The Art of Loving is a 1956 book by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm. It was originally published as part of the World Perspectives series edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen. In this work, Fromm develops his perspective on human nature from his earlier works, Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself – principles which he revisits in many of his other major works. He criticizes the popular conception of love and asserts that «love is the only provision for a sane and satisfying human existence».
Background
In 1930, Fromm was recruited to the Frankfurt School by Max Horkheimer. Fromm played a central role in the early development of the school. He left the school in the late 1930s, following a «bitter and contentious» deterioration in his relationship with Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. In 1956, the year The Art of Loving was released, Fromm’s relationship with Herbert Marcuse, also a member of the Frankfurt School, also deteriorated. Dissent published a debate between the two, and though later scholars would come to view Marcuse’s arguments as being weaker than Fromm’s, Marcuse’s were better received within their lifetimes, and Fromm’s reputation in leftist circles was permanently damaged.
The book was inspired by Fromm’s «new, liberating feeling of life’s possibility» when he courted Annis, his wife.
Summary
The Art of Loving is divided across four chapters and a preface; the chapter headings are I. Is Love an Art?, II. The Theory of Love, III. Love and Its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society, and IV. The Practice of Love. An epigraph consisting of a quote from Paracelsus concerning the relationship between love and knowledge is included in the front matter.
Preface
In the preface, Fromm states that the book does not provide instruction in what he terms the «art of loving», but rather it argues that love, rather than a sentiment, is an artistic practice. Any attempt to love another is bound to fail, if one does not commit their total personality to learning and practicing loving. He states that «individual love cannot be attained without the capacity to love one’s neighbour, without true humility, courage, faith and discipline.» He also states that the ideas he expresses in The Art of Loving are similar to those he had already outlined in Escape from Freedom, Man for Himself, and The Sane Society.
I. Is Love an Art?
Fromm opens the first chapter by critiquing the place of love in Western society. He says that though people think that love is important, they think that there is nothing for them to learn about love, an attitude which Fromm believes is misguided. For Fromm, a major factor in the development of this attitude is that the majority of people «see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love.» As a result, people become focused on being attractive rather than on loving others, and as a result, what is meant in Western society by «being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal».
The second problem Fromm identifies in people’s attitudes towards love is that they think of the «problem of love» as that of an «object», rather than a skill. In other words, they believe that to love is simple, but to find the right person to love or be loved by is difficult. He believes that this results in a culture in which human relations of love resemble a labour market, whereby people seek a «bargain» of a romantic partner: one of high social value, who desires them in return, in consideration of the «limitations of their own exchange values.»
Fromm also identifies a confusion between the initial experience of ‘falling in love’, and what he terms ‘standing’ in love, or the «permanent state of being in love». He says that falling in love is by its very nature not lasting, and so if people have not put in the work in order to stand in love together, as they get «well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and more of its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of their initial excitement.» Furthermore, people consider the intensity of feeling upon falling in love with someone to be proof of the intensity of their love for each other, when for Fromm, this «may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness».
Fromm concludes the chapter by stating that there «is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hope and expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly as love.» Fromm contends that this is because of the above attitudes to love, and the neglect of love as an art form, which he states means that it consists of both theory and practice. To master love, however, requires more than learning the theory and implementing the practice, but that «the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important than the art». He briefly states that though most people crave love, their desire for success, prestige, money, and power, as desired in capitalist society, relegate love to being of lesser importance to them, and that this is why most people fail to truly love others.
II. The Theory of Love
- Love, the Answer to the Problem of Human Existence
Fromm opens this chapter by stating that «Any theory of love must begin with a theory of man, of human existence.» From Fromm, a person’s key trait is their ability to reason. Prior to humans developing the ability to reason, we were part of the animal kingdom and in a state of harmony. To recover this state of harmony it is impossible for us to regress to the idyll of the animal kingdom, but rather humanity must progress to a new harmony by developing their ability to reason. This ability to reason makes humanity «life being aware of itself», and separates us from all other creatures. This separation is, for Fromm, «the source of all anxiety». He says that by understanding the story of Adam and Eve, people can understand the barriers to loving connection. For Fromm, when man and woman develop awareness of their difference from each other, they remain strangers, and this is the source of shame, guilt, and anxiety, and it is reunion through love which allows people to overcome this feeling of difference.
For Fromm the fundamental question facing mankind is «the question of how to overcome separateness, how to achieve union, how to transcend one’s own individual life and find at-onement». In other words, that people are fundamentally isolated, and seek union with others to overcome this feeling of isolation. He develops this idea, stating that different cultures and religions have had different techniques to achieve this, and gives five examples of how these unions are achieved. He describes «orgiastic states», in which «separateness» is abated by taking drugs, participating in sexual orgies, or both. For Fromm, the problem with this approach is that the feeling of unity is temporary and fleeting.
He proceeds to state that in modern capitalist society, people find union in conformity. The meaning of equality, for Fromm, has been changed from meaning «oneness» to meaning «sameness». The result of pursuing the Enlightenment concept of l’âme ne pas de sexe (literally, «the soul has no sex») is the disappearance of the polarity of the sexes, and with it, erotic love. He criticises the effect that union by conformity has on people, turning them into «nine to fivers», who sacrifice their fulfillment outside of work by their commitment to filling a labour role.
A third way that Fromm suggests people seek union is through what he terms «Symbiotic union», which he divides into sadism and masochism. In this paradigm, both the masochist and the sadist are dependent on the other, which he believes reduces the integrity of each.
Fromm proposes that the most harmful way people may find union is through domination, which is an extreme form of sadism. He provides the example of a child tearing apart a butterfly to understand how it functions.
Fromm contrasts symbiotic union with mature love, the final way people may seek union, as union in which both partners respect the integrity of the other. Fromm states that «Love is an active power in a man», and that in the general sense, the active character of love is primarily that of «giving». He further delineates what he views as the four core tenets of love: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. He defines love as care by stating that «Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love», and gives an example of a mother and a baby, saying that nobody would believe the mother loved the baby, no matter what she said, if she neglected to feed it, bathe it, or comfort it. He further says that «One loves that for which one labours, and one labours for that which one loves.»
The second principle of love, to Fromm, is responsibility. He contrasts his definition of responsibility with that of duty, stating that responsibility is the voluntary desire to respond to the needs of one’s partner. Without his third principle of love, respect, Fromm warns that responsibility can devolve into exploitation. Fromm says that in a loving relationship, people have a responsibility not to exploit their partners. He explains that L’amour est l’enfant de la liberté (literally, «love is the child of liberty»), and that love must desire the growth of the partner as they are, not how one may want them to grow. As such, for Fromm, «respect is
