On intellectual friendship: For Peter Beilharz
Craig Calhoun
Journal article · 2023 · Thesis Eleven
Abstract
The importance of friendship to the lives, careers, and accomplishments of intellectuals is too often neglected.Partly, of course, this reflects a pervasive modern individualism that is sadly prominent among intellectuals -including even those who denounce it.But from an older sociology of knowledge to more recent exercises in 'positionality', the individualism is countered by acknowledgments -or accusations -of class, gender, race, and membership in other salient categories (like tenured old guard or unemployed new PhD).Schools of thought are recognized along with training in actual, literal schools and employment in universities that shape, for example, the chance to work with graduate students, and in departments that confer disciplinary prestige and sustain distinctive styles of inquiry.But friendship is relatively neglected.Knowing Peter Beilharz reminds us that it shouldn't be.It is common to think of friendship in predominantly psychological terms.It is described as an emotional link, a relationship of mutual affection.This is obviously an important dimension.But it is a thin and one-dimensional account.As the anthropologist Robert Brain (1976) pointed out in Friends and Lovers, emotion and especially erotic attraction are very volatile bases for relationships.Passion can be short-lived.Indeed, part of what makes intense passions so memorable is that they are often short-lived.Love affairs, Brain suggests, are often steps outside the routines of ordinary life.We lose ourselves in love affairs, at least briefly.By contrast, we find ourselves in friendships.Some friendships are specific to a phase of our lives.We keep up with only a few undergraduate friends, at most, no matter how many games of pool, glasses of beer, or discoveries of new music we shared.Long-term partners may weaken connections to friends from when we were single.In my case, moving between the UK and the USA located some friendships in time as well as space.We are more likely to stay connected when we enter related lines of work or live near each other, but losing touch doesn't negate the value of friendship had in a different then and there.
Citation
Calhoun, C. (2023). On intellectual friendship: For Peter Beilharz. Thesis Eleven, 179(1), 200-205.