hw 52

One aspect of human relations that I would like to start thinking about is friends. where does this need or want to have friends come from? The obvious answer is that we need people to talk to, to be with, to experience life with but can't we get all of them from family members. they experience the basically the same lives we do some of them are our own age. our family in a lot of ways is a replicate of ourselves. so why then do we look for other relationships. I think it is really this underlining need to have freedom and really to feel in control. We develop a sort of resentment (especially around adolescence) towards our family because we feel trapped and stuck. not that we can't move but we don't like the idea that we are didn't chose them. We were put into our families and didn't have control. the opportunity for control is one of the main reasons we put such emphasis on friend relationships.

There's a lot to this idea that much of what we do comes from a deep need to feel free. I guess some of it is related to a want to be a rebel but i do see a large part of what the young population does be related to rejection. For example the majority of young people tend to go out at night, but there is nothing really necessary for the progression of society going on at night. So these relationships are based on trying to reward oneself with control. One possible motivation for our actions and relationships is perceived control.

Much of the want for friendship also stems from the crave for affirmation. People need affirmation, they need others to look at them and tell them that they approve. We want to know that we are doing a good job at being human and normal and we all on some level want to be noticed. Maybe friends are simply people we can come back to for affirmation, and approval. No one really wants to be an outcast no one wants to be weird, what we do want is to have approval and affirmation so we create relationships that help fulfill that need.

To continue of friendship i think in nearly every group of friends, there is a leader and a follower. One person is almost in control of the rest of the group. this leader is in nearly every respect implicitly followed by the other members. I can't definitively say why some people become the leader and others become the followers but this leader has complete control. But can this structure of one dominating the other really be considered friendship, its just one person (the follower) trying to get affirmation or a leg up by being seen with a leader, and the leader is just letting the follower do it. This is somewhat similar to how our society works. some people initiate, take action and get theirs while others follow what the leaders set, either because they don't know better or because they don't know how not be a follower.

The leader follower situation exposes the power situation in nearly all relationships. I think in nearly all relationships on any level, through country relationships throughout the world, through friendships, and even in marriages and sexual relationships. true equality seems rare in now, someone or some group has final say and controls the power.

It's almost as if an unbalance of power is necessary in our definition of relationships. The standard situation of Who holds the power seems to constant for a time then changes. For example 50 or 60 years it was standard that in a marriage the husband held the power but that seems to be changing. Who has the power may shift but the power itself is always present.

Another possible theory on why we want friends and look for relationships is because we find strength in numbers and feel safer when we are not alone. I'm not saying this is the only reason we look for connections but isn't it partly that these connections show us that we not outcasts. Is it surprising some sort of universal anxiety?

On nations and cultures, a lot of what decides how a nation will be built, or how a culture will be structured depends on the context and events that took place before hand. In other words what decides the cornerstones of a culture or a nation is what lead to the forming of that nation. As an example America was created after the citizens were oppressed by the British, they were not given a fair say in the British government and as a result they founded a government where everyone has say in their government. Basically how we form a culture is based on what we've learned shouldn't happen. This shows a major aspect of how we chose to live, we learn from our mistakes but we don't plan for the future, that is why so many cultures and relationships fail. the basis's of the cultures become based on what just happened but the influences, and events in the world constantly change. Relationships fail because they are predicated on the fact that things will remain constant but that isn't true.