Is it possible to ever have friends like Ron and Hermione?: Philosophy Forums

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Is it possible to ever have friends like Ron and Hermione?
Is it possible in the United States due to our superficial surroundings?

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Is it possible to ever have friends like Ron and Hermione?

wuliheron
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Posted 07/22/09 - 02:07 AM:	#11
I think that psychologist is looking at it like its a one-way street. We create and support all these one-dimensional characters, endless melodramas, and endless means of self-stimulation. Isaac Asimov wrote science fiction about a planet were people lived the lives of hermits hundreds of miles apart and surrounded by thousands of robots. These people would never think of meeting in person, but only communicated by phone unless they had the onerous duty of reproduction. In "The Turning Point" Fritjof Capra described western civilization as particularly well adapted to nomadic lifestyles. It's not just any society that will do things like populate an entire continent on the opposite side of the earth with convicts and mail-order brides as the English did with Australia. It isn't just any society that can survive intact with its people moving an average of every five years as Americans do. Something has to give to make all that work and, fortunately or unfortunately, it seems intimacy is the inevitable victim.

Destrudo
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/22/09 - 02:54 AM:	#12
No It is not possible to have friends that aren't superficial. All the complexities of interpersonal relationships are smoke and mirrors. It's an illusion of complexity that help sustain our fragile psyche. Fantasy isn't just secluded to fiction. People build their entire lives around fantasies of love and power and security. The truth is that these things don't exist. If this reality seems too harsh their is always refuge in self delusion. It works for everybody else.

oldandrew
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Posted 07/22/09 - 05:50 AM:	#13
Brady002 wrote: I have friends, but I just don't feel the connection like I see Harry does in Ron and Hermione. Now those are "high quality" friends. Either of them would do anything in the world for Harry as he would for them. Now thats something I want. I'm still in high school and a lot of people tell me that cause I live in the U.S., i gotta wait till college at least for bonds like that. I don't understand what living in the U.S. has to do with it except everyone is soo worried about superficial stuff that "true friendships" are hard to find. I'm sick and tired of having numerous friends just for the fun of it and I want to have an extremely close relationship like Harry does. Please offer helpful insights and advice as this is a totally serious thing. Its not like I want to pretend to "live" the life of someone else, I just want friends that I'm extremely close with. I don't know whether living in the U.S. comes into it or not, being English certainly didn't result in Harry Potter style friendships when I was at school. I can certainly see why people have told you "true friendship" comes later than high school. Schools are not private places. The social hierachy of teenagers gets everywhere. Children at school often find it is safer to hang around with friends they don't really like rather than find themselves alone. Children often form friendships based on what will cement their social status, and will often treat their friends on that basis, as means to a status-related end. This sometimes stretches to outright bullying of people they call "friends". No doubt some children might form lasting friendships, but it is the exception rather than the rule. The freedom to hang around with people simply because you like them, doesn't really appear until later in life and that's when the stronger friendships tend to begin. Even people I know who went to boarding schools (which after all is what Hogwarts is) still formed their strongest friendships later in life. The other thing is, there is no point deliberately looking for really close friendships. Ultimately, if you like the company of other people and like the people around you to be happy then it happens naturally over time. Being "needy" doesn't bring it about and it doesn't necessarily happen in the first group of friends you are involved with. If you care for those around you, then at some point you start to realise that some of those people care about you, but there is no point getting angst-ridden about it while you wait for it to happen. You should form friendships on the basis of who you like and who you care about, not under the expectation that they should like you or care about you to the same degree.

TheThoughtfulOne
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Posted 07/26/09 - 06:19 PM:	#14
I have a friend I'd take a bullet for as he would for me. Known that guy since we were children.
I am what I am, but what am I? - Me

wuliheron
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/26/09 - 08:55 PM:	#15
There was a New York Times article on a woman from a Yanamamo-like tribe in Brazil who married an anthropologist and moved to New York. They asked her what it was like going from the stone age to the modern world. She said she like things like cars, fast food, and TV but her first impression of a crowded New York street was of just how lonely all those people looked. She had spent her entire life with the same thirty people seeing perhaps one visitor a year on the average and had never known that kind of loneliness. Small wonder then that so many people in the developed world now consider really close relationships a hollywood fiction.

Aceedwin
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/27/09 - 06:51 AM:	#16
Hm, comparing real-life relationships to that of fictional characters seems silly. For a start, there are fictional, so it is entirely possible that the relation is fictional (I mean the type of relation, not the specific). Also, not many people are able to fight ogres with other people. Or hunt a werewolf. Or be cursed. Tell you what, you want this "true friendship"? Drag your friends along with you and parachute into the middle of the amazon, with no tools or support. Then, when the survivors emerge, maybe they'll have this true friendship of yours. Or they might never want to see each other again. Who knows?
Some people enjoy finding answers, but I dislike losing questions.

Fractalist
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Posted 08/06/09 - 09:37 PM:	#17
Another notable aspect of this subject is western cultures obsession with individualism (young men are particularly susceptible to this.) From a young age individualism is drilled into us.....Not so much by our parents but by older friends.
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.- Arthur Eddington

123savethewhales
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2 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 08/07/09 - 03:17 AM:	#18
I lived in the US and I am not sure if it's anymore difficult making good friends here than other places. I think the problems are our definition and expectation of "real" friends; friends so good they would take a bullet for you. Outside of the movies, nobody is going to take a bullet for you after knowing you for a week. The moment we categorize someone as "not real" friend, we would treat them as such. When your friend senses this he/she likewise do the same, creating a self fulfilled prophesy. To put it short, high expectations, meticulous calculations, and categorization seems to be a very good way of keeping friendship from developing beyond the superficial level. As for Harry Potter, I just don't see anything magical about the Harry/Ron/Hermione relationship. Especially when you consider that they are the heroes of the movies and would risk their lives not just for each other exclusively, but pretty much anyone. It's like, what would Harry risk for Ron/Hermione that he wouldn't for any innocent person? Heroism and friendship are just not the same thing.
Keep it simple.

hyena in petticoat
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Posted 08/07/09 - 07:11 PM:	#19
In my life, I've only 1-3 really good friends. I didn't specify a number since I have noticed that seldom does it happen that the bond remains after separation. Only one had survived the time and distance test (with very little communication) so far. It is great to have a friend whom you can be totally "bare" with. No pretentions, no judgments. Someone you can totally connect with. It maybe a sin, but I'm a total sucker for a good listener and adviser. I need someone to be there for me. I return the favor as much as I can. I'm not sure about this whole "do anything for your friend" thing as I haven't been in a situation where such a decision has been called. unen wrote: Can you care for another's welfare without needing to 'see a return on your investment'? Surely that is what a friend is, and it cannot be done if one is concerned to have a friend for oneself, that is if one is bored, lonely or frightened. So that is where one needs to start, not with seeking to have a friend, but with seeking to be a friend, by ending in oneself that needy grasping for comfort from another. Bulls eye. Guilty. My friend said the same thing to me the last time we talked. Perhaps it's being conditional in a sense, but sometimes, you care for people wholeheartedly but can't help but feel a little bit neglected and lonely when you need comfort and nobody offers it. And again it ends to the fact that there are times that you can't help how to feel, feeling certain emotions despite the unreasonableness of it. At Brady, finding good friends requires risk. In order for you to find them, you make yourself vulnerable to people by being bare to them and honest, by being you. And most of the people who will see you at your barest will turn their back on you in disgust, some will be patronizing but only a handful will really... (at a lost for the right words)...understand you. The few who seem to say just the right words, who will help you clear your head, who will care, "get" your humor... It's indescribable. Ah... They are hard to find.
I need to get acquainted with sanity. Rantings, rantings and more rantings. Seriously.

brainpharte
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Posted 08/09/09 - 05:39 PM:	#20
I think that in order for people to experience truly intimate friendship requires that the people share many values that they believe to be important. I cannot imagine feeling much intimacy with anyone who;s most important values are incompatible or even contrary to my most important values. There need not be total agreement, but there needs to be a lot of overlap. For example if your most important values included, say, honesty, kindness to animals, tolerance of different gender orientations and races and religions and political beliefs, reggae music, literature ... you would find it impossible to have an intimate friendship with someone who hated animals and was even mean to them, lied and cheated regularly, invcessantly made fun of gays or Jews or Baptists or Libertarians, and never read books and mocked reggae.
"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."

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