeper thoughts with you i'm i'm really looking out for you there's a way that we can be respecting

everybody around us and loving them appropriately without pretending as though we have that third level of right it would be inappropriate it would be inappropriate even right for me to begin say i just met you over this skype chat today if I started sharing with you all of these things that I shouldn't share. Exactly. That's another beautiful aspect. There's so many avenues we could go down here. It's fascinating, yeah. You can share too much too quickly. We all know people who do that at parties. Maybe we've done it ourselves. In fact, Dostoevsky talks about this. I forget what it's in, crime and punishment, and perhaps

he says, whenever we meet someone, it's important that we get to know them in stages, that we don't show too much of ourselves all at once, because he said, if we do that, we can give an impression of ourselves that it isn't easily kind of forgotten or gotten around or something to that effect. No, I think that's another great point, which just highlights one of the most fascinating aspects of this whole reality is just what it takes to really get to know another human being. It's what do we need to do to actually be learning to see others for who they are? And what do we need to be doing, as you were just adverting to, to show ourselves in an appropriate way? You know, I say to my students, when we come to this point, I say, how many people out there really know who you are? It takes an awful lot. I mean, many of us have seen with our own eyes, you thought you knew someone and you didn't. But we have to learn to be prudent. And many of of us if not all of us in various ways have been hurt

we have to learn not to in our hurt or our woundedness to close ourselves off we still have to be willing to be vulnerable to get to know people and to be willing to show ourselves but we have to learn to do so in a modest way in respectful way, in a self-disciplined way. There's so many aspects that go into what does it take to actually bring about this masterpiece. Yeah. I like how you're doing this because I think many people, when they think of the three types of friendship, Aristotle's talking about inferior friendships. In a sense, they're inferior, but he's not saying that they're bad.

The goal is to look at all of our human relationships and say, okay, how do I get to the third level with all these people? Because as you say, that would be inappropriate. Indeed, you know, quite on the contrary, Aristotle is quite clear, and St. Thomas follows him in his commentary, that you really can only do this full board thing with very, very few people. Oh, I'm so excited to get to that because I can't agree more, which is probably a good thing given that I run a show on Aquinas, so I should agree with him. I once tweeted out something.

I thought it was rather insightful. Most of my tweets aren't, but I said it's that humbling moment where when somebody knows you more than you know you and still likes you that's a beautiful thing like my wife knows me so well that i'm so embarrassed like she sees me at my absolute worst and i'm like i don't even like me i'm disgusting she's like no she's like no you're pretty great i'm like i'd rather be respected than loved you know don't don't right right comes to know this this is i mean you're you're really kind of going you're going right for the I'd rather be respected than loved, you know, don't, don't, it comes too close. No, this, this is, I mean, you're, you're, you're really kind of going,

you're going right for the heart of it. I mean, when, when we really succeed and by the grace of God in, in, in getting at least deeper into this kind of relationship, you really can say, you know, the way I like to put it is, you're never alone. Just by the fact that someone out there knows me, really, and loves me, as you're kind of saying, anyway. And, you know, this is life-giving. It gives you a foundation from which to do everything that you do. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about what Aquinas had to say.

I have his commentary on the Nicomachean ethics, but it's so big that I haven't even bothered to crack it open in regards to the friendship part, I mean. So, before we got on this chat today, I was looking in the Sumer, and I couldn't find much on friendship. So, I'm so happy to know that he addresses friendship and maybe builds upon what Aristotle says about it. So, enlighten me. What does he have to say about it? Yeah. Oh, it's, I mean, these are wonders waiting in store for you. If you crack that big book, go to the commentary on book eight and book nine. And so, just for everyone's knowledge, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is his great masterwork on the good life, on moral philosophy. And the astounding thing is,

of the ten, instead of chapters, they call them books within the book. So the ten books of the Nicomachean Ethics, two of the ten are on friendship. Wow. After he's gone through all of the virtues, he then comes to the beginning of book eight and he says, okay, now we're ready. Now we're going to go to this amazing reality that itself is a kind of virtue, but it's not like the other virtues because it's different. And it's called friendship. And he spends two entire books on it.

And it's just a treasure trove. It's an absolute treasure trove. He begins by distinguishing the general meaning of the term, a bit like I did and then and then distinguishes the three kinds and then he spends most of his time on on looking specifically at different aspects of true friendship so I mean I'm going to just I'm just going to choose one one jewel out of there and you can you can direct me where you want to go but one of the one of the things well the two things I think are most fascinating and most pertinent, I'll just give you two and you tell me what you want to go after here. One is the

necessary connection of virtue and this true friendship. And in other words, that it really is needs to be rooted in virtue. We really only can have this kind of relationship to the extent that we are virtuous, which is a very challenging point. And the other one is the relationship of conversation and friendship, which particularly as we opened today, looking at the situation that we're in with technology and so forth, the loss of context for good conversations, the loss of the art of conversation, that goes hand in hand with our inability to have friendships. So those are the two great points I like to go after. Yeah, go down whichever trail you want. Both sound amazing. Okay, well, let's go down this rabbit hole. the the the necessary connection of of of virtue and friendship that you can only have this relationship we can only really succeed in it to the extent that we

have a good deep moral character and it it just it starts to i i i'll hearken back to something from earlier this astounding thing is so easy to say it to love another for his own sake to really will goods the other show me the person that can really make good on that this is one thing to say that i love you i mean i mean so matt i'm going to challenge you here okay so you know you say that you say you love your wife and often often it's it's kind of easy for us to talk about how we love someone when it's, you know, we're enjoying life together. Absolutely. focus on bringing that other person to, in this case, her true happiness, her true self. This takes much. I've decided that I'm a really good husband when I get everything that I want. Like if I'm having sex enough, if we're going out and having fun times together,

if the house is neat, the kids are well-behaved, I'm a really good person. I'm sure you are. i can see it right now yeah it's amazing i can't even tell you i might as well start my canonization process but it's it's so true like it's so embarrassing like as soon as there's any sort of hiccup in one of my expectations i'm like oh wow i'm a horrible human being and i'm not exaggerating something tells me that there's some truth to what you're saying, because I know too much from my own experience. It's terrible. I can talk about virtue all day long, and I tend to do it with my students, and they somehow get the impression that must mean that I do it. I'm a little afraid when they get the deeper peek into my life.

when they get the deeper peek into my life. But in any case, the beautiful thing that we see as we grow an experience of this is how we really can only make good on these good intentions that we have when we are able to follow through in our character. And of course, the beautiful thing, you don't have to be there all at once, right? I mean, we all understand this is something that we grow in together,

but the great principle is the more we are growing, the more we really are unified, the more we really are sharing a life. I mean, here it is, Matt. I mean, looking at friendship gives us an opportunity to see, again, the most fundamental insights into human life, period. Because Aristotle's great insight in Nicomachean ethics is we really only are as happy and flourishing a human being as we are virtuous. To be virtuous is to be a flourishing human being. And now, what does virtue even mean? But, I mean, at this point we it's it's it's challenging right no exactly and this is something we need to reclaim right because we've

just associated morality with being a party killer or something like that when it's the exact opposite like if you if you want to be happy and to the degree in which you can be happy in this life you have to be good you you can't be wicked and happy. Right. No, no, this is it. And one thing that Aristotle expresses wonderfully is happiness is not the cookies that you get for being virtuous. It's actually in being virtuous. That is really a great point. And to the extent that that's true, of course, that's good reason to give a good hard look at just what it means to be virtuous. living one true life together. The only real friendship is people who are doing that, and not perfectly, but this is what they're going after. This is what they're about. This is where they're most alive. Those are two people that are really friends.

So yeah, explain that. So they're about virtue? They're about each other's good and good meaning, I guess, virtuous in this sense? Yeah, well, I mean, how about this? They've recognized that, you know, to quote Matthew Kelly, the truest version of themselves is to be virtuous. So you've realized that about yourself. I mean, you have to bring something to be virtuous. So you've realized that about yourself, you have to bring something to a friendship. It's like you have to bring something to a marriage. We'll figure this all out when we

get going. No, actually, there'll be a lot that we'll need to figure out, but you better have something to share right now. And that's that great balance. You have to be at least at a certain point. Likewise, in true friendship, we have to have a certain inner solidity. We have to have a certain self-discipline that we're bringing to this relationship, a certain seriousness. This is the type of person that we're supposed to, on the flip side, be looking for in our relationships. Are you willing to roll up your sleeves with me? Have you recognized about your own life what's most important or what's most serious? And if so, maybe we can look at doing this together.

We can get serious about these things together and work on it together. That's what I have that idea when I see a group of men in a coffee shop early in the morning doing a Bible study together, you know, before work. Like, yeah, I mean, I don't know these men, I don't know what they're about, but the idea that they would gather together, presumably weekly, and focus on being good, you know? That's a great example. And boy, do men need that. You know, a men's group is a perfect context in which through which these deeper kind of friendships can arise and don't you think like i i don't know if i'm middle-aged or not i'm 35 what's that uh quarter-aged middle-aged um yeah it seems like at this point in many men's lives friendship goes by the wayside right because you Because you've got your family, you've got kids you're raising, you've got your job that you're trying to grow. Friendship, as Lewis says, is unnecessary. I love this quote from Lewis. He says, friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy,

like art. It has no survival value. Rather, it's the one thing which gives value to survival. It's great. Isn't that great? But do you see that in men like my age? Absolutely. Yes. Yes. No.

Let's talk about men your age. Wow. I mean, really, I think one thing that I, I'm 51. One thing I would share with younger men in the married state is we make the mistake of thinking that we can do this marriage thing fundamentally just by working with our wife. And of course, we must daily in prayer, in humble, in humility, be working with our wife. But in God's great providence, men need other men to help them learn how to be good men. So we have to have good, solid friendships going on at the same time. It has a beautiful way that this all fits together of growing closer with that kind of number one friendship there with my wife but then also having to take the time to have other men

that i know and that we can hold accountable that's the thing that came to my mind matt when you referred to those men in the coffee shop one of the One of the most central aspects also, Aristotle's all about it when you talk about virtue being necessary. One way of seeing is virtue is necessary because virtue is what empowers us to really hold one another accountable. We are looking out for one another from the viewpoint of these are the things that are most important to us. These are the things that we're putting first and that we're working on, and we're going to hold one another accountable. That is something that our culture has taken away from us, right? Holding people accountable is now misportrayed as somehow being offensive, whereas it's the way that we really show that we love them.

Yeah, it's like we've boiled morality down from this sort of virtue ethics, right? Where it's like there's an actual teleology to our lives, to our behaviors. We've done away with that. And now it's just about not getting in someone else's way, not inhibiting their autonomy. That's all we call immoral right i'm trying to think like i get rape that's immoral yeah and clearly clearly it is uh racism would be immoral why well because we're kind of inhibiting somebody in some sense i guess they would also say because we're not treating them like equal human beings as well but it seems for the most part it has nothing to do with teleology like the sexual act it's right it's yeah

and you hear people say things like that it's just like well so long as you both consent it's like so long as we both consent to being degraded how does that make it okay you know right right right and we we all want this so desperately like even i'm convinced that everybody if you take him seriously in a sober moment would agree that while we enjoy relationships of utility and we enjoy relationships of pleasure, we would hope that if the pleasure dried up, someone would still be there. If I became useless, someone would still be there. Right. No, absolutely. This is why I think in many ways, friendship is an ever fruitful topic because, as you say, our inclination for, our desire for, our need for, our craving for is so deep within us. We are so made to live with, to live with others. And that is what friendship is.

It's really living together show me a man with true friendship and and i'll show you a happy man i'll show you a good man and this is this is something we need to be intentional about i mean not really if we were to kind of go back to one thing, I'd say, all right, well, what should we do about this? What we should do is recognize it's worth taking our time and reflecting and being intentional on where do my relationships stand and what kind of energy am I putting into them? What am I willing to do to make them be what they can and should be? Yeah, that was going to be my next question is like, how do we actually do this? Especially when, you know, I live in Georgia and everything's

a 20-minute drive, you know, like including my friends, you know, at least. And it's so difficult to do life together, which is kind of how I think we should just define community. That's how I define it. It's like just doing life with each other, you know? And thankfully, I have some people in which I'm really trying to cultivate that. And I'm trying to be intentional about it, realizing that I can't have, nor do I wish to have 20 close friends. Like two or three is great. And given my limited amount of time, I'm trying to use that time to pour into these people,

if you know what I mean. So what would your advice be to me and to our listeners who really do genuinely desire this, but don't know what to do or how to do it? Well, a couple of things. If we go back to our basic principles of the virtue, and we never really talked much about the second so and the second is a very first is practical too the second of conversation is very practical um i'd say we we need to think again about how to learn how to be present to people

and have good conversations with people that reminds reminds me of an anecdote. I was in a hipster coffee shop recently, and there was a sign that said, we don't have Wi-Fi, talk to each other. That's great. I mean, I don't know, Matt, if you've ever looked at Sherry Turkle's book called Reclaiming Conversation. No. But I recommend it. She's a sociologist slash psychologist. This is a mainstream book, Reclaiming Conversation, Sherry Turkle. It's really worth taking a look at. It'll scare you, but it's rooted in a very fundamental wisdom that the most something that aristotle says right in book nine the most human way of being present to one another and of living together is in having rich conversation and we the book is titled Reclaiming Conversation

because it's showing particularly, not solely, but particularly through the influence of these most common technologies now, especially the younger generation, has lost the contexts for real conversation. And their humanity is being threatened at the deepest level. This is where we need good philosophy. This is where we need just good, simple common sense. where we need just good, simple, common sense. Human life and our ability to relate to other people is threatened when the common practices of our day take away our ability to have sustained,

deeper conversations. That's funny. I imagine a lot of people would hear the title of that book and not bother reading it because most people think that they know how to do it. But as you're saying, if you read it, it would frighten you maybe. Right. Well, it's partially going to frighten you because you're going to realize actually, and when you say they know how to do it, I mean, this is the interesting generational thing that's going on here, Matt it's it's hard for us to recognize it that what how different the life look i'm around 18 year olds all the time i've been around 18 to 22 year olds for the last 23 years yeah and and i i can see the difference the erosion when you now have people that from the earliest years were were being plugged in connected having a mobile device with them this i mean everybody

kind of wrings their hands over this oh what are we going to do all those young people but it truly is a dramatic situation it really is that threatens i mean the thing that's scary about it is is is the data about how they they really can't have conversation and that call you know universities are starting to have the counseling by texting sessions because people don't know how to speak face to face and and and but we have to be careful It's always easy to point at those young people and say, oh, those little monsters, those poor guys. But it's us, too. This is the thing. It's people, I mean, I went to grad school at a time when being on the metro in Washington, D.C.,

people might actually still have talked to one another. It's, I mean, the habits of adults are changing. Even in the loss of manners, all of these things, all these things are part of it. So I don't mean to just, you know, lump it together as though it's just one big disaster, but we do have to be realistic in taking stock. When I say we're losing the context, that to me is an important way to recognize the threat that we're up against, that we're going to have to be intentional about carving out the ways, the times, the places that we actually are able to slow down and be present

and take time. Yeah, it's like we're so utilitarian about everything. It's like the only reason I would possibly have a conversation with you is I'd get something from you as opposed to just sort of wasting time together in a pleasurable way. This is why smoking cigars is such a great idea. I think, you know, I got a couple of friends, you have to sit down, you got a cigar. It's like, this is going to take what, an hour? Like, I can't move. I can't go inside because I'm smoking. And so, all right, let's just sit here. It's kind of a nice forced way to have a conversation no no i i think you're there's actually that really is to the point and when you think of the the structures of the way people used to do things yeah there were many built-in contexts like that right that would have been one

of many where people would simply have been together whether they were sitting around the table whether they were sitting around the table, whether they were sitting around the fire, whether they were working with their hands together, these were the places of shared common. So do we have to recreate those shared experiences as a platform for conversation almost, as opposed to let's go try and have a conversation together.

Is it, is it maybe this is more of a man thing where it's like we bond better by doing something together, but yeah. no honestly i think i think the answer that's is a big yes that we're actually gonna have to they're gonna have to figure that out anyone who's dealing with young people and of course i'm getting on help you know student being at a great intentional college here as I am, this type of thing the student life department thinks about a bit, and they're close with us and the faculty. And, okay, how can we try to have spaces that work this way?

How can we have times that work this way? How can we have events that work this way? I mean, things that you didn't have to be intentional about in the past. You do now. So absolutely, yes. If we're going to reclaim conversation, and reclaiming conversation is key to reclaiming friendship, we are going to have to be proactive, I'd say, both on the kind of defense and offense.

Yeah, you go. Go ahead. Are women better at this than men or not really? Well, you know, that's a great question. I mean, one thing we can say for sure is there's a difference. There actually is a difference. And my inclination would be to go, there's different strengths and there's different weaknesses. And the contexts are going to have to be suited to each. And the funny thing is, we have to, I mean, you know this, Matt, you have to help empower your wife to get into contexts where she can have quality contact with the other ladies,

sometimes with the children, but sometimes without the children right this is this is they need to have their time and we need to have our time and we're going to be doing different things in those times that's part of that's part of the different i don't know too many women who get together smoke and play poker together no exactly someone's going to email me with one example yeah yeah i get it but it's like not usually what yeah right right so we have to be you know that's a whole beautiful topic in itself of to be respectful of the natural plan you know you referred earlier to natural teleology this is the wisdom of aquinas this is the wisdom of of how things are naturally ordered is an incredible gift to us. And modern man insists upon deciding for himself how everything's going to be, refuses to look with humility and ask, how was I designed? How are the natural rhythms of my reproductive organs part of God's

gift to me? How is the difference between man and woman part of God's gift to me? How is my natural need for food and to grow things from the earth part of God's gift to me? How are my natural bodily limitations that I need other people to help me work through, part of God's gift to me, rather than always seeking to make those limitations go away by the latest technology, to be willing to live in them and through them. I've been thinking lately about how every advancement in technology results in some sort of poverty. Like, everything, I mean, you mentioned text messages a moment ago. I mean, texts are great.

You can text. You don't have to call. You don't have to have a whole conversation. You don't have to kind of have the awkward banter at the beginning. You know, you can just kind of get right down to the point. But then you miss out on so much. And I can't think of one piece of advancement in technology where there hasn't been some kind of poverty, including like the car, the automobile.

I'm not saying these aren't benefits in many ways either but well i i think i what i see and take for what you're saying there is even even voicemail like when i call people sometimes i'm like please get their voicemail please get their hey you know right and i assure you i know i I know what you're saying. It can be confusing. It's hard to know how to sort these things out. But I say to my young folk here, no one is going to solve this problem for you. You're going to have to take the bull by the horns. You're going to have to look at your life and determine, okay, these technologies I am going to use. These technologies I need to use. But then how am I going to do this so as to avoid as much as possible the serious negative consequences. The negative consequences we so seldom think about until afterwards.

And so we just keep marching forward. Wendell Berry has a great line. He said, it seems that modern man has lost the ability to subtract. Oh, explain that. What he means. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah we just keep adding more things to solve our problems no actually that's that's a great way to interpret it that that's that's absolutely one way i think i think what he actually meant was in keeping the ledger we always

oh well you know by having texting you know now we're able to this so like put that down in the positive column and you know when we got this technology we were able to do this so like put that down in the positive column and you know when we got this technology we were able to do this so put that down the positive column and he says we we haven't realized well but what about the fact that nobody is sitting on their porches talking to people did anyone ever subtract that when you're when we are considering uh all of these advantages that we have so that i mean so so that that i think was the but your way of taking it also yeah we we don't we don't just stop doing certain things or set certain things aside that's a good point there's going to be an app to solve this new problem that sprung up because of the last thing

yeah right right well um okay how do we i mean i kind of already asked this but how do we how do we do that how do we do this what are some like really concrete practical things for people like us who want friendships but are sucking at it okay all right how about this i'm gonna say first of, we need to take a good look at ourselves. And we need to say, what do I have to bring to this? Am I taking reasonable steps, for instance, to be developing interior life? Now, when I say what do we have to bring with us, we all can also, a lot of us struggle with the problem of self-hatred. Everybody is worthy of being somebody's friend.

It is in all of our power also to take the reasonable steps to pursue it. So I think we need to begin with the confidence. God wants us to have true friendship. He will give us the grace to have true friendship. He will give us the grace to have true friendship. We need to have confidence in ourselves, and we need to then to start to work on ourselves. First of all, how can I make myself more fit to be able to love others? How can I make myself more fit to live well with other people and so that they can trust me and hold me, trust me to hold them accountable? And then we turn, so that's why I say step one, kind of a little self-analysis. Step two, let's look around and say in God's providence, who is he putting in my path? Are there already the friendships or a

marriage that I'm in that I need to look anew and say, what can I do to grow this relationship? And here I'm going to say particularly the conversation thing. It sounds so simple, but when you think about it, it's something that's very difficult to do. Again, it takes, I keep saying it, being intentional about it to set aside time. I would say it from a husband. Let's just say we're talking about our wives. Do I really, really set up those situations where I'm saying, dear, how was your day? And let's take some time and go talk about this. And how are you doing? And share with me what your situation is. And

not as though it looks like it's a project, but this becomes our habitual disposition that we're setting up the context for that. We pop out here from not just between spouses again we're saying men need other men and women need other women who are those others in in our ambit yeah and let's and let's go ahead and maybe even reach out to them first first maybe in not real big explicit ways like hey can we have a real deep friendship that's a great way to ruin it maybe you know it might be or maybe maybe it is time for that maybe it's time to say you know let's be more intentional about exactly let's let's let's get together once you know once a week or once every two weeks and uh you know and say and say evening prayer and um and then just and then just share what's on our hearts yeah you know or have a cigar and you know, or have a cigar and whatever. So, look for with whom we can do this,

and then set up the contexts for success, set up the contexts for presence. One thing my wife and I have done, we began it several years ago in San Diego, is we would have weekly family dinner nights at our house. And so, it was every Tuesday, and I think it was from 5pm to 8pm. And we just told anyone, please come over, just bring something to share. And every Tuesday, they're like, is it on tonight? I'm like, don't ask, just come. Like, it's always, always on. And if we're not home, come anyway and drink with friends. Like, just, let's just be together, you know? And we're not going to come anyway and drink with friends. Like, just, let's just be together, you know? And we're not going to pray the rosary. We might say, we'll say, grace, that's it. We're

going to do something that's also radical, like prayer. And that's conversation, you know, just have backyard games and just mess and kids and... Amen. Amen. But I think that could be one practical thing people might decide to do. Once a week, every whatever at one person's house is very consistent. And it's not a handout you're not getting a free meal we're all contributing to the pot you bring a bottle of wine you bring a salad we're just going to get together and you know absolutely i i couldn't i couldn't agree more about these are the given the bodily nature of human existence this is this This is what I mean by thinking about the contexts. It's the same thing in parenting. I'm going to now use this as an example in a lot of

different circumstances. Now, just the other day, I had a situation where with one of my teenage daughters, I walked into the room. She was actually just a book and so I you know I had hardly had any time to myself and I just thought you know I'm just gonna just gonna take care of a few odds and ends and then just it must have been my guardian angel a little inspiration I just thought you know no I'm actually just gonna go sit down on this couch over here so good and not do anything I'm not gonna have anything in my hand I'm just gonna sit and kind of almost pretend like I'm thinking about something because I didn't want to invade. And sure enough, I mean, it was like a grace from heaven. I mean, sure enough, just kind of imperceptibly, her book closed. And we had one of the best father-daughter conversations I have ever had in my 23 years of parenting because I just sat down and made a choice. You're a good dad. Not well.

I got, by the grace of God, that one went well. But I mean, extrapolate that to how many other relationships where we could do the same thing. Right. I always think to myself, you know, whenever my kid's like, hey, dad, come watch this with me. Or dad, can you come in here with me? Or dad, would you jump on the trampoline with me? And I find myself frustrated because I'm trying to do other things, you know whenever my kids like hey dad come watch this with me or dad can you come in here with me or dad would you jump on the trampoline with me and i find myself frustrated because i'm trying to do other things you know and then i think to myself wow what they just said

to me is it would be better if you were with me doing this i could do it it just would be better if you were here i'm like oh my gosh what a beautiful thing to say of course i'll come yeah yeah so true hey so true man as we begin to wrap up i have three questions that uh some of our patron patrons have sent in that i just want to read off and get quick answers from you on these if that's okay yeah desiree asks any advice for helping good-hearted people who invest in quote-unquote friends who wind up not being as invested in return the person i'm thinking of in particular likes to overly give the benefit of the doubt, turning out warnings and red flags and inevitably winds up burned and hurting too often.

I didn't really get that last part of the question, but do you get the gist? Oh, boy, I sure do. Boy, Desiree, boy, I sure hear what's being said there. And would that there were a silver bullet for that? And I think we have to help one another in any way we can to have realistic expectations and to be prudent in learning how to properly, quote, judge other people, not by having a judgmental attitude, but by being realistic and honest. And part of it might be, again, that's such a great question we won't be able to do justice to, but part of it might be that we have to bolster those around us. You say,

how can we help someone who's in that situation to make sure we help that person see that he, that she is worthy of better than that. And it can, I know that that can be hard when the other doesn't, cannot seem to be around. And so sometimes people just say to me, I'm trying, I'm trying, Dr. Gotaback. I just, nothing's really happening. I'd say, then I'm going to ask you to just place yourself in God's mercy and say, Lord, I know that you want true friendship for me. Open my eyes to it. Let me see the gift you have for me. Brian Damerick asks, how do we know when friendships are worth keeping? And how do we know when we should leave a friendship? Should it be when a friend betrays our trust for the first time? The 10th? To what extent should we practice forgiveness in a friendship? Great, great, great, great. Well, I mean,

this is the thing. I mean, in the friendship that we're talking about here, where things are really, really up and running, and you really have gotten to know one another. And then the basic testing has already begun. There's always going to be a willingness to forgive. But honestly, as we get deeper into these real relationships, there's not going to be the deep, deep betrayals. I mean, deep betrayals are friendship crushing. I mean, this is where, I mean, this, I know this is, this is a, this can be a hard pill, but friendship requires a bit of us. If it kind of at any moment, it requires a certain stability of character. If at any moment, someone's just going to go AWOL and completely, you know, stab you in the back, then you might have some kind of relationship,

but it's not this kind of friendship here that we're talking about. So I would just say, first of all, be realistic. All I was just saying before to Desiree, we do have to be realistic. You can have friendships of the lesser kinds. You can have a mentoring relationship. You don't necessarily have to abandon those people. You stay with them and you keep helping them and you're willing to forgive them. But we have to have to be prudent here and discerning and recognizing there's a difference between the ones that I really can trust and I can go deeper with. You can only really go deeper with the people that you can trust. Sometimes we make a mistake in our judgment and we realize, oh, we made a mistake. And it might just be that big

betrayal that might just be one that makes you realize, okay, that I can't really trust this person anymore. That's not being mean. That's not being vindictive. That might just be being realistic. So again, you can also help ask other people. This is where the friends that you do have can help you think clearly about the other people also, particularly if you just get the one or the two that you can really trust and deliberate with, they can help you think about the other relationships. Yeah, sometimes we can be more vulnerable than I guess prudence would dictate. But at some point, you've got to show part of yourself to grow in this sort

of relationship like vulnerability has to be given again i got this whole list of quotes from lewis he says eros will have naked bodies friendship naked personalities you know and it's like it seems to me like maybe there's varying degrees of this but it's like in order to be a good friend with someone you have to in a sense say okay if you want to crush me here's how you would do it. I mean, you wouldn't actually say that, you know what I mean? But you're sure. Yeah, you hear that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In due time, though. In due time. That's good. Yeah. In due time. And if we're overly needy, sometimes it is, it's the overly needy person. I see this

often, again, with the 18 and 19 year olds. They're so dying to have something deeper that they just, they dive in too quickly. And it's, it's unrealistic. It's not really authentic. We have to have a certain centering in ourselves. And frankly, I should have said this earlier. We need to be deepening our relationship with our Lord. Deepening our relationship with our Lord is going to make us much more capable of good friendships with other people, and our good friendships with other people will make us be more capable of our friendship with our Lord. It goes both ways. Final question here. Alberto Imparo says, and maybe we've answered this, but you might want to give it another run around. What are the signs of a good and true friendship? Do you find good

and true friendships to be common? And if not, what are the signs of a good and true friendship do you find good and true friendships to be common and if not what are the perceived obstacles keeping people from engaging in them we've discussed a lot of this but we have i think it's good i mean these questions are worth coming back to again and again i mean scripture says that if you find a true friend you have found a rare jewel i mean so so it's i mean it's now i again i'm not making, so, so it's, I mean, it's now, I, again, I, I'm going to make it the bridge too far. It's not like so rare, like, well, you're probably not going to find one. No, it's, it's just showing it takes, it takes much work and it takes patience and it, it, it takes, first of all, knowing what it is. I mean, the reason I'm so glad we're having this kind of conversation is because we at least need to start to know what the basic principles are of true friendship. I mean, this is why the one book at this point that I've written is called True Friendship, where virtue becomes happiness, because I wanted to get out there the basic principles,

the distinctions between the kinds of friendship, and so we know what we're looking for, and so then we know how to recognize it. So again, great question, and I say to my students, that's the right question. Keep asking it. Keep trying to figure out more. What is this gift of friendship that God has designed for us, and the different flavors, as it were, that it comes in, the different ways it comes to us, that should be one of the biggest parts of our conscious approach to life. Well, I could keep talking to you for the next three hours, but that might ruin the beginning of this friendship, so I won't. But thank you so much. This has been so wonderful and so helpful. Maybe as we wrap up today, tell people a little bit about yourself and this book of yours that I'm obviously needing to get immediately. Well, thanks. I wrote this back in, I think around 2003, and then it was called The Art of

Friendship, Art of Happiness. And then it was republished in 2010, fundamentally the same book called True Friendship, Where Virtue Becomes Happiness. And I was inspired again to do it because of taking the basic principles from the courses that I saw for my freshmen, my sophomores in college here. It was like they realized, I need to know this. I need to live by this. So this is my joy that I feel very blessed to be trying to figure out the wisdom of the ages, going back to Plato and Aristotle, St. Thomas being the main proposer of it in the history of the Church, along with many others. I find myself very blessed reflection once a week, where I'm trying to, again, bring the wisdom of the ancients into our everyday life. There's so much noise. There's so many small things that take up our attention. So just that we all can

work together to try to step back, to try to reflect on some deeper things, the type of things that can bring us closer to one another. And it looks like you have an eight-part audio course on true friendship from Catholic Courses, too. I do. I do. I do. As well as one on Aristotle's moral philosophy that kind of puts friendship in the context of the virtues and so forth. So, yep. Yeah, catholiccourses.com, just for those listening. I'll throw up links in the show notes that you can get this. This has been so terrific, and I really appreciate your time, and I'm so glad you're out there speaking about this. I know it's going to bear a lot of fruit. Thanks, Matt. Well, thanks for all that you're doing, and really, it was a blessing for me to

be with you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to Pints with Aquinas this week. Now you know how to make friends. Get out there. Hey, mingle. You know? No, this was really great. Thank you so much for listening to Pints with Aquinas. A couple of things I want to invite you to do before you leave. If you haven't yet rated Pints with Aquinas on iTunes,

what are you waiting for? We want more and more people to hear about this podcast. And if we've got great reviews, it helps people find us and helps people want to listen to us. So go give us a five-star review over on iTunes. If you want to give somebody a one-star review, you could give that to whoever. I don't know. Catching Foxes, The Crunch. I mean, there's a whole host of podcasts you could unleash your one-star wrath upon. But if you want to give a five-star review, go give us a five-star review over at iTunes now.

Secondly, as I said in the beginning of the episode, if you support us on Patreon, you go to patreon.com slash mattfradd, you see all the free stuff you get in return for being such an awesome human being. One of those things is daily reflections from Thomas Aquinas every day of Advent. So you don't want to miss that. Or maybe you do.

I don't want to tell you what to do. So whatever you want to do. Have a great day. Bye. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life to carry you, to carry you. And I would give my whole life.