Erich Fromm's reflections on love are relatively well known and important questions arise from them, such as: what does it mean to love? How can this feeling be maintained? Or maybe it's a temporary feeling?
Last update: January 20, 2022
Erich Fromm's art of loving is a precious source of inspiration for reflecting on love. This author has been able to consider love as an art, a feeling that we all have the potential to feel, but which requires care. Let's see in this article some reflections on Erich Fromm's love.
Erich Fromm's reflections on love are relatively well known and important questions arise from them, such as what does it mean to love? How can this feeling be maintained? Is love temporary?
The study of love by this humanist psychologist and philosopher is distinguished by its enormous maturity. He understands love as an art, the result of a previous learning. He understands that it is necessary to take care of it and cultivate it.
“The first step is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art. If we want to learn to love, we must proceed in the same way we would if we wanted to learn any other art, music, painting, woodworking or the art of medicine or engineering.
-Erich Fromm-
Reflections on love by Erich Fromm
Mature love
The author distinguishes between mature love and childhood love. He speaks of love as a need and the need for the other as a consequence of love:
Childhood love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved". Mature love obeys the principle: "I am loved because I love". Immature love says: "I love you because I need you". Mature love says, "I need you because I love you."
-Erich Froom-
This principle questions how we relate to each other in society and does not hesitate to state that we do it more out of necessity than to share our love with another person.
He thinks that sharing your feelings requires connection, understanding and care. This is to avoid entrusting another person with the task of meeting their needs.
Using love to escape loneliness
When we use love to escape from our discomforts, we are doomed to destroy it. If we use this feeling as a refuge from what we can't stand in our lives, we will run away from ourselves.
"Love as mutual sexual satisfaction, and love as teamwork and as a refuge from loneliness, constitute the two normal forms of the disintegration of love in contemporary Western society, of the socially determined pathology of love"
-Erich Fromm-
This way of loving becomes something pathological, since it means not paying attention to our personal growth.
It involves not listening to ourselves and expecting others to take responsibility for what we are not capable of and which is actually within our area of ​​responsibility.
If we behave this way we will leave happiness in the hands of another person, therefore we will be extremely vulnerable.
Seeing in others what we cannot bear in ourselves it is a childish way of not wanting to take responsibility for one's own existence, with what derives from it. When we transform love into an instrument, as an escape route to avoid finding ourselves, we lose our ability to love and honesty in relating to ourselves.
Fromm considers love an art. Art must be cultivated, nurtured, protected; the same love. If we think that love is about finding the "right" person, we will only project our flaws in the hope that it will make us happy. Love is the opposite, it is giving and not expecting too much to receive.
Reflections on love by Erich Fromm: active energy
Love is energy that comes from the satisfaction of our basic needs. Erich Fromm understands that this energy must be mobilized, it is not enough to feel it, but also to live it. This is only possible if you take care of it and feed it.
In a relationship some difficulties are inevitable and even necessary, obstacles that cause negative emotions to be reckoned with.
It is good to welcome these emotions and understand that obstacles often come from aspects that we do not give due importance. Emotions are our most intimate and personal language, and they also serve us to relate to each other in a more honest way.
“Love is a constant challenge; not a place of rest, but a move, grow, work together; that there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two beings experience each other from the essence of their existence, that they are with each other being one with themselves and not running away from themselves " .
-Erich Fromm-
Conclusions
Erich Fromm's reflections on love reflect the importance of the couple's union, as alone from a deep and mutual knowledge it is possible to build a solid foundation, on which love can evolve.
It is a mistake to run away from oneself, since in doing so a healthy and reciprocal exchange is not possible. If we run away from ourselves and our partner, one day we will find that nothing authentic supports our relationship, just the need to fill a void.
That day we will feel unhappy and sad. We will understand that the relationship was some kind of farce with the sole purpose of entertaining us. Because of this first of all it is important to know how to be with yourself and love yourself in a healthy way.
