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Best Friends Day is June 8, around which day this post will be published. In this spirit of that day, I want to explore what "best" means, what "friends" means in a book context, and share some of my past and current "best-friend" books and how they've shaped my life. I also wrote about commemoration days in general a little while ago, in a less secular context.
What is "Best"?
In the context of Best Friends Day, "best" connotes "favorite." I've had trouble with this concept for my whole life. It's been difficult or impossible to articulate my "one" favorite item, friend, etc. According to Reddit, this is more normal than I thought. Since favorites change over time and vary with circumstances, I've found it much easier to put together a time-bound "top 10" list.
In philosophy, Plato's dialogues were instrumental in forming initial definitions of "good" and "best." Value theory is currently used in some contexts to describe how one determines an arrangement of items and concepts with various degrees of goodness. That puts one down a rabbit whole of what one means when one uses the word "good." Language is fluid yet descriptive of reality, so there are different angles and types of "good" depending on what the person is describing.
When philosophy is applied to society and community, the concept of "common good" emerges. Here, "good" refers to what benefits those around us and ourselves, intersecting with what we are obligated by external moral standards to work toward or provide. This concept may be falling out of favor in some circles, particularly because the concept of the "self" has been shifting since the pre-1700s from an individual in relation to society toward an individual prioritizing the inner thoughts/psyche above all things.
What about "best" meaning "perfect"? Philosophically, perfectionism as a theory starts with what is objectively good and develops that set of ideas, taking into account--but not prioritizing--whether people want or like them. An example might be a nutritious but not particularly tasty vegetable. This connotes the phrase "good for you" for me to remember the concept. This concept of "good" or "perfect" is quite biblical, so it's consistent with the worldview I developed through my childhood and young adult years.
As a side note, reflection on all the situation-specific words that connote "good" prompted me to agree with Strunk and White and C. S. Lewis that one should use the most precise word for the situation for clarity. Some more examples . . .
- "Good" weather is pleasant
- "Good" days are uneventful
- "Good" workers are reliable and competent
- "Good" ideas are attractive and useful
- "Good" parking spots are convenient
- "Good" friends are kind
- "Good" children are well-behaved
- "Good" salaries are sufficient and profitable
What, then, would be my criteria for a "best" book? I suggest these:
- From a moral standpoint, a "best" book is the most
- Aligned with a biblical worldview
- Truthful in examining societal ills or personal sin
- Edifying
- From a self-serving standpoint, a "best" book is the most
- Pleasant
- Interesting
- Informative
- Easy (or challenging) to read
What is a "Friend"?
Naturally, philosophy has some thoughts about friendship and, relatedly, gratitude.
Friendship is "a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other’s sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy." Thus, philosophical concepts associated with friendship include goodness (see above), closeness, and the common good. This raises a question about human (and perhaps non-human) friends: Although people do it all the time, is it right/good to abandon a former friend for a new/better one? A further question: What is the process by which friendship grows, wanes, and dies?
Gratitude is "the proper or called-for response in a beneficiary to benefits or beneficence from a benefactor." This also raises some questions: (1) When do we owe gratitude to someone else? (2) What is the substance of a grateful response?
To question (1), the Encyclopedia's cited philosophers suggest these situational questions that expect a "yes/former" answer to most or all:
- Does the benefactor have agency, or is the benefactor an inanimate object?
- Is the benefit an action, or an object?
- Was the benefit intentionally given?
- Was the benefit voluntarily or involuntarily applied?
- Does the benefit accrue liability to the benefactor?
- Is the benefit an actual benefit for the recipient?
- Is the benefit willingly received?
To question (2), there are some suggested criteria:
- The recipient must believe that good happened
- The recipient must have a belief of gratefulness and have positive feelings
- The recipient should communicate several elements: "I am grateful" plus a behavior or tendency ("conative element") such as a thank-you note
- The recipient should have the proper (selfless/grateful) motivation.
What are my Childhood Best-Friend Books?
As I thought about this topic, I realized that my brain was combining the criteria of "earliest" with the two sets of criteria I proposed above. As a child, I read the Boxcar Children series (specifically books by Gertrude Chandler Warner), many books in the voluminous Berenstain Bears series, a number of Nancy Drew books, and even earlier, Goodnight Moon. While not a book per se, the Memlok memory verse card system also has positive associations in my mind with childhood. My dad told me that, as he read Goodnight Moon to me when I was a little older than Child is now, he would make intentional errors so that I would correct them. Child is still not quite verbal, so my (memorized) reading aloud of The Very Hungry Caterpillar doesn't include errors . . . yet.
What are my Current Best-Friend Books?
As I noticed when developing this list and the above, I was and still am a big fan of authors who didn't stop at just one book. At the time of writing this post, my "best-friend" books include
- Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics. This book is 800+ pages, brick-shaped, has a pretty blue cover, uses a clean typeset and page layout, and a clear writing style. I have some quibbles with his theology, but the book is a helpful resource for the layperson, with an ample bibliography.
- Anything by John Walton. I read one of his "Lost World Of" books a few months ago and keep meaning to get around to the other ones. His writing style and approach to exegesis using the historical context of the biblical books are deeply attractive to my brain.
- Any non-devotional books by N. T. Wright. He is a scholar first, and his writing and thinking style (parallel in many ways to Walton's) lend themselves well to scholarly works. We own many of his 80+ works, so I have a long way to go.
Another current favorite that is not part of a series is The Lost Dragon of Wessex (Smidgen Press) now that I had time to get into the story over the weekend! The first few pages felt stilted and slow, but once the story got moving in chapter 2 or so, I was hooked.
How about you? What are your "best-friend" books these days and why?
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