The relationship between friendship and love
Philia translated from greek, romanized becomes filia, in Portuguese son is “filho”, the same root of affiliation, where the a here is no longer a negation of inclusion, in the sense of belonging, affiliated with an institution, for example.
In this Greek root fit both love and friendship, philo-sophia, love or friendship to wisdom, however love can also be (we have already made a post) like the eros or agape friendship, which in this case surpasses friendship.
Friendship can grow and become an agapic love, that is, capable of creating trust and above any interest, in which case friendship and love complement and expand.
In human, cultural and spiritual terms it is what favors a person’s good performance and mental health, so the distrust and enmity that can lead to hatred is the cause of many wars, because the economic, political or social interest without real ties it is nothing else.
There is no way to break a spiral of hatred when it grows, many wars and totalitarian regimes are proof of this, and the root is in every social cell where friendship and love have ceased to exist.
On the other hand, when these bonds grow and spread in a network, everything becomes healthy and there is a virtuous cycle where the best human and social values appear: solidarity, fraternity and what we call agapic love, which goes beyond any interest, it is an “amisticia” in ancien roman.
The Roman thinker Cícero has a text with exactly this name (Amisticia) and says in the text: “This is the first precept of friendship: ask friends only what is honest, and do for them only what is honest”, so this is the origin of a society that aims to be happy and peaceful.