Instrumental Friendships and Lonely Intellectuals

As I sit studying for my Contemporary Civilizations (survey course of Western philosophy, political science, history of thought, etc) final, there is one philosophical questions that seems to go glaringly unaddressed. Although Plato makes an observation about different types of friendship in the final chapters of The Republic, there doesn't seem to be much else beyond that. Here's a brief thought before I go back to studying.

It seems to me that if we carefully examine what we mean by "true friendship," the most essential feature is that the friendship is an ends and not a means. That is, a true friend can not be instrumental. Reasons for liking the friend should be much more subtle than any pure definable reason. (See my post on "Love and Rationality.") A corollary of this definition, then, is that any instrumental friends are not true friends.

Before moving on, let us refine this previous statement slightly. An friend for whom we realize instrumental reasons for liking is not necessarily excluded from the possible realm of true friendship. If we realize that we enjoy the company of a friend because they help us with our physics homework, that doesn't discredit any true underlying friendship. Rather, that part of the relationship that is grounded in utility lies mostly external to the true friendship. I say "mostly" because the motivation for helping us with physics homework could originate from true friendship on the side of the friend, in which case the veracity of the friendship is not violated. Additionally, citing reasons like "My friend is funny" or "My friend is cool" don't count as instrumental reasons, primarily because what makes someone "funny" or "cool" is hardly a rational and explicable feature. One may have theories, but a total and complete explanation is difficult. Thus, we have slightly narrowed the sense of instrumental friends in order to allow for more friendships to be "true friendships."

Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this definition to accept, is that part of it hinges on the fact that we are consciously aware of the instrumentality of the friend, a knowledge that subsequently depends on our intelligence, or at the very least, an awareness that is related to our critical and reflective skills. Who but the smarter are able to rationalize and understand--or at least arrive at some ostensible understanding--of a friendship? Who but the reflective and critical would even attempt to rationalize an irrational concept like friendship? Thus, it seems that the more thinking and reflection and veering away from Socrates' "unexamined life," the more one realizes the instrumentality of one's friendships. In that sense, it seems to almost necessarily follow that intelligence or commitment to intellectuality brings about a certain degree of loneliness: a satisfaction in "seeing" the true relationships between people, but then rarely being able to engage in a true one him/herself.

This conclusion seems to be hardly inconsistent with empirical data, maybe not scientifically, but certainly anecdotally. From the nerdy kid in high school, to the office geek, to the misunderstood intellectual--when has critical thinking and self-reflection not led to being socially ostracized?

[Update: Grammar corrected, and convoluted sentences revised. May 6, 2010.]