Friendships changed by inequality of cultural attainment (Epstein)
December 6th, 2006 | Published in Culture, Education, Friendship, Quotes, Relationships
Perhaps more depressing than friendships changed by economic inequality are those having to do with inequality of cultural attainment. This becomes most poignant when it strikes at old friendships. The euphemism to cover this division is “we’ve grown apart in recent years,” when what is really meant is that one friend has developed wider interests, or has become more penetrating about the world, or has become more bookish than the other. When this occurs, all that old friends seem to talk about are former days, which is to say, the paradisiacal times when their interests, far from being divergent, were congruent.
–Joseph Epstein, Friendship (2006), p. 147-8