on brotherly love

Suede: Dog Man Star (1994) I have been working today on a speech I am giving this evening at my Masonic lodge for our annual "Festive Board." The Festive Board is a ritualized dinner that consists of a series of toasts or "healths," a nice, usually catered meal, and a educational speech of some sort. For the third year in a row I've been asked to deliver the speech, which is for me a great honor. The first year I spoke I talked about he necessity of secrecy. Last year I talked about the square, one half of the universally recognized symbol of Masonry. Tonight I'll talk about the compasses, which are the other part of that symbol. (The "G" was added sometime in the nineteenth century and is not an official part of the symbol, however, there are arguments about this; I side with those who say it is not official. If you're a Mason, you'll realize the "G" is redundant.)

Specifically, I'll discuss the compass in relationship to "brotherly love," which is something Masons tout as central to the fraternity. I can't share here what I am going to say, as I will discuss some things that are only known to Masons. But I do want to share some of the things I've been thinking about these past couple of days.

I always find Aristotle a fascinating go-to guy for wisdom about people and ethical matters. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle denotes three types of friendship, but the one that is most important concerns equality:

Now there are three kinds of friendship . . . and as in respect of each of them the friends may be on a footing of equality, or may be in a position of relative superiority and inferiority---for two men who are equally good may become friends, or a better man may become friends with one less good; and this same holds good with respect to those who are friends because they are agreeable to one another . . . . The general rule should be that equals should love one another equally, and make equal returns in all other respects, but that unequals should give and receive affection in amounts proportionate to their relative superiority and inferiority.

Of course, Aristotle is speaking about class here. But I think it's interesting that Aristotle says there are "rights" and "rules" of friendship, and that he goes on further to discuss friendship as contractual, in a sense. We tend today to think about friendships (or romantic relationships) in terms of equity, the indirect consequence of economics coming to dominate every part of our lives. Aristotle's rules of friendship should not be understood in this sense; he means to refer to giving and receiving one's attention and time to others.

Aristotle is also careful to distinguish "brotherly love" (philia) with erotic love. These should not be confused, a warning that many Greeks have issued. What I'm speaking about tonight, however, is how in our time all the different kinds of love have been confused or squished together, such that people can often mistake one type for another. Indeed, the mainstream media often encourage this confusion, or play the same plot over and over. For example, ever since the film When Harry Met Sally came out, its thesis has almost become common sense: men and women cannot be friends, or else, you know what.

The effect of rolling different types of love into the same ineffable thing is that it circumscribes our abilities to express emotion and share our affections. In the 19th century, male friends were much more intimate with each other physically than is permitted today. I don't want to step on anyone's toes here, but, the current interest among some queer historians to expose this or that public figure as gay overlooks how homosocial male cultures were in the 19th century, and that what may appear queer to us today was quite "normal" in the nineteenth century: men sleeping in the same bed, as Lincoln and Speed did, for example.

Anyhoo, what I mean to say is that contemporary norms of masculinity constrain male affection in friendships. One of my best friends always tells me, "I love you," when we say goodbye on the phone, and this is a norm for us. But if someone overhead this, he or she might think it is unusual. It shouldn't be, because we do love each other, and no, we do not want to sleep together. And we don't need a few drinks to get to a place where we can say it, either.

My main argument tonight will be the Freemasonry is a practice that cultivates friendship in the Greek sense, of basing one's relationship to others "on the level" or equally, recognizing the goodness internal to each brother. Aristotle warns that "unequals" can be friends, but there is a risk of exploitation. Masons get around this problem by staying that you strip your identity once you walk into the door; no class, no race, no religion, no sexual identity. There are few practices left in American culture in which men can express feelings of love and appreciation for one another unhindered by inequities (or confusion). Masonic ritual and custom also provides a way for men to express affection in a larger culture that, for the most part, discourages this (Boehner, anyone?). Freemasonry freely practices brotherly love in a way that, I think, Aristotle would admire.