I'm from Austria and I mention this solely because you felt the need to mention your location. Still please take this as an opinion of one guy alone (!):
Here is what I think: Friendships are always give+take. When you are sick, you expect them to give a lot.
Did you really do so much for them while you were healthy? Because in my opinion only a sociopath wouldn't offer to help you if you had helped him greatly in the past.
Or do you rather expect them to help you because it's just what they "should" do.
And what exactly do you want them to do anyway? Just mindless visits? So you expect pity? Are you in a habit of forcing your friends through awkardness? Because I'd expect my friends to not expect me to visit them for elusive reasons like "emotional support". I would never expect a friend to visit me when I'm sick, because I know that I'll be another person. They are not friends with a guy who has pains, drools and is in agony. I wouldn't think of demanding friendship like you do.
Look, I'm a "hobby philosopher", so I hope you'll forgive me when I say that you are wrong. Does your sense of empathy extend to random people on the street? 'Yeah, sometimes' you say. Okay, but it has bounds right? You don't help every single guy with all your power. So what are these bounds? They are the result of give+take, which you can call "quid pro quo" transaction or not, however way you feel most comfortable.
I only answer as another "hobby philosopher", so please take it in that spirit :) I would argue that just by the fact that you know someone, and know them to be a "decent" person, you'd feel empathy (depending on your personality type also). Part of the reason you don't go "all out" for everyone, is because thankfully you don't "know" everyone.
I really think boiling it down to a simple "give-take" relationship is oversimplifying the dynamics. It goes far beyond that.
A person may visit someone who is sick out of religious convictions, or because being generous makes them feel good, same reason you have many people who volunteer or help push someone's stalled car on the road. Others may be do so to simply pay it forward, maybe to help cultivate a relationship, or with unspoken expectations of the favor being returned had the tables been turned. Yet, others might just be doing it because they have something to gain from the sick/dying person or somehow feel bound/compelled to do so...
I personally would value visiting a friend who it sick and does not have a lot of family/friends to care for them vs one who has a lot of people to care for them, I'd probably leave the latter alone until they recover, or contact a close family member to avail myself should the need arise.
The reason you don't go "all out" for everyone (or at least the reason I don't go "all out" for everyone) is that you have finite resources and time. There're lots of people that I wish I was a better friend to, but there're only so many hours in a week, and I already have a fairly active social life and a demanding job, and so time and mental energy spent keeping up with them is time that's diverted from keeping up with other people.
It's the same reason that fewer people are willing to take on more "demanding" friendships. That time spent caring for a sick friend is time that can't be spent hanging out with other friends. Some people will do it anyway, either out of a sense of duty or because that particular friendship meant a lot to them before their friend got sick. But we don't often see these people, because all the energy they invest in their sick friend is energy not being spent hanging out with us.
Oh yes, life is not so easy!
Analogy: If my doctor told me that the human body is easy to understand, I'd look for the door :)
For sake of getting anywhere in an argument, I try to abstract things down a lot but at the same time keeping them valid for discussion.
I felt that the addition of things like cultural bias would only detract from the message that everything boils down to give+take, (and pertaining to this particular discussing: that friends only go so far until there is nothing to take anymore.)
Why? Because cultural bias, upbringing and personal choice are things that merely move the give+take 'thresholds'. What I mean, is that you'll still get something out of everything you do. In my opinion, people always act in their own interest, even though their interest may largely be in favor of others.
An extreme example to illustrate the point that everything is give+take:
Take for example Warren Buffet donating billions of dollars: You could say that this has hardly any "take" for him. But why do it if there was no take at all for him? I mean no take at all. Not even a passing feeling of pride or accomplishment.
You will see that, yes of course, he will have some kind of reward for donating these immense amounts of money. There is always a take :)
Lots of people are nice to others because they enjoy being a good person. I know my American friends would have been over, cooking me meals and making sure I didn't go stircrazy, and trying to cheer me up. I know because I've experienced it. They volunteered to be up at crazy hours so I could text them when I was having surgery and feeling bad... in Austria. They sent me funny pictures and videos, even physical goodies, to cheer me up from over the ocean. I've had American friends volunteer to take me to the emergency room at midnight on a work night, and stay with me the whole time, even though it was 5am and clear I was not in any danger and I told them they should leave. And then two other friends pretended to be angry that I didn't call THEM in the middle of the night to let them know what was going on. I said, "You'd really want me to wake you up?" and they said "YES!"
Why? Because they love me and they're good people. I love them, too.
Austrians make terrible friends, in my experience, because they think like you.
They are so terrified of "losing" something by being connected to people -- so absolutely horrified at the idea that they might be "taken advantage of" -- they they shut themselves down and make no serious connections at all, living a life with only fairweather friends and no one they can truly trust to stand by them.
You truly learned nothing from this exchange. These are simply two different cultures and you grew up in yours, and therefore you think only yours is valid. How mature is that?
Likewise I could claim Americans are terrible friends, because they get upset about the tiniest things, are constantly in your face, wasting time with trivialities and use laughter inflationary as a social tool instead of its actual meaning.
But I don't, because that would be childish. Instead I view them as quirky, lively people who embrace the whole world as their home (in a positively, naive way)
Your implicit claim that Austria is 'worse' than America is merely a kneejerk reaction to a different culture. You are even equating your personal definition of "nice" with being a good person, insinuating Austrians aren't good people.
It could also be a result of habit through upbringing. Or cultural pressure. Or perhaps a faulty sense of reasoning. As a hobbiest philosopher you should know the dangers of sticking to one line of reasoning slavishly.
Compassion is virtuous.
Visiting the sick is one of the most value-creating activities a person can do.
Someone who has never been sick without parents to care for him might not notice, but once one has the experience, one can appreciate it and pay the debt back (or forward).
First of all, it's not up to you to define compassion for others. Neither is virtue.
Secondly compassion, virtue...all that has no inherent value other than the value you decide to give it.
Thirdly, did you ever question your own behaviour? I don't agree that visiting the sick has any positive purpose at all.
What exactly does a visit do? You could argue that a slight improvement in mental wellbeing may or may not happen and it may or may not speed up recovery. So you would call that slight possibility a "most value-creating activity a person can do"? I sure hope not.
A person doesn't get better from a visit, they get better by being left alone with medicine.
Your view on society is adorable, but remember that it has no roots in reality.
> A person doesn't get better from a visit, they get better by being left alone with medicine.
A possible rephrasing of the sentence above would be that, putting someone suffering from a protracted disease into a solitary confinement with medicine is the path to betterment. I don't think it works that way. There is a reason why even otherwise healthy person are not held in solitary confinement unless as an act of (sometimes disguised) punishment.
You mentioned that emotional health is an elusive concept. It is not, it can be measured, and the measure stands up to a quality that is acceptable to the disciplines of empirical sciences. I think your hesitation to acknowledge it, stems from the fact that it can be defined significantly by the person/patient, while that is true, it does not make it elusive. Many people can voluntarily control waves emitted by the brain. The fact, that brain signals can be so controlled, does not make epilepsy a fictitious condition.
>Depending on others to feel good is not the sign of a mentally healthy person.
EDIT: Responding here to prevent deeply nested threads. By your standards most humans would be unhealthy. The need for social interaction is well documented, and not only among humans. I am an introvert so I get by fine with a level of interaction low enough that it might bother someone else, but that does not mean that those who need it are unhealthy. There is a full spectrum and both extremes are considered deviant.
>I thought it was apparent that social interaction shouldn't be necessary to get better.
EDIT2: I think that's the crux of the argument/disagreement.
Social interaction has been deemed a necessity to well being. Can someone not recover from a disease without interaction, sure some can if it can be cured in a short enough duration, no otherwise. Does everybody need the social interaction to get better (stay well)? No, a percentage can do without it. In fact some spiritual school of thought see that to be the ultimate and difficult to attain target frame of mind.
Your emotional state is yours to control and change. Depending on others to feel good is not the sign of a mentally healthy person.
Editing aswell: I'm sorry, I should have been clearer but it's quite lengthy to always be precise and include the necessary disclaimers:
Of course everything has its limitations. Humans are social beings, so we like social interactions. During the limited time of sickness, I thought it was apparent that social interaction shouldn't be necessary to get better.
Example: I think it's possible to feel good when doing a walk alone in the park. I think it's possible to feel good when being alone sick. Suffering is often a distinct choice: Do I pity myself for standing in the rain or do I love the feel of fresh, wet water?
Edit2:
Can someone not recover from a disease without interaction, sure you can if it can be cured in a short duration, no otherwise
I think you are giving humans too little credit. Social interaction is very important, but it's quite possible to live alone. People don't actually go mad when you leave them alone - given that they are adults and they have sufficient other sensory and mental stimulation. People get used to a lot.
Example: Someone living completely alone at home, getting his meals delivered because he is too fat to leave. I'm not saying his life is awesome, but if he gets sick, there is no reason his recovery should in any way be significantly slower than the one of social people.
It's all a matter of getting used to things, self pity is usually the only culprit of an unhappy life.
It's certainly possible to live alone, but honestly, would you want to? How would you feel if Hacker News spamblocked you, so that nobody ever responded to your posts? How would you feel if that extended to every single aspect of your life, such that not a single person ever acknowledged your existence?
(Side note: a friend and I tried this on my sister when we were 8 and she was 7. She was being a nosy tag-along in the way that little sisters often are, and so we just literally pretended that she didn't exist. She was in tears within an hour, and my mom told us to either acknowledge her existence or my friend was going home.)
Just because healthy people can be alone doesn't mean they should. Over long periods of time, it causes marked social atrophy and can become really difficult to rejoin society.
"limited time of sickness?" We're not talking about a cold here, amigo. We're talking serious illness like cancer. It may very well last years, or even take the person's life eventually.
Science proves you wrong, of course. Visits with people and animals speed recovery. Friendly doctors have a better recovery rate. People without tightknit social networks are vastly more likely to die immediately after a spouse, than those with. Men married to American black women, for example, have the best survival rate after being widowed, due to their wives' tightknit social networks.
Why on earth would you claim otherwise? What basis do you have?
"I'd expect my friends to not expect me to visit them for elusive reasons like "emotional support". I would never expect a friend to visit me when I'm sick, because I know that I'll be another person."
And that right there is exactly why Americans make such better friends than Austrians.
There is a huge cultural difference and I honestly am not surprised that the depression and suicide statistics are so much higher in Austria -- a rich land where a person's basic needs will always be assured -- than in the US.
Here is what I think: Friendships are always give+take. When you are sick, you expect them to give a lot. Did you really do so much for them while you were healthy? Because in my opinion only a sociopath wouldn't offer to help you if you had helped him greatly in the past. Or do you rather expect them to help you because it's just what they "should" do. And what exactly do you want them to do anyway? Just mindless visits? So you expect pity? Are you in a habit of forcing your friends through awkardness? Because I'd expect my friends to not expect me to visit them for elusive reasons like "emotional support". I would never expect a friend to visit me when I'm sick, because I know that I'll be another person. They are not friends with a guy who has pains, drools and is in agony. I wouldn't think of demanding friendship like you do.