Liberalism takes on friendship

My thanks to Rod Dreher for bringing up this piece of insanity:

Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/06/crackpot-educators-call-best-friends-social-evil.html#ixzz0rGmLrGNl

Of course, we can’t have “exclusivity”.  That would mean discrimination–preferring one person’s company to another, confiding in one person rather than another.  Liberals hate all loyalty to the particular.  Logically, they can’t stop with condemning tribalism and patriotism; they must ultimately attack love and friendship themselves, because these things are inherently particular.  Why have a spouse or a best friend when you could give your love to “humanity”?