The Art of Loving

by Erich Fromm

Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving,

the assumption that the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of a faculty.

Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values.

the confusion between the initial experience of “falling” in love, and the permanent state of being in love,

If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life.

of the fact that without his will he is born and against his will he dies,

The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety.

But while recognizing their separateness they remain strangers, because they have not yet learned to love each other

The deepest need of man, then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness.

Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists,

that while it is true that we are all one, it is also true that each one of us is a unique entity, is a cosmos by itself.

That all men are equal inasmuch as they are ends, and only ends, and never means to each other.

Equality today means “sameness,” rather than “oneness.”

In any kind of creative work the creating person unites himself with his material, which represents the world outside of himself.

Without love, humanity could not exist for a day.

Do we refer to love as the mature answer to the problem of existence, or do we speak of those immature forms of love which may be called symbiotic union?

In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality.

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a “standing in,” not a “falling for.” In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.

Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love.

Care and concern imply another aspect of love; that of responsibility.

If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use.

In the view of the wise, Heaven is man and Earth woman: Earth fosters what Heaven lets fall.

Motherly love by its very nature is unconditional. Mother loves the newborn infant because it is her child, not because the child has fulfilled any specific condition, or lived up to any specific expectation.

But while father does not represent the natural world, he represents the other pole of human existence; the world of thought, of man-made things, of law and order, of discipline, of travel and adventure.

Brotherly love is love for all human beings; it is characterized by its very lack of exclusiveness.

Affirmation of the child’s life has two aspects; one is the care and responsibility absolutely necessary for the preservation of the child’s life and his growth. The other aspect goes further than mere preservation. It is the attitude which instills in the child a love for living,

Motherly love, in this second step, makes the child feel: it is good to have been born; it instills in the child the love for life,

Milk is the symbol of the first aspect of love, that of care and affirmation. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, the love for it and the happiness in being alive. Most mothers are capable of giving “milk,” but only a minority of giving “honey” too.

In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate.

But sexual desire can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer or be conquered, by vanity, by the wish to hurt and even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by love.

they are easily misled to conclude that they love each other when they want each other physically.

If the desire for physical union is not stimulated by love, if erotic love is not also brotherly love, it never leads to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense.

They have the experience of overcoming aloneness, yet, since they are separated from the rest of mankind, they remain separated from each other and alienated from themselves; their experience of union is an illusion.

To love somebody is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.

To love somebody is the actualization and concentration of the power to love. The basic affirmation contained in love is directed toward the beloved person as an incarnation of essentially human qualities.

If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself too; if he can love only others, he cannot love at all.

The selfish person is interested only in himself, wants everything for himself, feels no pleasure in giving, but only in taking. The world outside is looked at only from the standpoint of what he can get out of it; he lacks interest in the needs of others, and respect for their dignity and integrity. He can see nothing but himself; he judges everyone and everything from its usefulness to him; he is basically unable to love.

God cannot have a name. A name always denotes a thing, or a person, something finite. How can God have a name, if he is not a person, not a thing?

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.

Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature.[24] He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.

In “love” one has found, at last, a haven from aloneness. One forms an alliance of two against the world, and this egoism à deux is mistaken for love and intimacy.

Sullivan’s description refers to the experience of the alienated, marketing personality of the twentieth century. It is a description of an “egotism à deux,” of two people pooling their common interests, and standing together against a hostile and alienated world.

Love as mutual sexual satisfaction, and love as “teamwork” and as a haven from aloneness, are the two “normal” forms of the disintegration of love in modern Western society, the socially patterned pathology of love.

Their aim is to be loved, not to love.

If a person has not reached the level where he has a sense of identity, of I-ness, rooted in the productive unfolding of his own powers, he tends to “idolize” the loved person.

love is experienced only in phantasy and not in the here—and—now relationship

1st aspect lf sentimental love

As long as love is a daydream, they can participate; as soon as it comes down to the reality of the relationship between two real people—they are frozen.

He lives in the past or in the future, but not in the present.