The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
Summary - quotes directly from the book and paraphrased
Fromm speaks of the art of loving in the least technical voice - which makes this a very easy and sometimes humorous read - not to mention incredibly insightful. He argues against the western interpretations and ideals of love, for as social creatures, we experience anxiety from the separateness that has been a result of what we’ve been fed about love from our capitalist, conformist, and divided culture. To Fromm, “Love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity".” Love is all the expressions and manifestations of what is alive in us. Love is a part of autonomy. Love for myself is connected deeply to the love of any other being; for an individual’s love cannot be experienced without true humility, courage, faith, and discipline. These very characteristics have become so rare in our society, so how does one make sense of what it means to love and understand the meaning of the art of loving?
Chapter 1 - Love is an Art
Fromm speaks about love - that it requires knowledge and effort compared to some ecstatic sensation (of pleasure) that you feel, stumble upon a matter of chance, and then fall into. It is precisely this kind of thinking that has led people to focus so much of their attention on Being Loved as opposed to the act of Loving. As we are driven towards a consumerist notion of love - influenced by our consumerist habits as we strive for the best and look for success, it is the same notion that has now made its way in how we pursue lovers. We want to be the best versions of ourselves, best appearance, clothes, social status, traits, attributes. Essentially, we are seeking successful partners and our understanding of being lovable merely means being popular and sex appeal.
The problem of how we’ve come to terms with love is that we’ve defined it as a problem of object vs a problem of faculty. In the past, marriages were arranged, for the better of the business, social class, standing, etc, and then love came from it as a result but as this concept has long passed in our modern society, we are now faced with the notion of romantic love. That we must experience this personal expression of love which will then lead to marriage. The rise in the freedom we’ve attained through romantic love has only emphasized the importance of object against the importance of the function. “…human love relations follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labor market”.
Why do so many people fall into love and then fail miserably? And yet people define their love by the intensity of attraction they feel at the onset - a characteristic that simply highlights the loneliness of such people. We have to understand the reasons for such failures and look at love as an art. Like other forms of art, we must look at the mastery of theory and the mastery of practice when it comes to love.
Chapter 2 - The Theory of Love
Love - The Answer to the Problem of Human Existence
Fromm talks about what makes the human experience so unique is our ability to reason, to be so painfully aware. We are gifted with reason, the awareness of us, of life itself. He stresses the source of anxiety arising from the experience of separateness. Where we are cut off, unable to experience our capacity to use our own human powers. If we are unable to grasp the world, things, people, we eventually also give way to shame and guilt - our deepest need is to overcome our separateness. “The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love - is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.” We escape this separateness through all kinds of orgiastic states (auto induced trance, drug use, sexual arousal in the absence of love). These are at the core quite essential to our survival (I think) as coping mechanisms and if it were acceptable in a tribe, we wouldn’t experience guilt and shame but when we live in a culture where such practices are taboo or not allowed we see issues such as alcoholism, drug addictions - as these are means by which we escape anxiety from the separateness. We relieve anxiety in the modern western world through conformity. Conformity in our culture is the elimination of differences - closely related to the concept and experience of equality. Equality in older religious contexts meant we are all one and yet we are all different and should be respected as we are unique entities. He quotes a Talmudic statement that exemplifies this: “ Whosoever saves a single life is as if he had saved the whole world; whosoever destroys a single life is as if he had destroyed the whole world.”
Fromm talks about our current capitalist society where the meaning of equality means the equality of automatons. Equality is sameness rather than oneness. “Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires the standardization of man, and this standardization is called ‘equality’.” We relieve our anxiety through the work and pleasures routine, the 9-5, climbing the corporate ladder, buying the same things, wanting the same things, aiming for the same things, and so forth. We are routinized from birth to death. There is one way we can attain union - and it is in the form of creative activity. Such activity where the product is the work that I plan, produce and see the result of. Unity in productive work is not interpersonal and unity achieved in orgiastic fusion is transitory. The achievement of the interpersonal union of fusion with another person in love is at its core is the most powerful desire of humankind. Is this union love? “Do we refer to love as a mature answer to the problem of existence or do we talk about the immature forms of love - symbiotic union”.
Symbiosis as one example is described as the state a pregnant mother is in, where she is two, herself and her baby, yet they are one and share the same kind of psychological attachment. A passive form of symbiotic union is submission - clinically speaking, masochism. The masochist person escapes from the separateness and isolation by making themselves part and parcel of another person who directs, guides, and protects them. The power of the one to whom you are submitting is inflated. They are everything. I am nothing. This kind of person doesn’t make decisions, is never alone, and never independent thereby having no integrity. Masochistic submissions can be towards fate, sickness, music, and orgiastic states. The active form of symbiotic fusion is domination - the clinical term here being sadism. The sadistic person wants to escape from the aloneness by making someone else part and parcel of themselves. Inflating and enhancing themselves by having someone else who worships them and is dependent on them. Where a masochistic person is commanded, exploited, hurt, humiliated, a sadistic person commands, exploits, hurts and humiliates. What is common between the two - is that this kind of fusion has no integrity.
Love is an activity - not a passive affect. It’s a “standing in” not “falling for”. “The active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.” Giving is the highest expression of potency. In giving, you are experiencing your own strength, vitality, joy - the most important aspect of giving is the giving of oneself. Give that which is alive in you. Joy, interest, understanding, knowledge, humor, sadness - all the expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in you. Giving makes the other person a giver as well and you both then share the joy that you both bring to life. Love is a power that produces love. Other characteristics of love - that make the basic elements of love are common to all forms of love. These are Care, Responsibility, Respect, Knowledge.
Care and concern make responsibility. Responsibility here means in the sense that it is a voluntary act that responds to the needs - expressed or unexpressed, of another human. Responsibility can turn into domination or possessiveness with the absence of respect.
Respect is the absence of exploitation. Respect means to see the other person grow and unfold as they are - not for the purpose of serving oneself. Therefore respect can only exist on the basis of freedom. Respecting someone isn’t possible without truly knowing someone.
Knowledge: This is to see the other person on their own terms. Reaching into the depth of someone’s being or your own soul. This is something we can’t avoid if we pursue it and the more we pursue it, the more we will need to learn as this is the very core of understanding the depths of someone else’s soul.
Care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge are mutually interdependent. They are attitudes found in a mature person.
Fromm goes into detailing the male-female polarity and talks about love and sex and his problem with Freud’s interpretations on the subject matter. He states that Freud sees love exclusively as the expression of the sexual instinct rather than recognizing that sexual desire is one manifestation of the need for love and union. To him, Freud failed in understanding the depth of sex.
2. Love between Parent and Child
Fromm goes on to describe the love that a child fees from his mother - a kind of unconditional love. I am loved because I am. I am loved for what I am. The first experiences and therefore definitions of love that a child experiences are that of being loved. Then, they think of love being produced by giving - by their own activity. The needs for someone else are as important as the needs of their own and by learning so, they are able to love with a sense of new union, oneness. One can then attain the sense of producing love by loving. “Infantile love follows the principle: ‘I love because I am loved.’ Mature love follows the principle: ‘I am loved because I love.’ Immature love says: “I love you because I need you".” Mature love says: “I need you because I love you.”
Whereas motherly love is unconditional, Fromm talks about fatherly love as conditional, the love that you earn. In the ideal case, a mature mother will ensure the child is secure in life by ensuring that she does not prevent the child from growing up, in giving them everything. A mother will need to have faith in life and not be overanxious and infect the child with her anxiety. She would wish that the child will be independent and eventually separate from her. The father’s love would be guided by principles and expectations - being patient and tolerant as opposed to threatening and authoritarian. The mature person will enter a stage where they are their own mother and their own father. The mature person loves with both the motherly and fatherly conscience.
3. The Objects of Love
Love is not a relationship to someone else but rather an attitude, orientation, character - that determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one “object” of love. He compares this attitude with an example: If someone wants to paint but instead of learning the art, they wait for the right object, and only then they will paint beautifully. “ If I truly love one person I love all persons, I love the world, I love life. If I can say to somebody else, “I love you",” I must be able to say, “I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.” Love being referred to as an orientation doesn’t mean that differences in the types of love don’t exist . They do and that depends on the kind of object that is being loved.
Brotherly Love : responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of someone else, the wish to further their life. This is the love for all human beings. Love among equals
Motherly Love: unconditional love for the care and well being of the child but also to instill the love for life in a child. Love for the helpless.
Erotic Love: Contrasting to the two types of love above which are for everyone (loving all humans and all your children), this love is exclusive in nature and also the most deceptive, by the part of sexual desire. The exclusiveness of this type of love is not possessive attachment. This love is exclusive but it loves in the person, all of humankind, all that is alive. To merely love someone and have no regard for others is deemed as egotism. Erotic love is exclusive only in the sense of erotic fusion. “I love from the essence of my being and experience the other person in the essence of their being. Love is an act of will, of the decision to commit my life completely to that of one other person.” The important factor here is that of will. Love is not a strong feeling but a decision, judgment, a promise. We must however understand the nuances of individuality and human nature so it’s not as simple and black and white as we may think it is.
Self Love: Self-love is not selfishness. “The affirmation of one’s own life, happiness, growth, freedom is rooted in one’s capacity to love”. Selfishness and self-love are opposite constructs. The selfish person loves only what interests them and is useful to them, they take and see nothing but themselves. Freud says that the selfish person is narcissistic, that they have taken their love from others and turned it towards themselves. A selfish person will be incapable of loving others but also themselves.
Love for God: in most Western religious systems, the love of God is the same as the belief in God. In God’s existence, justice, love. Love is a thought experience as opposed to the Eastern religions and mysticism where the love of God is an intense feeling, an experience of oneness-linked with the expression of this love in every act of love. An infantile version of the love of God is rooted in the belief of submission to authority - which is usually to the market and public opinion.
Chapter 3 - Love and its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society
“Love is not the result of adequate sexual satisfaction, but sexual happiness - even the knowledge of the so-called sexual technique - is the result of love.” Fromm goes into detail in describing many forms of “pseudo-love” that are prevalent in our Western society. He talks in detail about the culture of success and how we merge God into the equation and how these all fit in with the kinds of pseudo-love scenarios that are easy to find around you. That the modern man has transformed themselves into a commodity and thus alienated themselves from the interconnectedness of others and nature.
Chapter 4 - The Practice of Love
So what does the practice of love entail? This book doesn’t offer you tips and tricks to start loving right away (for a low low price of 19.99 per month!). It’s actually quite the opposite. Fromm talks about love being an entirely and purely personal experience that one is able to have by and for themself. Since this book isn’t a manual of tips for you to apply right away, it discusses the approaches that are helpful in the mastery of the art of love, and below I will do my best to summarize, paraphrase, and quote from the last chapter.
Discipline: One cannot love without discipline in one’s own life. Don’t mistake this with the routinized facade of a 9-5 as a form of discipline where one often rebels from the structure through what Fromm calls infantile self-indulgence.
Concentration: This trait is often rare in our society and culture as we are bombarded with distractions left, right, and center. Our need to be constantly plugged in is an indication and a cause of our difficulty of being alone with ourselves.
Patience: This brings me back to the first point I mentioned, about how one might have expected a quick ‘to do’ guide when reading this book. This exemplifies our need for quick results yet for the art of loving, a quick result is not possible. The quality of patience is as difficult to practice as discipline and concentration as we are a byproduct of our environment. An environment where machines determine not only the economic value but also human values.
Supreme Concern - One has to be supremely concerned with the art if one wants to master it as one would not learn it if it was not of supreme importance.
For one to truly be a master at their art, one requires practice and it is the same for the art of loving. To truly be a master in the art of loving, one must begin by practicing discipline, concentration, and patience in every phase of one’s life.
Practicing Discipline: Fromm makes a clear distinction that discipline here is not practiced like a rule that is imposed from the outside but rather that it should be an expression of one’s own will. You should feel good about it and it should feel pleasant as you slowly accustom yourself to a behavior that you would miss if you stopped practicing it. This also contrasts with the Western attitudes of discipline. Sayings such as “No Pain, No Gain!”The Eastern thought says that if it is good for you, your body and soul, that it should be agreeable, despite the initial resistances that need overcoming.
Practicing Concentration: This means learning to be alone with yourself, without reading, listening to music, radio, tv, smoking, or drinking. To concentrate means to be alone with oneself which - a vital condition for the ability to love. Here’s an exercise that he goes through: Close your eyes. Focus on the present, your breathing, clear your thoughts and worries. Imagine a white space. It is here that you have a sense of “I”. I for myself, as the center of my powers, as the center of my world. He recommends one does this for 20 minutes every morning and before bed.
Concentration is vital in everything that we do - whether we listen to music, read, look at a view, or talk to someone. When speaking to others, we should avoid trivial conversations and cliches. Most importantly, avoid bad company and people we feel drain our souls.
To concentrate means to listen fully - with concentration.
To live fully in the here and now, in the present.
To become sensitive to oneself. Just as a mother is sensitive to the needs of her child, she looks for the child before they cry, notices bodily changes, demands, anxieties before they are overtly expressed.
Being aware of your thoughts. If you are depressed, ask yourself what happened? Why Am I Depressed? Instead of rationalizing the depressing thoughts, we must be open to our inner voice which communicates quite clearly with us, why we are feeling such feelings (if we only listen).
To have the same sensitivity towards our mental processes as we have towards our bodily functions and processes is a difficult task as this requires us to look outside of ourselves for examples. You may never have known a person who functions optimally. You may never have seen a loving person, someone with integrity, courage, and concentration. This brings to point, the importance of good educators and teachers. Teachers in all should be mature, and loving people.
The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one’s narcissism. Fromm argues that narcissism is the inability to be objective as objectivity is the opposite pole of narcissism. Where not everything is tied to and formed by our desires and fears. The faculty to think objectively is reason. The emotional attitude behind reason is humility. As love is dependent on the absence of narcissism, therefore requiring the development of humility, objectivity, and reason. For when we love, we emerge from our egos as we invest in our capacity to grow, develop a productive orientation in our relationship toward the world and ourselves.
Love requires the practice of faith. There is a difference between rational and irrational faith. Irrational faith is the belief in a person or idea based on one’s submission - to an irrational authority. Rational faith is not exactly a belief in something but the quality of certainty and firmness which our convictions have. Faith is a character trait, of the whole personality versus a specific belief. It is rooted in a productive intellectual and emotional activity. Irrational faith accepts beliefs as true because an authority or majority said so whereas rational faith is rooted on independent convictions based on our own productive observance and thinking in spite of the majority’s opinion. Faith is an indispensable quality of a significant friendship or love. Faith is the reliability and unchangeability of fundamental attitudes, of the core of our personality, of our love. Faith in oneself is critical as it is the faith in our core, our own existence that is unchangeable as it persists in life through varying circumstances. Only if I have faith in myself, will I be able to find faith in others. Faith is the potentiality of others culminated in the faith of humankind. The basis of rational faith is productiveness.
To have faith requires courage - the ability to take risks, accept pain and disappointment as the conditions of life. To be able to view our setbacks, sorrows, and the challenges of life as they make us stronger versus looking at them as unjust punishment. Faith requires practice in the smallest details of everyday life. Notice where you lose faith and try to ignore the rationalizations that your mind uses to cover up the loss of faith. Our fear often is not that of not being loved, but it could mean an unconscious fear of loving.
Love is a commitment without guarantee, to give oneself completely in hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith.
Love is an activity. An inner activity. If I love, I am in a constant state of awareness, active concern for the loved person. I would be incapable of relating if I am lazy and not in a state of intensity, awareness, and vitality.
To love is to have a loving attitude towards everyone.
Fromm argues that the principles of capitalist society and the principles of love are incompatible. Therefore an analysis of love requires the discovery of the general absence of love and to criticize the social conditions that are responsible for it.
If you are concerned by love - as the only rational answer to the problem of human existence, then there needs to be major changes to our social structures.
My key Takeaways
Love is an art and it requires practice
Love is being able to have faith in yourself and love of yourself and only then can you experience the joy of loving others
Love is to care, respect, responsibility, and seek knowlege. Love is an active form that we deliberately choose to participate in.
Love is my discipline, concentration, and the importance I attribute to the act of loving. If it is important to me, then I will love. Love is faith and taking risks.
Love is letting go and being committed that you will overcome the struggles
Love is my unwavering faith in humanity
Love is an act of free will, not some act you seek for reward or to serve your own needs
Love is trust as autonomy
Love is every fiber of my being. I love with great intensity (it’s true) and therefore I hurt with great intensity. Love is to share ALL of the forms of expression and emotion we have (the good, the bad, and the ugly). Love is whole.
I would recommend this book to
All human beings
Even aliens, why not? Read about the most sought-after and failed concept (or a construct or a verb?) of humankind - love.