VIDEO. Can you be friends with someone who does not have the same values ​​as you?

“We tend to think that friends should look like us. (…) Me, I believe that friendship can make room for a difference, even a very big difference”. Emma Carenini is a professor of philosophy. For her, theancient design” developed by Aristotle, Plato or Cicero, according to which “friendship is a form of specular relationship where the other is a mirror of ourselves” is not always true. Quite the contrary.

“Because it was him, because it was me”

The philosophy professor takes the example of Montaigne’s very famous phrase about his friend La Boétie: “Because it was him, because it was me.” A phrase that highlights the uniqueness of each. To support her point, Emma Carenini also evokes two judges of the Supreme Court of the United States that everything opposes on paper and who are nevertheless friends. “Scalia, a conservative, and Ginsburg, a progressive judge and defender of women’s rights, two people who face each other on issues such as abortion or the death penalty, and who are nevertheless friends”.

If the friendship between two peoplethat everything could oppose“works, it’s because everyone is capable”to engage in a rational discussion” and not attached to “affect”. “Affect tends to separate us” warns the philosophy teacher. But it takes effort on everyone’s part: “friends make a rational effort to put aside their affectivity, their affective adherence to values ​​that have been inherited from family, friends, etc., and they will make this rational effort to be able to try to understand the other”. In some cases, avoiding talking about “irritating” subjects is also a solution to preserve your friendship.