I can't remember what caused me to download this. It must've been a whim of some sort, maybe in seeking another book exploring the elusive concept of charisma, this was referenced. That seems most likely considering the argument this book, The Art of Loving, attempts to make. It attempts to make the point that the average person has lost the ability to love. That the loving person, the charismatic, charming, person is so rare in this modern Western society because the system we rely on to guide us, guides us away from the basic skill set it takes to love.
Many people should object wholeheartedly to this. If I flagged down the regular passerby and asked them to honestly say if they have ever loved, they would invariably say yes, assuming of course they didn't judge the question too personal to begin with. Fromm would say that the way the average person views love is a meaningless distortion. He describes our modern conception of love as seeking and attaining a commodity; a side-effect of living in a capitalist society with relatively free markets that determine value of certain products and services. We approach life in a way that gives us the most potential to succeed, which can be easily reduced to making enough money to have shelter, to feed ourselves, to clothe ourselves, and to progress in some way continuously into the future, much like the economy, with a constant hunger for innovation. So when we seek out a partner, we're not seeking out someone to love, we're seeking out someone to use to further our potential for success. We're looking for security, an investment in the future.
I can't disagree with this sentiment and I wish I were immune to it, but I'm certainly not. I don't value money as much as most people because I make enough to be completely self-sufficient. I never have to worry about making rent, or buying nice clothes, or feeding myself. So when I meet a girl, her financial security isn't something I generally think about, but there is another way that I do judge a potential girlfriend. She has to know a thing or two about the arts, film, music, and literature, and if she isn't already knowledgeable, she has to be ready and willing to learn what I know. I view my experience in that subject matter to be an investment toward my future and I'm seeking someone to make that investment more secure. There are many examples of the arts which I'm sure have no productive influence on my life, but I still value them very highly and expect the people around me to do the same. I think sometimes the fact that they might have similar interests and obsessions would result in good character traits, but I should look for those traits directly instead of expecting to have so much in common with someone in a world where everyone's interests are so unique.
Fromm would say that what people should look for in a mate is universal kindness, but only after first nurturing universal kindness for yourself because you'll only be able to recognize it after cultivating it in your own personality. He used a term toward the end of this book effectively to describe this kindness, rational faith. He said rational faith is the confidence you have in yourself and in the people around you. It's an undercurrent of instinct that guides each action. To have a strong sense of rational faith you diminish your potential to feel anxiety or depression because you always feel the buoyancy of a strength in self and a clear picture of the people around you. If the overall sentiment is negative toward a given conflict then it obviously points to a personal weakness, which you should strive to improve, or it points to the weakness of your company which you can't expect to improve, but through a well-honed ability for empathy, you should be able to anticipate the reaction.
There are a lot of really profound ideas presented, but to discuss each one would make this already long blog post much too long. So I'll just say here that this is essential reading for anyone who wants to be fully aware of their emotions. And to see that the major lessons we can learn about our most human emotions aren't being taught to us because the system wouldn't profit from it. We were born into a framework that would prefer us to be automatons, skilled, efficient, obedient to our leaders, and argumentative toward our competition. Universal kindness would cause the capitalist system to not work anymore. It would cause us to share, to feel empathy toward those less advantaged, to spend time appreciating life and the people around us. We'd stop hoarding money, we'd stop arguing, we'd stop trying to impose and project our own priorities onto other people. We'd stop diminishing other people. Fromm noted at the end that a society that doesn't teach love will inevitably fall and I believe him. I guess we'll see how things go.
5/5
