Reverence for Individual Relations

          Royce argued that a relation between two individuals always requires a third entity to serve as mediator. Pairs can be dangerous in their competition and hostility toward each other. One person may come to dominate the other thus inhibiting that person’s growth, or the two may fall apart into enmity. Shakespeare’s Petronius warned “Neither a borrower or a lender be.” This is good advice because failure to repay a loan in a timely fashion can destroy friendship. However, a third person, a banker, can borrow from Peter and lend to Paul without any animosity between Peter and Paul. Acting as a third party is often the task of police officers, courts, insurance companies, and sports officials. In a personal friendship, there need not be a third individual between two friends, but a long lasting friendship requires loyalty to a third principle such as the friendship itself. People often build friendships around some third principle of loyalty such as a military unit, college days, sports and other activities, work experience, the old neighborhood, or their children’s school activities.

But even if we can pare friendship down to two persons who simply like each other, there is still a three-way dynamic. Each person acts as an interpreter to the other. One person might be the interpreter and the one interpreted. This may seem hopelessly abstract but a simple example can bring it to earth. A mentor sees some potential in a student, a potential of which the student is unaware. The mentor interprets the student to him or herself. Or the mentor shares a personal insight with the student. Now the mentor is interpreting himself to the student.  The same dynamic occurs in a friendship between equals. Aristotle described the best friendship as one in which the two persons see the good in each other. We can understand the essence of the relationship in constantly developing this awareness through mutual interpretation. Such a dynamic requires loyalty and reverence for the relationship and leads to an integration of the two individuals that enhances each of them.

          We can interpret an erotic relationship as a special kind of friendship that involves sexual desire for and appreciation of physical beauty in the loved one. Mere sexual desire can instigate behavior that is immoral and even criminal as in the cases of sexual assault or sex with a minor.  A relationship of two consenting adults based on sexual desire alone may consist of one using the other or both using each other. The mutuality in the second case would make the using more fair, but hardly commendable. More sinisterly, the relation may be one of dominance or a battle for dominance. Such relationships are not likely to have a good outcome, and occasionally lead to tragically violent endings. Also, when we hear of public figures engaging in the kind of sexual activity that involves only some combination of lust and the will to power, it does not inspire our admiration for them, and it is seldom a part of their life of which they admit to being proud.

          We can call an erotic relationship “good” in every sense of the word when the lovers share devotion, not only to each other, but to the relationship itself. The joy, thrill, and fun of “falling in love” cannot last forever, but the memory of it can. The erotic relationship can be one of the best glimpses we have of what human harmony can be. But the commitment of two persons to each other that outlives the youthful exuberance can best be described by Royce’s concept of loyalty, the thorough-going and practical devotion to a cause. In this case the cause is the commitment of the persons to each other. In many cases the benefits of the commitment are shared by others, especially children and grandchildren but also friends and family. Sadly, sometimes the most committed relationships break down. But such is the tragedy of human existence - that people need loyal relationships but find them to be extremely difficult to sustain.