A/N: This is an essay I had to write about the following quote as part of a portfolio included with a college application.  What do you think, would I get in?

“Just as others are pleased by a good horse or dog or bird, I myself am pleased to an even higher degree by good friends…  And the treasures of the wise humans of old which they left behind by writing them in books, I unfold and go through them together with my friends, and if we see something good, we pick it out and regard it as a great gain if we thus become useful to one another.”

Socrates

Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, vi, 14

We all do it, determine a person’s approximate monetary worth and attribute them a corresponding social rank upon meeting them, then letting this conclusion taint our subsequent behavior towards them.  “This person obviously earns less than me, why should I treat them as an equal?  Furthermore, why should I even fraternize with them?”  We do not stop to consider what we might gain through merely talking to them, what we might learn.

I believe the message Socrates is trying to convey through this quote is simply this: such an attitude is wrong.  Society places far too much value on material possessions and far too little on human relationships.  Socrates proposes that one of the greatest pleasures life has to offer is friendship and the richness of that human dynamic.  I tend to agree.  Nothing is more emotionally satisfying than time spent with friends, and the most intellectually stimulating discussions I have had have been with my friends.  Our conversations have centered on everything from philosophy to religion to current events.  Often they turned to lively debates as our opposing views clashed, the result of this being a broadening of our horizons as we were forced to reflect on ideas we had never before considered.  We became, as Socrates put it, “useful to one another” as we challenged each other, and encouraged each other to become more open-minded and tolerant.  The intellectual wealth I’ve acquired and will no doubt continue to acquire through my friends is inestimable, thus I cherish these relationships far more than any material possession.  Furthermore, I believe friends should be considered as much better indicators of one’s success as a person than anything else, for real friendship and the trust it entails cannot be bought, as opposed to most other things.

This notion of intellectual and social growth through discussions and openness does not merely apply to the way one engages with his or her friends, or even to the way individuals within a community go through life, but also to the way the community itself interacts with other collectivities.  The concept of this type of dialogue is as relevant today as in Socrates’ own time.  As the world stands on the brink of an enormous conflict, we can only imagine what it would be like, should we decide to apply the philosophy proposed to us in this quote, to be receptive to the things our neighbors have to teach us so that we might come to understand them, or at least to understand their point of view.  We have all the means necessary to this type of communication: the telephone, the television, the radio, newspapers, and, more recently, the Internet and e-mail.  Traveling is also much easier than it was in Socrates’ day.  Taking all this into consideration, we must ask ourselves what our lives would be like, should we choose the path Socrates would see us take, as it is in our power to do so.  Would there be less interpersonal and international conflicts?  Undoubtedly, as we would all have a clearer understanding of what the other party is trying to say.

And so, just as he discussed books with his friends should we make use of all the aforementioned tools to converse with our fellows so that we might strive to become friends and, eventually, come to see ourselves as members of one global village. 

And what holds all this together, what makes it work, is that we are all different, that our opinions and the arguments with which we back them up vary, that we are all as knowledgeable as anyone else but not all in the same fields, and as such that we can all learn from each other.  This then becomes an asset, and we value people for their differences, as they only increase what each person can bring to the discussion among friends.