For Fromm, attainment of these four attitudes are only possible in the mature person, one «who only wants to have that which he has worked for, who has given up narcissistic dreams of omniscience and omnipotence, who has acquired humility based on the inner strength which only genuine productive activity can give.» He concludes the chapter by criticising Sigmund Freud for not understanding sex well enough.
- Love Between Parents and Child
Fromm opens this section by hypothesizing on love through the eyes of a baby in relation to its mother. In this dynamic, the child intuits that «I am loved for what I am», or rather «I am loved because I am». This love is unconditional: «it need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.» The unconditional aspect of motherly love, a blessing if present, produces a problem of its own: if this love is absent, there is nothing the child can do to create it. Before growing to the age of between eight and a half to ten, Fromm considers that children experience being loved, but do not themselves begin to love. At this point a child may begin to practice love, for example, by giving a gift to one of their parents.
Fromm states that it takes many years for this form of love to develop into mature love. He contrasts the difference, the primary one being that someone who loves maturely believes that loving is more pleasurable than receiving love. Through practicing love, and thus producing love, the individual overcomes the dependence on being loved, having to be «good» to deserve love. He contrasts the immature phrases «I love because I am loved» and «I love you because I need you» with mature expressions of love, «I am loved because I love», and «I need you because I love you.»
He contrasts motherly love with fatherly love. Fromm contends that mothers and fathers represent opposite poles of human existence: the mother represent the natural world, while the father embodies the world of thought, man-made thing, and adventure. Unlike motherly love, fatherly love is conditional for Fromm, it can be earned. Fromm contends that in infancy, people care more about motherly love, while in later childhood they crave fatherly love. Upon reaching maturity, a well-adjusted individual reaches a synthesis of motherly and fatherly love within their own being; they become their own source for both. Fromm believes that receiving an inadequate balance of both motherly and fatherly love results in various forms of neurosis in adults.
- The Objects of Love
Fromm opens this section by stating that it is a fallacy to believe that loving one person and no others is a testament to the intensity of that love. He proposes that one can only truly love an individual if one is capable of loving anyone. In this section Fromm subdivides love into five distinct categories, namely brotherly love, motherly love, erotic love, self-love, and the love of God.
Fromm explains what he calls «paradoxical logic» – the ability to reconcile opposing principles in one same instance. He highlights paradoxical logic in the sections dedicated to the love of God and erotic love.
(a) Brotherly Love
Brotherly love, for Fromm, is not love between siblings but rather the love one feels for their fellow man, originating in their common experiences of humanity. This is a love between equals, though «even as equals we are not always ‘equal’; inasmuch as we are human, we are all in need of help. Today I, Tomorrow you.» The beginning of brotherly love is described as love for the helpless, the poor, and the stranger. He compares brotherly love to Exodus 22:21, «You know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt», adding «therefore love the stranger!»
(b) Motherly Love
In this section Fromm expands his previous description of motherly love to include an element beyond the minimum care and responsibility required to support the child’s life and growth. He says that a mother has a responsibility to instill a love for life in her children, and compares these two forms of responsibility to milk and honey. Here milk symbolises the first of the two, the responsibility of care and affirmation. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, a love and joy for the experience of living, which only a truly happy mother can instill in her children. Unlike brotherly love (and later, erotic love), motherly love is by its very nature not shared between equals. Fromm states that most mothers succeed at showing motherly love when their children are infants, but the true test of motherly love, for Fromm, is to continue to love as the child grows, matures, and eventually detaches themselves from their reliance on the mother.
(c) Erotic Love
This section is concerned with romantic love shared between one man and one woman treating each other as equals. Erotic love, for Fromm, is the craving of complete fusion with one other person, and considers sexual union to be a vital part of this fusion. Sex, says Fromm, can be blind and be stimulated by any strong emotion, not only love. When two people who truly love each other have sex, however, the act is devoid of greediness, and is defined by tenderness. Because the notion of sexual desire is often conflated with love in western society, such desire is often mistakenly considered a sign of loving someone.
Though having sex with someone can give the illusion of unity, without love this act will leave the participants just as much strangers to each other as before, and can induce feelings of shame or hatred for the other. Fromm criticizes the misinterpretation of the exclusive nature of erotic love as possessive attachment. He states that it is common to find two people who consider themselves to be in love with each other but have no love for anyone else. Fromm considers this an «egotism á deux», as one should love all of mankind through the love of their romantic partner. Fromm concludes the section by criticizing views that love is either exclusively a feeling or exclusively an act of will, stating that it is somewhere between the two.
(d) Self-Love
Fromm begins this section by criticising the «widespread» belief in Western thought that «while it is virtuous to love others, it is sinful to love oneself.» He critiques the conclusions of John Calvin and Freud in particular, and states that self-love ought not be confused with either narcissism or the turning inwards of the libido. Fromm claims that it is a logical fallacy to love one’s neighbour for the sake of their humanity and not also love one’s self for the same reason.
Fromm states that «love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love towards themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others. Love, in principle, is indivisible as far as the connection between ‘objects’ and one’s own self is concerned. Genuine love is an expression of productiveness and implies care, respect, responsibility and knowledge.» By this token, he classifies love as «an active striving for the growth and happiness of the loved person», and so classifies such action as virtuous.
Fromm contends that «love of man» (which is to say the love that one holds for a given individual for the sake of their humanity) does not follow from the love of a specific person, but rather serves as the basis for loving a specific individual. From this assertion, Fromm states that it then follows that the self is as much an object to be loved as any other. He further claims that the individual who can only love others, and not themselves, cannot truly love at all.
Fromm contrasts self-love with selfishness, saying of them that «Selfishness and self-love, far from being identical, are actually opposites.» He states that the problem with selfish people is not that they love themselves too much, but rather too little: a lack of fondness and care for themselves, which in turn stems from a lack of productiveness that leaves them feeling empty, frustrated, unhappy, or anxious. For Fromm, «selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.»
Fromm concludes the section by contrasting the selfish person with those who experience «neurotic ‘unselfishness'». This unselfishness does not typically trouble the affected party, but rather manifests alongside symptoms such as depression, fatigue, a lack of productiveness, failures in romantic relationships, and others. Fromm states that not only are the neurotically unselfish not troubled by this trait, they may take pride in it, with some considering it their only redeeming character trait. Fromm states that such people may be confused to find that despite their lack of selfishness, they are unhappy, and their relationships to others are unsatisfactory. The remedy, says Fromm, is to view this trait as part of a range of symptoms, the cure to which is resolving the individual’s underlying lack of productivity.
He concludes the section with an example of the damaging effects of this unselfish behaviour on others, given in the form of the «unselfish mother», who gives of herself utterly to her children. Fromm states that children raised by neurotically unselfish mothers «do not show the happiness of persons who are convinced they are loved; they are anxious, tense, afraid of the mother’s disapproval and anxious to live up to her expectations.» He further states that «the effect of the ‘unselfish’ mother is
