Erich Fromm
Pre-reading
Erich Fromm (March 23, 1900-March 18, 1980) was born in Germany and was educated as a psychoanalyst. In 1934 he immigrated to the United States, where he served as a professor at Columbia University and New York University, and traveled widely to speak at other universities throughout North America. Erich Fromm is widely appreciated for his insights on human relationships and the humanistic philosophy. Fromm’s writings are notable as much for their social and political commentary as for their philosophical and psychological underpinnings. His important works include Escape from Freedom (1941), a founding work of political psychology, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (1947), outlining Fromm’s theory of human character, and The Sane Society (1955), arguing in favor of a humanistic and democratic socialism.
The Art of Loving, first published in 1956, is Fromm’s most popular book. In this book, Fromm considers love to be an interpersonal creative human capacity rather than an emotion, and he views the experience of “falling in love” as evidence of one’s failure to understand the true nature of love, which he believes always involves the common elements of care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Seen in these terms, love is hard work, but it is also the most rewarding kind of work, and the ability to love becomes one of the most important things in life.
Presenting love as a skill that can be taught and developed, Fromm rejects the idea of love as something magical and mysterious that cannot be analyzed and explained. Fromm demonstrates that, although modern humans are alienated from each other and from nature and they seek refuge from their aloneness in romantic love and marriage, the qualities of care and responsibility are generally absent from most human relationships. He asserts that few people in modern society have respect for the autonomy of their fellow human beings, much less the objective knowledge of what other people truly want and need. Contrasting the current belief that a couple should be a well-assorted team, sexually and functionally, working towards a common aim, Fromm describes true love and intimacy in terms of willful commitment directed toward a single unique individual.