An “unusual” friendship

by Andrea Simoncini

As always, the titles of the Meeting are surprising. Even when common words appear, such as “friendship,” they are never clichés.

We all have a certain idea of friendship. We all know who is a friend and who is not. But that “existence” itself is a friendship and, furthermore, an inexhaustible one, is not taken for granted. This is the challenge of this year’s Meeting: to take a familiar idea and subvert it, to make it surprising, to reveal a value and a meaning we didn’t know.

On the other hand, anyone can produce special effects by speaking of things never seen or heard before, but who can amaze you with what you already think you know? After all, what is the Meeting if not the grand adventure of friendship among people, and thus among nations?

What you see is an imposing cultural event, but what supports it is an invisible yet inexhaustible web of friendship. So, what are these surprising aspects? Ultimately, even Aristotle and Cicero said that friendship is a fundamental virtue for human society. What new thing can be discovered in this ancient and everyday idea? The week that is opening today in Rimini will be a great opportunity for each of us to discover the creative and “subversive” scope of this inexhaustible friendship. Among the many unexpected dimensions of “existence as friendship,” I would like to highlight one that seems particularly significant for the times we live in.

We tend to think of friendship as a private feeling that binds people and makes them feel good together. At the Meeting, we discover that friendship goes beyond: it is a public, civil virtue. I will go further: in Rimini, we understand that friendship is the most important resource that defines the wealth of a country, a nation, a world. Forget GDP; the health of a society is measured by its capacity for cohesion, cooperation, concord: in a word, by friendship. But let’s ask ourselves, why is it a “public” virtue as well as a private one? Let’s give an example. To be friends, we don’t all have to be the same, nor do we all have to think the same way. In a friendship, the other is a good for me, a given placed before me, primarily to remind me who I am. In a true friendship, we don’t all become the same; on the contrary, our differences remain, but they build a common space, a common good. However, we must recognize that today this is not the common idea of friendship. Today, a friend is someone who lives in my same “bubble,” who doesn’t disturb my “comfort zone,” or simply supports everything I say or do. Where does this diversity, here at the Meeting, come from? We need to go back to the title and its “strangeness.” To understand what friendship we’re talking about, we must look at our existence.

We could not have existed; if we exist, it’s a sign that someone wanted us, for someone, we are a good. Life itself is the first gesture of friendship. Recognizing this initial debt among friends is the foundation of the public virtue. Without the “strangeness” of the title, there is no future for human coexistence.

PRIMO PIANO Si apre oggi l’edizione numero 44: “L’esperienza umana è un’amicizia inesauribile”