The Art Of Loving (Erich Fromm) - Study Note

I finished “The Art of Loving” several months ago. To be honest, the book left me unsatisfied, bored, and overall quite disappointed. However, as a reader, I feel the need & responsibility to, at least, make a short study note and talk about some great points that I take from the book.

This is not a review, a summary, or something similar, just my personal study note. Read it but be aware of the fact that I, as the writer, don’t recommend this one. It is not because of the quality, quite different, the book is a good read, but I simply don’t find it interesting “enough”.

1. Love is an “act” This is very different to Lacan, Slavo Jizek on the concept of love as a “fall”, for Fromm, “Love” is very active, more like an “art” that must be “practiced” frequently.

1. Love to escape from seperation:

Fromm claimed that there is a universal need for each human being: that is to find the “other half”, or to escape from the “separation”. Ancient tribal, as a community in which each individual has a stronger relationship, has many methods to help people “escape” from sepration (loneliness). One of this method is to use community rituals, dancing and drugs to enter a “trance” state. This implies the use of psychedelics like magic mushrooms. However, modern life prevents people from participating in these events. (LOL, I guess Fromm did not know about modern bar & pub life).

3. Type of Love:

Fromm discussed various forms of Love: Brotherly Love, Father-Son Love, Mother-son Love, Erotic Love … and Self-Love. One interesting paragraph is his opinion about “self-love”. For Fromm, “Self-love” is no different than normal love. One cannot love everyone if he did not love “himself”. Another interesting argument in this chapter is his analysis of The Love for God.

4. Development of Human and the Love for God

As human society “evolved” from nature, motherly love is the first thing that exist. “Motherly Love” is abundant, non-conditional. In contrast, then society & culture exist, “Fatherly Love” existed. Love for God is a type of “Fatherly Love”. “Fatherly Love” is conditional (as the father punishes the son harder than the mom). Father gives rules, the son must obey if he wants to be loved.

Then, in this part, the author discussed Oriental mythology and asian religion. When the Western god (jewish) god appears to be dogmatic, Asian gods & Taos is much more flexible. Fromm discussed China, India mythology, and Taosim to support this idea.

5. Love in Modern Western Society

He criticizes that society treats love in a very “pragmatic” way. Also, they treat “God” in a very similar fashion, like they think “god” is a partner that makes them rich & successful. The same “pragmatic” outlook is also applied to human love.

6. Some great paragraphs:

The deepest need of man, then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity, because the panic of complete isolation can be overcome only by such a radical withdrawal from the world outside that the feeling of separation disappears—because the world outside, from which one is separated, has disappeared.

(…)This leads to the emphasis on the right way of living. All of life, every little and every important action, is devoted to the knowledge of God, but a knowledge not in right thought, but in right action. This can be clearly seen in Oriental religions. In Brahmanism as well as in Buddhism and Taoism, the ultimate aim of religion is not the right belief, but the right action. We find the same emphasis in the Jewish religion. There was hardly ever a schism over belief in the Jewish tradition (the one great exception, the difference between Pharisees and Sadducees, was essentially one of two opposite social classes). The emphasis of the Jewish religion was (especially from the beginning of our era on) on the right way of living, the Halacha (this word actually having the same meaning as the Tao).

In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God’s existence, God’s justice, God’s love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living. The most radical formulation has been given to this goal by Meister Eckhart: “If therefore I am changed into God and He makes me one with Himself, then, by the living God, there is no distinction between us …. Some people imagine that they are going to see God, that they are going to see God as if he were standing yonder, and they here, but it is not to be so. God and I: we are one. By knowing God I take him to myself. By loving God, I penetrate him.”