Enemies and false friends [ Antagonism & Resistance ]
… dangerous than friends. This is because their candour and honesty provided an important contrast to the flattery and dissimulation of close personal acquaintances. It was in his famous treatise De amicitia (‘On Friendship’) that Cicero … that dominated displays of eighteenth-century polite culture. Politeness was ‘implicitly dishonest’ because it demanded dissimulation. This involved not only the suppression of one’s true thoughts and feelings, but also ‘strict control of … which had especial resonance for writers concerned about the perils of false friendship. 15 The highest form of dissimulation, as one author declared, occurred when individuals ‘not only cloud their real Sentiments and Intentions, …
Antagonism | Civility | Enmity | Falsehood | Friendship | Gender | Politeness | Women
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