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Kevin Valone

Mrs. Wilde

AP English 12

27/02/2012

Love: Fromm a Humanistic Point of View

Have you ever loved before? Then what is love? It is the magical feeling you get when

you meet someone special, right? Just like in Cinderella, Snow White, and any other cheesy

romantic film that captures the hearts and minds of all those hopeless romantics, love is

portrayed as the magical, yet unexplainable element that we all should obtain at some point in

our lives. However, love is explainable and is more a rather logical process than a mysterious

phenomenon. In The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, love is defined and is revealed to be an art

which requires many different traits to work. Fromm utilizes logic and uses real world examples

in an informative tone in order to persuade the reader that his point of view is correct.

Before beginning with the literary piece, we should learn about Erich Fromm’s life. Erich

Fromm was born in Frankfurt-Am-Main to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1900. He became

interested in the fields of psychology and sociology after hearing of a young woman killing

herself because of her fathers own death. In 1914, World War One also pushed him to think of

the hatred of others and the divisions of mankind. After receiving a Ph.D in sociology he studied

under Frieda Reichmann to be a psychoanalyst. In 1930 he joined the renowned Frankfurt

Institute for Social Research where aligned most of his philosophy with Marxism.

In The Art of Loving, Fromm does away with society’s beliefs about love and covers

sequentially: What is love, What are the problems with love in our society, What kind of loves

are there and how to we approach love, and How we should practice love. Initially, Fromm

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introduces common misconceptions about love in society. The first belief is that love is an easy

task, but hard to target. He equates this with the quest of finding your soul mate. Secondly, the

belief that you should become lovable rather than to love others is emphasized. He again uses a

real world example of men becoming power and strong and women becoming beautiful and

complacent (1950’s society alert). The uses of these examples he uses really draw the reader into

the piece and the piece oscillates between an informative thesis and a self-help book. Lastly, he

states “the overall misconception that love isn’t an art, but a feeling” (Fromm 5). With this attack

on society’s ignorance he is literally offering the reader a chance to become better than the rest

of the populace through his reasonable statement. With this set of problems he connects with the

reader on a social level instantaneously because the reader is able to relate to the situations he

presents. He asks a question aimed directly at the reader, “Is love an art” and is able to engage

the reader on an emotional level through his ad populum (Fromm 1). His beliefs are that the vast

majority of people do not have a clue about love, so he can quickly capture their attention.

However to refute his points he makes fallacious errors (which also show his Marxist critique of

capitalism) in composition by relating the ideals of Capitalist society to all people of America in

belief that all Americans are conforming to it. For example of this, he relates “falling in love” to

becoming smitten by another just because they offer the greatest amount of “human

commodities” in exchange for ones own in the dating market. His second error focuses on how

people orient themselves to find love. He states boldly, “What most people in our culture mean

by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal” and is

able to effectively get the reader to question their own fragile beliefs of love by berating their

previous knowledge of love (Fromm 3). Lastly, after telling the reader everything that they know

about love is basically fabricated by the media, he presents his main theory that love is an art, so

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that they will shun their former beliefs and accept his ideas. The most effective tool Fromm uses

is logic in where he is able to take preconceived notions of an indefinite abstract ideal, relate the

faults to common societal practice, and then after invoking an emotional response, offer logical

alternatives.

After introducing the reader to the grave mistakes, he presents his own views on love.

Starting off, he offers his own interpretation of Adam and Eve as the core of his ideal. Adam and

Eve are essentially at one with one another (as Eve is made from a rib of Adam) and with nature

because they do not have to worry about their well-being. When they are thrown out of Eden the

source of their shame is that they realize they are not at one because of their gender differences

and they are separate and alone. Therefore he states his main point that, “love is the answer to the

problem of human existence” (Fromm 3). This holds Meaning that through love we can become

one again with ourselves despite gender and one with nature despite our biological differences.

With his interpretation of Adam and Eve he is able to use it as an analogy to his belief. Also with

use of syllogism (Adam and Eve want to return to one-ness, we are sons and daughters of Adam

and Eve, and thus we should want to return to one-ness) he effectively relates his theory to the

reader.

He explains also the three activities people partake in to alleviate the angst of solitude in

order to delve into this mystery and explain it. One is the relief through entrance into orgiastic

state such as being drunk or in a mystical trance. The second is conformity into society such as

joining groups or holding strong nationalistic pride. Lastly, creative activities specifically

worked on rather than factory line production overcomes this aloneness (Fromm 57). His use of

examples presents logical alternatives and answers to his problem. He emphasizes a mature form

of love such as “a union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity and one’s

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individuality” and where love is primarily giving not always receiving (Fromm 34). He states

“The inverse of mature love is immature love where attachments are symbiotic and not of a

loving or meaningful connection” (Fromm 58). He means that a relationship held with another is

held with selfish reasons and is devoid of love making it immature. One is the biological

attachment such as a child and his/her mother. The other form is sado/machism where the sadist

is in a relationship to control and dominate while the masochist is passive and generally has low

self-esteem so they stay in the domineering relationship. He uses emotional appeal of a tragic

occurrence to fuel our acceptance of his beliefs. Going back to his humanist philosophy he states

that man’s desire to overcome this separation is to know the secrets of the other man. He can

achieve this violently through torture, which is evident to a “child ripping the wings off a

butterfly” (Fromm 48) or he can achieve this goal through love. However, Fromm also presents

the idea that human secrets aren’t very deep because people inadvertently put up walls and after

a while you become bored of that person and seek to start again in a new relationship unless both

persons effectively break down their walls. Through his example of the butterfly, Fromm relates

Freud’s id and ego principles and engages the reader emotionally. Although the butterfly seems a

rather biased analogy he relates a common childhood activity, like that of frying ants with a

magnifier he is again able to reach the emotional side of the reader through that emotional

connection to his/her past.

He explains the basic elements needed in all which are care, responsibility, respect, and

knowledge following up with his informative stance in order to draw the reader in through

emotional appeal. He lists various elements of love which can be reasonably seen by the reader

as logical and possibly true. He plays on the reader’s emotional desire to know love, in that by

dissecting love the reader will follow his beliefs. First he states, care is worthy because care and

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‘active concern for the life and growth of that which we love’ is the basic element without which

love cannot exist (Fromm 68). He relates this by using an example of a mother and a child where

the mother’s care helps the infant grows, so must you in a relationship so that your partner can

develop and grow too. Responsibility is a voluntary response necessary to takeover care of the

needs of the other in your relationship. How as to not become sadistic and dominating as before-

mentioned you must see invoke respect. Respect is needed to prevent dominating as you respect

the person for they are their own unique individual and you won’t control them, but rather help

them grow and develop in their own sense. Lastly, knowledge is important for so that you can

relate and hold meaningful interaction between each other. He emphasizes his point with an

example stating that if you have knowledge of the other person you can tell their emotions and

help them in their times of need. While explaining the aspects of love he connects to the reader

on an emotional love by offering real world examples like the child and the mother and all of his

beliefs seem to fit together into each other like pieces to a big puzzle piece.

There are various types of love in his philosophy in which Fromm explains logically by

offering examples where again the reader cannot deny do to his impeccable logic. Brotherly love

consists of having a capacity to love all people despite social barriers. 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. Self-love emphasizes that you

love yourself for who you are. He defends this by stating it’s not selfish because you show love

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for everyone including yourself. He even takes the liberty to interpret another biblical quote of

“love thy neighbor” to mean that you love everyone in the world, so you should also love

yourself. This is an obvious dicto simplicitor. Parental love consists of love from your mother

and love from your father. Mother’s love is unconditional and she loves you just because you are

her child, while Father’s love is earned by doing tasks and deeds to be more like your father and

earn his respect. Fromm’s view is that in life you must balance these two to equalize your gender

polarity. Love for god or faith consists of not only belief of god, but a mystical and spiritual

relationship with goes where you become one with him. He idealizes Eastern religion over due to

their attempts of everything to be at one-ness and love everyone and everything, basically

pantheism. Erotic love consists of a mutual love between two people on a basis of physical

attraction. However, he states that if you keep the relationship only physical the intensity of the

relationship is bound to die. However if you incorporate brotherly love along with this physical

love you have a shared union that will last. The divisions of love given to us are aimed primarily

at our source of reason and again they overlap each other, seemingly pieces to a large puzzle, and

engage us on a humanist ground basically stating that we should love all people, but at different

levels. This is a perfect follow-up after initially bashing the readers initial beliefs as he informs

them of the truth.

Lastly, after he explains the theory of love he engages the reader on how to practice love.

General requirements that are necessary include discipline, concentration, patience, and concern

for mastery. By means of discipline he states that you should lead a normal life and devote time

to reading and exercise. However you shouldn’t engage in television or mystery novels or over

consume food or drink. By concentration he emphasizes that learning to be alone without any

distractions (eating, drinking, smoking..etc) and that we must focus on living in the present and

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disregarding the past or future, such as what Suzuki believed. Patience is required in that love is

a difficult art to master and you shouldn’t expect to easily learn it. Lastly, concern for mastery is

applied because you have to actively hold the desire to master it and that love won’t be mastered

as a complement of other activities. Fromm also recognizes qualities necessary for loving such as

absence of narcissism, development in humility, rational faith and activity. In order for any form

of love to work you must engage in them wholeheartedly without any narcissism because that

destroys the love for all things and your return to one-ness. Fromm believes in development in

humility as an important facet because as when you think objectively it is reason, but the

emotional attitude behind reason is humility which you must equally access. Rational Faith is

rooted in one’s personal experience of thought and feeling and allows people to hold faith in all

people and give you the ability to take risks. Lastly, the principle of activity is emphasized where

an internal “inner” productive use of one’s power is used where you are able to remain alone

which is his belief the main condition for loving. Through his explaining of how to practice love

he again connects with the reader after shattering his initial beliefs, telling him the truth about

love and now connects in a humanistic and emotional manner that these are the steps that are

going to improve your life. His insightful advice again peer into the life of the reader and now

mainly emotional appeal is used to entice the reader.

Fromm effectively uses examples and different sources of reasoning and logic to connect

to his reader. His pattern of initially attacking the readers beliefs, then informing him of the truth

and finally how to practice truth is an impressive persuasive tool that is used. Throughout the

book he equivocates common place events that we as humans have done, such as looking only

for romantic love, and is able to relate his philosophy to these events by effectively debunking

them in his manner. His audience is simply the reader where he engages the reader and asks them

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questions and informs them as If you are actually sitting in a room with him telling him about

your problems. Fromm effectively employs many techniques to convery his philosophy of love

and persuade the reader that it is correct.

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Works Cited

Erich , Fromm. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper Collins, 1956. Print.

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