Sullivan praises friendship

Who needs love, anyway? Touching on the merits of friendship in a society obsessed with love, Andrew Sullivan, the former editor of The New Republic and a weekly-columnist for The London Times, spoke to a crowd of more than 100 people Tuesday night in Meyerson Hall. Sullivan, who is about to begin work as a contributing editor to The New York Times Magazine, began the speech by comparing virtue and justice to friendship. "Virtue and justice are supreme values, but merely part of the supreme value of friendship," Sullivan said. Love is instant and wanes with time, he explained. Friendship, by contrast, grows and deepens with age, he said. "Why has our society turned friendship into a mediocre phenomenon in relationships?" Sullivan asked. "This precedence of love over friendship is a delusion of the modern mind." Sullivan -- an HIV-positive gay right activist -- also compared the use of control in love and friendship, noting that "love is about losing control and giving yourself to another person and friendship is a controlled choice in which two people complement each other.? Love involves power conflict; friendship is about freedom." Sullivan, who incorporated the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud into his speech, also touched on issues of sexuality. "Freud supported the innate desire of human impulse for erotic union," Sullivan said. "This is a primal urge to have a union that can take control and responsibility for life." Despite this natural sexual desire, Sullivan noted the importance of maintaining friendships. "Friendship is not about anything but itself. It is an anti-utilitarian impulse which requires an abandonment of power," he said. Sullivan, who studied the philosophy of politics at Harvard University, described friendship as a threat to modern politics. "Friendship can eclipse other loyalties such as politics," he added. "All great writers of political theory return to the subject of friendship." Addressing the issue of homosexuality, Sullivan inquired, "how often do we see two heterosexual men eat dinner in a restaurant together?" He added that "men should be able to show the affection of friendship without automatically being classified gay." Sullivan also described friendship as "an integral component of the teachings of Jesus." "In the Christian sense we cannot humanely love he whom we do not know," he added. "Christianity views friendship as a love for a person one knows, a love with knowledge," said Sullivan, who also studied Christian theology. "Knowledge, however, should not be a pre-requisite to friendship. Knowledge of another person grows out of friendship." The address was sponsored by Penn's Philomathean Society. "What I most admire about Sullivan is his willingness to engage in conversation with those who disagree with him and makes important issues accessible to the larger public," said College of General Studies senior Michael Brus, who helped to organize the event. College freshman Kristen Webster also said she was impressed by the speech. "Andrew Sullivan raised some really fascinating points that challenged the modern concept of friendship in our society and encouraged us to reevaluate how certain stereotypes prevent us from experiencing great friendship," she said. Sullivan ended the speech with a question of mortality. "To lose a friend to death is one of the most difficult experiences one can go through," Sullivan said. "Life without friendship, however, is no life at all."