The Art of Loving begins with an attempt to determine what is our most basic need in life.Many great thinkers have tried to answer this question and they have come up with many different answers. Erich Fromm feels that man’s greatest necessity is to find union, or togetherness, in order to escape from the prison of his loneliness.The experience of separateness, Fromm feels, is the fundamental cause of anxiety and despair.People have tried many different ways to satisfy this need for togetherness.However, the only way that has ever been completely successful is through the act of love.It is the most fundamental passion; it is the force which keeps the human race together.Without love humanity could not exist for a day..These are strong words, but if we think seriously about it, most of us will agree that this is true. We sometimes tend to dwell on those things with separate us such as war, hate, selfishness and greed, without realizing the underlying power of relationships. The very fact that humanity continues to exist on this planet, in spite of all the destructive forces which divide it, is proof of the unifying power of love.
In order to determine why this is true and how it works, we must examine some of the practical aspects of love.The first of these is the fact that love demands something of us.Loving is a skill which must be learned and practiced in an active fashion.Many of us have grown up with the idea that it is our right to be loved. We therefore have a tendency to wait, passively, for someone to love us, and then we feel unjustly treated when nobody seems to care.However, in order for love to exist, someone must act; someone must do the loving.And that brings us to the second practical aspect of love which is that, since love is active rather than passive, it is also basically giving. This is a point which is often misunderstood.Many people interpret this as meaning that love is “giving up,” that it means sacrificing, or being deprived of something.First, love is not limited to giving in a material sense. The most important aspect of giving is that we give of ourselves, of that which is alive in us, of our joy and our sorrow, our interest and our knowledge, our understanding and our concern.Then, secondly, giving ourselves in love does not, as some people fear, mean sacrificing our freedom as an individual.
In addition to these basic aspects of love, Fromm also discusses other elements of love which are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. After talking about these aspects of love—giving, care, responsibility, respect, knowledge and faith—Fromm goes on to discuss the different types of love which are: brotherly love, motherly love, fatherly love, self love and erotic love. As he begins to discuss brotherly love, Fromm makes a rather startling statement.He says that unless we love everybody, we don’t really love anybody. This is of course part of what is behind the difficult commandment that we must not only love those who love us, but we must also love our enemies. Real love is based on an attitude, a way of thinking or feeling, which is directed toward the entire world and everything in it. If I have developed the capacity for love, then I can’t help loving my brother. If a person says that he loves just one other person, or one group of persons, and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, this is not real love. Speaking of motherly and fatherly love from the point of view of the child,
He says that in the beginning the child loves primarily in response to being loved. He senses that he is the object of unconditional mother love. Another important type of love is self-love.It may seem strange to talk about self-love, since it appears to contradict much of what has been said about love being open and all inclusive.Fromm has more to say about love, but last point that I want to mention here is the importance of love in present-day society.
In order to determine why this is true and how it works, we must examine some of the practical aspects of love.The first of these is the fact that love demands something of us.Loving is a skill which must be learned and practiced in an active fashion.Many of us have grown up with the idea that it is our right to be loved. We therefore have a tendency to wait, passively, for someone to love us, and then we feel unjustly treated when nobody seems to care.However, in order for love to exist, someone must act; someone must do the loving.And that brings us to the second practical aspect of love which is that, since love is active rather than passive, it is also basically giving. This is a point which is often misunderstood.Many people interpret this as meaning that love is “giving up,” that it means sacrificing, or being deprived of something.First, love is not limited to giving in a material sense. The most important aspect of giving is that we give of ourselves, of that which is alive in us, of our joy and our sorrow, our interest and our knowledge, our understanding and our concern.Then, secondly, giving ourselves in love does not, as some people fear, mean sacrificing our freedom as an individual.
In addition to these basic aspects of love, Fromm also discusses other elements of love which are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge. After talking about these aspects of love—giving, care, responsibility, respect, knowledge and faith—Fromm goes on to discuss the different types of love which are: brotherly love, motherly love, fatherly love, self love and erotic love. As he begins to discuss brotherly love, Fromm makes a rather startling statement.He says that unless we love everybody, we don’t really love anybody. This is of course part of what is behind the difficult commandment that we must not only love those who love us, but we must also love our enemies. Real love is based on an attitude, a way of thinking or feeling, which is directed toward the entire world and everything in it. If I have developed the capacity for love, then I can’t help loving my brother. If a person says that he loves just one other person, or one group of persons, and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, this is not real love. Speaking of motherly and fatherly love from the point of view of the child,
He says that in the beginning the child loves primarily in response to being loved. He senses that he is the object of unconditional mother love. Another important type of love is self-love.It may seem strange to talk about self-love, since it appears to contradict much of what has been said about love being open and all inclusive.Fromm has more to say about love, but last point that I want to mention here is the importance of love in present-day society.
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