Enemies and false friends [ Antagonism & Resistance ]
… place in the long eighteenth century. But one of the major challenges of everyday life was identifying friends from enemies. Few periodicals or treatises explicitly dealt with the subject of enmity, but it was always a central feature of … perils of false friendship. The deepest enmities resulted from the closest friendships. Yet the candour and honesty of enemies had important social utilities. Probing the association between enmity and friendship opens up discussion about … the social world. The ultimate aim, Chesterfield advised, was ‘to make as many personal friends, and as few personal enemies as possible’. ‘Personal friends’, he noted, were not intimate confidantes, but individuals ‘who speak well of …
Antagonism | Civility | Enmity | Falsehood | Friendship | Gender | Politeness | Women
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