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Family Relations and Objectivism - A Response to Malini Kochhar

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Dante

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It would seem that a better way of looking at relationships is: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".

 

Any value that we pursue has a Cost vs. Benefit that is measured against (either a cardinal or ordinal) standard.  You need to ask yourself if a particular relationship's cost outweighs it's benefit to you.  And this can change over time.

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It's true that longtime sibling relationships can be a unique value. Shared sense of humor, remembering stories from 20 years of interacting, linking current behavior and mannerisms to those exhibited "since you were 5," etc. The time spent together alone makes the relationship deep in many ways.

 

That said, if siblings disagree on fundamental issues, spend less time together, and slowly turn into different people, it becomes harder and harder to maintain a relationship into adulthood. The early years together grow farther away, and new values become more important than old shared stories and humor, now from what seems like another life. Eventually, the new sibling relationship isn't that deep at all. The relationship may eventually stall, and become nothing more than a thing of memories.

 

I don't think this is unique to any particular kind of relationship, nor do I think that it's necessary that a sibling relationship must eventually "die" -- although change in relationships is necessary and unavoidable. So, even when siblings disagree on fundamental issues, they may, for example, still and forever laugh at the same things, which could keep them enjoying each other's company for the rest of their lives. It's then a new kind of relationship, which is maybe not as good as the old relationship when compared between the contexts of the two particular times in their lives, but which is still good and valuable, nonetheless.

Edited by JASKN
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