“Good Friendship”: From Existential Loneliness—& Violence—to Community Formation

Contemporary challenges to community formation include social isolation and social violence. Presenters within this session address relational and community issues from diverse religious and philosophical perspectives. Christopher Morales argues that loneliness, the common root of contemporary forms of  violence, whether social, political, or environmental, must be addressed through a politics of friendship, foundational to a just society. John M. Thompson presents a tale in which the Buddha—as friend— brings an end to violence while violating social norms and expectations, thereby circumventing the so-called demands of justice. Thompson proposes that “good friendship” as “good violence” may hold promise as a creative but unconventional response to contemporary social violence. Recognizing that spiritual and religious traditions offer culturally diverse ways of facilitating friendships, Laura Duhan-Kaplan and Anne-Marie Ellithorpe discuss friendship’s role in community formation within global religious traditions, as evidenced in Multireligious Reflections on Friendship.