Happy Birthday Erich Fromm!!! Erich Seligmann Fromm (March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory. The following are quotes from his book THE ART OF LOVING, a book Ive re-read many times and that has been an enormous influence. “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.” “Not so much because many occupations would not permit of a loving attitude, but because the spirit of a production-centered, commodity-greedy society is such that only the non-conformist can defend himself successfully against it. Those who are seriously concerned with love as the only rational answer to the problem of human existence must, then, arrive at the conclusion that important and radical changes in our social structure are necessary, if love is to become a social and not a highly individualistic, marginal phenomenon.” “Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.” “Love isnt something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isnt a feeling, it is a practice.” “Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.” “The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of ones narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while the phenomena in the outside world have no reality in themselves, but are experienced only from the viewpoint of their being useful or dangerous to one. The opposite pole to narcissism is objectivity; it is the faculty to see other people and things as they are, objectively, and to be able to separate this objective picture from a picture which is formed by ones desires and fears.” I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the persons reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears.” “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 they have arrived at their opinion as the result of their own thinking - and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as this of the majority.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 01:30:17 +0000
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