Family Friendships

What kind of family relationships are the most significant?  It is certainly not true that the passive, happenstance circumstances of a person's birth make them close to their family members, nor does simply being a parent or sibling make one deserving of any sort of unearned love and respect.  Not only is this not true by logical necessity, but it is something that would make abusive, neglectful, and generally irrationalistic family members deserving of the exact same interpersonal affection, as opposed to human respect, that a family member who has made himself or herself a close friend would merit.  Indeed, the deepest family relationships are like friendships.

The strongest family relationships are not those that are forced, because the mere biological relation of two people is not enough to make one worthy of the other's respect beyond the minimum owed to all humans.  Family relationships where people act like the other person is someone they personally enjoy even when they do only have an illusory depth.  No, like with friends who have no blood relation, the strongest relationships are those that are intentionally cultivated by choice between intellectual and moral equals, whether it is spouses, siblings, or children and their parents--though of course young children do not automatically deserve the same scorn as others for their philosophical mistakes quite yet and are thus exempt from this for a time.  As they grow older, they can develop this kind of relationship with their parents.

There is no sibling relationship, for instance, that is stronger, more holistic, more genuine, and more honoring of truth than one where brothers/sisters each independently, sincerely reciprocate a desire to get to know each other, invest in their bond, and, most importantly, do so with a right standing towards necessary truths in mind.  Inversely, two siblings who spend time with each other or engage in superficial conversations because of culturally-manipulated emotional pressure to "love" their family are not even starting to approach the much greater potential of the more weighty kind of sibling bond.  They will be siblings regardless of geographical proximity or whether they like it or not, but they will not be friends unless they make it so.

A family member who disregards the logical axioms they are already relying on, clings to hypocrisy, abuses the other, and so on is not worthy of being given this kind of relational investment.  In that case, and a great many people live in such families even if they do not realize it, to do anything more than the bare minimum to interact with one's family member(s) without stooping to irrationality and injustice of one's own is a mercy.  It would be an undeserved, often pointless attempt to establish or strengthen a deeper relationship with a fool who is inferior to anyone who rises above them ideologically and morally.  As with friendship between people from different families, friendships within the same family are the superior kind of relationship because they are chosen and are based on something beyond a happenstance, perhaps unwanted connection.

Beyond the objective logical truths about how family and friendship can overlap, it is experientially much, much more substantial to be unified with one's parent, grown child, or sibling over rationality, transparency, and sincerity than it is to simply be their family member.  What could possibly be worth celebrating about the in the way that so many people emotionalistically believe?  Being involuntarily born into a family or having a sibling against one's wishes is not something that is worth orienting your life around.  It is, rather, something that provides the potential for a more personal, holistic relationship that transcends mere familial ties.  What comes about regarding this potential is up to the individual members of each family.