How Friends Should Treat One Another

"Trustworthy friendship." This too concerns the friendship among the Five Cardinal Relationships—how we ought to get along with one another. These may seem like ordinary things to us, yet today many people don't know how to handle the Five Cardinal Relationships, and that is why so many problems arise in human relations. How should friends treat one another? By keeping faith.

As for the word "friend"—taken by its characters, "朋" is composed of two "月" radicals, suggesting a group or multitude; while "友" shows a person with a hand, suggesting that friends are few. There's no need to force a sharp distinction between them. In any case, "friend" can mean many things: officials serving in the same court, called colleagues; those of the same category—"同窗," meaning classmates; or even people who work together in the same place. All of these may be called "friends."

How then should we treat such friends? With "信"—trustworthiness. "信" means "not deceiving." Look how wise the Chinese characters are: "人言為信"—a person's word becomes "trust." It treats human speech with great dignity: once a person has spoken, his word carries weight, free of fraud. Put another way, if everything you say is watered down with falsehood, then you've cancelled, at that very moment, your own qualification as a human being! Our Confucian culture especially emphasizes "信": "If a person has no trustworthiness, I do not know how he can get along." A person without trustworthiness simply doesn't know how to stand in the world. It is as the Analects say: "A great cart without a crossbar, a small cart without a yoke-pin—how can they be driven?" Without the axle and the hook, the cart cannot move.

"From ancient times death has been the lot of all men, but a people without trustworthiness cannot stand." During the Warring States period, Duke Wen of Jin wandered through other states before finally returning to Jin and again becoming its ruler, and what he relied on was trustworthiness. "Trust is the treasure of the state, the shelter of the people." So as a friend, one must certainly keep faith. And this "信"—the meaning of "not deceiving"—doesn't only mean keeping your word in speech. It extends much further.

For example, if a friend entrusts you with a task and you don't give it your full effort, that is "非信也." If you owe someone money and don't repay it, that is "非信也." If you praise a person to his face and then speak ill of him behind his back, that is "非信也." Among friends there is the duty of sharing resources; if a friend is in urgent need and you don't lift a finger to help, that is "非信也." If you know a friend's faults and don't admonish him, that too is "非信也."

So this relationship of friends—the way of befriending—the Analects speaks of this Way of Friendship. Confucius said: "There are three kinds of friends that are beneficial, and three kinds that are harmful."

What kind of friends should one keep? "The upright, the sincere, and the learned." Befriend those who are upright, those who are sincere and honest, and those who are broadly learned. Such friends benefit your character and your moral life.

On the other hand, "The flattering, the meek, and the glib—these are harmful." These are friends who fawn upon one another, who appear respectful to your face yet slander you behind your back, who love grand talk without substance, fair-weather friends of wine and meat—all of these do harm.

And so the person you become can be seen in the friends you keep. When there are good, virtuous friends, seek them out; when there are none, it is better to keep to yourself. Even in solitude, one should not befriend those who would do one harm.