After the culture wars of the past two decades, a turn toward a more constructive and convivial social analysis and critique is occurring today. Along with such themes as cosmopolitanism and ethical politics, the idea of friendship has emerged as central to this new constructivism. Lying at the intersections of ethics and politics as well as eroticism and companionship, friendship involves the personal and the public, sacrifice and joy, need and choice, spirit and body. While giving pleasure, it can also make great moral demands on us all.
While friendship was often discussed by the...