Conversations with Friends: When Did We Lose Empathy for Each Other?
Discussions regarding friendships have changed in recent years; As our neoliberal capitalist society continues to impact every aspect of our lives, friendship is next on the list. In the past, friendships have been based around ideas of love, community, and mutual aid. Supporting and being there for those you love was seen as natural as breathing, but increasingly discourse online, on platforms such as Twitter have been pushing back on this understanding of friendship, and instead making it transactional.
Back in February of this year, Codie Sanchez, who gives masterclasses on investing, tweeted that she would never expect her friends to pick her up from the airport. Writing “use Uber, save a friendship”. The tweet sparked various discussions, some agreeing with Sanchez, with one user replying with “as your friend - I would be stoked to hear you’re so busy crushing life you can’t pick me up”, textbook hustle culture speak; Sanchez replied with, “right back at ya sister”. There were also others disagreeing with Sanchez’s sentiment and approach to friendships. One user responded by saying that “not every minute of one’s day MUST be leveraged/optimised/assigned to something for gain.” Another replied to Sanchez’s tweet writing “I’d do anything for my friends. Giving them a ride is the least I could do for them.”
Sanchez isn’t the only person to express such transactional views of friendship. In January, just a month before Sanchez’s Tweet, Cathryn Lavery, an entrepreneur and founder of productivity brand BestSelf, shared a similar mindset, this time writing, “as an adult, don’t ask your friends to help you move.” Both tweets, though about different situations, hold the view that you shouldn’t ask your friends to help you out, and your friends shouldn’t expect too much support from you either. Which begs the question - when did we begin to view friendships as an economical and transactional relationship?
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It seems many who perhaps have interests in topics such as investing, economics, and stocks approach friendships with the same mindset. Asking the question of what can this person do for me? By viewing friendships as something that exists for your personal gain, you take away what is at the core of friendships: community. Within friendships should exist a love for one-another that makes you want to help friends move house or get to the airport; instead of simply expecting something in return for an act of kindness. Recognising mutual-aid belongs at the core of many of our relationships, we begin to realise how capitalistic neoliberalism has impacted every aspect of our contemporary society. Neoliberalism is a political theory, defined by Kevin Vallier, an author and professor, as a theory that “holds that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state”. But it is more than simply a political or economic theory, it changes the way humans are perceived and valued. George Monboit wrote: “Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers.” We grow up with the message installed that it's ‘every man for himself’, and that it's up to you as an individual to work hard and figure things out: You should not rely on anything or anyone. This will keep the capitalist machine churning.
Look at your stereotypical ‘podcast bros’ who spend their time talking about crypto and NFTs, throughout various podcasts of this vein there is such an emphasis on friendships, but they’re spoken about in the context of it being an economical investment, a way to grow your capital. Hosts of these podcasts argue that you and your friends should be talking about stocks, properties, investments and other similar topics, and that all your friends should be successful financially in order for them to be ‘beneficial’ to you, which will in turn increase your personal chance of success. This hypothetical friendship group are all standing in a circle hiding a knife behind their back, ready to cut off those no longer useful to the end goal - individual, capitalistic gain. They’ve managed to turn friendship, an act rooted in love for another person, into a potential method of individual gain and success.
It’s not just podcast bros either. Look at Molly-Mae’s now viral moment on the Diary of A CEO podcast last year. When discussing friendships she states that she likes to keep her circle small and rarely has time for friendships, instead focusing her energy on working. While Molly-Mae received an influx of critique for her argument, what she’s saying is nothing new. In fact, it has been a pillar of the ‘hustle’ culture that continues to rise year after year.
Aside from podcasts, the above examples have something else in common: they’re all white and middle class. With financial stability and freedom they’re less likely to need community support, and therefore community is likely to be unimportant to them. So they parrot this idea that it's down to individuals to become successful on their own, rather than rely on other people. And anything that’s going to slow down your success is not worth your time. When in reality, to those not already in such fortunate positions, it's going to do more harm than good, and likely lead to feelings of isolation.
The intimacy and meaningfulness that reveals itself as a result of a deep connection with someone else is a core part to human existence. My closest friends bring me endless amounts of happiness, and being able to help and support them is one of the many ways I show my love to them. In a society where work comes first and individuals are put before community, it is easy to let our friendships and relationships with others take a backseat in our lives. It’s easy to view others as either competition or beneficiaries, but by refusing to go along with this, we are actively resisting against neoliberal capitalism.
Words: Catherine Shuttleworth
