Brief Introduction
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) is known as one of the most outstanding figures of the 20th century humanism. As a figure received wide-spread reception and influence all over the world, he is also an excellent and successful writer whose books were translated into many other major languages and earns a readership of many millions.
Fromm's best seller The Art of Loving, first published in 1956, is an interesting treatise on love in the modern world. The excerpt here from it discusses the essence of love, in which Fromm talks about the theory of love—“love is an activity”, and “it is primarily giving, not receiving”. Mature love, Fromm states, is an attitude toward all of humanity, not just a single object of love. Using the concept of "productive love," Fromm here shows the consequences of a humanistic ethics for the understanding of self-love, love of one's neighbor, and love of one's fellow man.
The style of the writing is terse with the rich use of parallelism and omission; though the words are plain and simple, they freshly convey the ideas rich in philosophy when the author explored from a new angle and showed a unique understanding of a theme so common that everyone may seem an expert yet may find misunderstanding here and there. Even though the essay was written almost half a century ago, such exploration is still relevant and instructive to loving people and the beloved ones in the twenty-first century.
In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one' s integrity, one' s individuality. Love is an active power in man; a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
If we say love is an activity, we face a difficulty which lies in the ambiguous meaning of the word “activity". By “activity,'' in the modern usage of the word, is usually meant an action which brings about a change in an existing situation by means of an expenditure of energy. Thus a man is considered active if he does business, studies medicine, works on an endless belt, builds a table, or is engaged in sports. Common to all these activities is that they are directed toward an outside goal to be achieved. What is not taken into account is the motivation of activity. Take for instance a man driven to incessant work by a sense of deep insecurity and loneliness; or another one is driven by ambition, or greed for money. In all these cases the person is the slave of a passion, and his activity is in reality a “passivity" because he is driven; he is the sufferer, not the “actor''. On the other hand, a man sitting quiet and contemplating, with no purpose or aim except that of experiencing himself and his oneness with the world, is considered to be “passive," because he is not “doing" anything. In reality, this attitude of concentrated meditation is the highest activity there is, an activity of the soul, which is possible only under the condition of inner freedom and independence. One concept of activity, the modern one, refers to the use of energy for the achievement of external aims; the other concept of activity refers to the use of man' s inherent powers, regardless of whether any external change is brought about. The latter concept of activity has been formulated most clearly by Spinoza[1]. He differentiates among the affects between active and passive affects, “actions" and “passions". In the exercise of an active affect, man is free, he is the master of his affect; in the exercise of an passive affect, man is driven, the object of motivations of which he himself is not aware. Thus Spinoza arrives at the statement that virtue and power are one and the same. Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of a human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as the result of a compulsion.
Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a “standing in,"[2] not a “falling for." [3] In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.
What is giving? Simple as the answer to this question seems to be, it is actually full of ambiguities and complexities. The most widespread misunderstanding is that which assumes that giving is "giving up" something, being deprived of, sacrificing. The person whose character has not developed beyond the stage of the receptive, exploitative, or hoarding orientation, experiences the act of giving in this way. The marketing character is willing to give, but only in exchange for receiving; giving without receiving for him is being cheated. People whose main orientation is a non-productive one feel giving as an impoverishment. Most individuals of this type therefore refuse to give. Some make a virtue out of giving in the sense of a sacrifice. They feel that just because it is painful to give, one should give; the virtue of giving to them lies in ht every act of acceptance of the sacrifice. For them, the norm that it is better to give than to receive means that it is better to suffer deprivation than to experience joy.
For the productive character, giving has an entirely different meaning. Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending[4], alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
It is not difficult to recognize the validity of this principle by applying it to various specific phenomena. The most elementary example lies in the sphere of sex. The culmination of the male sexual function lies in the act of giving; the man gives himself, his sexual organ, to the woman . At the moment of orgasm he gives his semen to her. He cannot help giving it if he is potent. If he cannot give, he is impotent. For the woman the process is not different, although somewhat more complex. She gives herself too; she opens the gates to her feminine center; in the act of receiving, she gives. If she is incapable in this kind of giving, if she can only receive, she is frigid. With her act of giving occurs again, not in her function as a lover, but in that as a mother. She gives of herself to the growing child within her, she gives her milk to the infant, she gives her bodily warmth. Not to give would be painful.
In the sphere of material things giving means being rich. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much. The hoarder who is anxiously worried about losing something is, psychologically speaking, the poor, impoverished man, regardless of how much he has. Whoever is capable of giving of himself is rich. He experiences himself as one who can confer of himself to others. Only one who is deprived of all that goes beyond the barest necessities for subsistence would be incapable of enjoying the act of giving material things. But daily experience shows that what a person considers the minimal necessities depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possessions. It is well known that the poor are more willing to give than the rich. Nevertheless, poverty beyond a certain point may make it impossible to give, and is so degrading, not only because of the suffering it causes directly, but because of the fact that it deprives the poor of the joy of giving.
The most important sphere of giving, however, is not that of material things, but lies in the specially human realm. What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other — but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness — of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him; in truly giving, he cannot help receiving that which is given back to him. Giving implies to make the other person a giver also and they both share in the joy of what they had brought to life. In the act of giving something is born, and both persons involved are grateful for the life that is born for both of them. Specially with regard to love this means: Love is a power which produces love; impotence is the inability to produce love. This thought has been beautifully expressed by Marx: “Assume," he says, “man as man, and his relation to the world as a human one, and you can exchange love only for love, confidence for confidence, etc. If you wish to enjoy art, you must be an artistically trained person; if you wish to have influence on other people, you must be a person who has a really stimulating and furthering influence on other people. Every one of your relationships to man and to nature must be a definite expression of your real, individual life corresponding to the object of your will. If you love without calling forth love, that is, if your love as such does not produce love, if by means of an expression of life as a loving person you do not make of yourself a loved person, then your love is impotent, a misfortune.” But not only in love does giving mean receiving. The teacher is taught by his students, the actor is stimulated by his audience, the psychoanalyst is cured by his patient—provided they do not treat each other as objects, but are related to each other genuinely and productively.
It is hardly necessary to stress the fact that the ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person. It presupposes the attainment of a predominantly productive orientation; in this orientation the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic[5] omnipotence[6], the wish to exploit others, or to hoard[7], and has acquired faith in his own human powers, courage to rely on his powers in the attainment of his goals. To the degree that these qualities are lacking, he is afraid of giving himself—hence of loving.
Discussion Topics
1. According to Fromm, what’s the essence of love?
2. Erich Fromm gives a different meaning to the word “ passion ”. What is it ?
3. Different people have different understanding of “ giving ”. Explain how you understand it.
4. Fromm cited relationships such as those between the teacher and students, actor and audience, and doctor and patients as examples to illustrate the point that giving means receiving. Explain how they help support this point.
Notes
1. Spinoza : Spinoza is a Dutch Jewish philosopher and a major exponent of the 17th century rationalism. His major works include Ethics (1677) and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) .
2. stand in : be permanent , unchanging .
3. fall for : become passionately or blindly fond of girl; fall in love with
4. overflowing , spending: full of energy and vigor
5. narcissistic: adj. egocentric, self-centered, self-absorbed
6. omnipotence: n. power over all things without limit
7. hoard: vt./vi. save and store |
