About this title: "Love," says Dr. Fromm, "is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." In this long-established classic of psychology, Dr. Fromm shows how learning to love, like other arts, demands practice and concentration. He explains why he believes that most of us are unable to develop our capacities for love on the only level that really counts--a love that is based on maturity, self-knowledge, and courage--and shows readers how to attain such a love. He discusses love in all its aspects, not only romantic love, but also the love of parents for children, brotherly love, erotic ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Bantam ed.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, New York
Date Published: 1970
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by previous owner. Nice soft cover, lightly read, shelf wear to cover, top corner of front cover torn off, aging, small tear on side of back cover & last few pages, stk #2401q7. viii, 118 p.; 18 cm. read more
Description: PB, A Bantam Book, #S4182, New York, 1970, 29th printing. Covers are showing lightly soil, light wear to edges, contents lightly browned, tight and clean. Fair. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date Published: 1974
ISBN-13:9780060802912ISBN:006080291X
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Highlighting/underlining. a lot of wear to cover; RTB197. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Harper & Row Publishers, New York
Date Published: 1962
Description: Good. No Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Good clean flat paperback with only very light overall wear. previous owner name and date inside front cover in ink. pages clean and unmarked. nice copy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bantam
Date Published: 1970
Description: Good. -31st Printing--118 pgs. Interior-Nice overall condition. The paperback cover has only light signs of aging. -Publish Place: New York-Size: 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: 1967
Description: Fair. Moderate Shelfwear Overall. Scuffed Covers, front cover creased. Un-Creased, taped Spine. Edgewear. Marks on first page. Marks & Underlining in text. pb06s02. read more
"ok, i finally made it through "Die Kunst des Liebens"! So he is not kidding when he says this is not a book of trivial relationship advice, it is a book about love in the deepest sense. It was on the shelf at the local library in the Frau-Mann section (man woman) and where it really belonged was somewhere in the philosophy-sociology-psychology section, because it is not about romantic love but love for your fellow man, for God, for yourself, for your family, and also for your partner and how love for your partner cannot exist in a person who has not cultivated these other types of love. So if you are looking for chocolate mousse (as I admit I was) you can forget it and pull out your steak knife because this is heavy going. I actually had to draw diagrams with the major topics or statements to visualize more clearly where he was going with all these ideas.
That said, it was absolutely worthwhile. In fact, I suppose worthwhile food for thought would be a terrible understatement. Even at the points where I disagreed with him (felt he was lacking a sense of humour, or overgeneralizing how people in a Western, capitalistic society think and operate, where I know personally too many exceptions to buy every one of his blanket statements) it was completely useful and worthwhile to think about where I disagreed and why. Instead of or in addition to whatever relationship advice I may have wanted to hear, I read a book which oddly enough actually helped me learn to concentrate while playing a 3 to 4 hour opera where I normally would get distracted! It also is helping me listen more carefully to what my friends are saying, and made me totally rethink major concepts such as "selflessness", respect for ones-self, generosity, discipline, and more. Again, I don't agree with everything....(the bit about masculine and feminine roles and characteristics made me bristle!) and some of the ideas sound so dated they are hysterically funny (you will know what I mean if you reach the part at the end which talks about murder mystery type books and because of this passage my boyfriend and I have been unfairly making fun of the book for weeks)......however.....
all that said, I am still chewing over his ideas and I actually think that if I can keep the ideas fresh in mind, my life will be largely different and better for having read the book (!!)"
"Eric Fromm follows marxist and freudean traditions. He develops the concept of loving as an art and sets about developing a theory and some guidelines for practice. Fromm belongs to the Frankfurt school of critical theory which means that his neo-Marxist aproach is one that aims to develop a practical humanism instead of a communist orthodoxy. The works of Fromm and others of the school of Frankfurt would influence the likes of Che Guevara in asmuch as leftists advocate for brotherly love. This read was insightful in many ways, not so much for challenging my set of belives but rather helping me organize ideas and values that I was already processing regarding the different types of love, vis-a-vis sexual attraction and alienation. There is much material regarding the pursuit of love as a "meat market" (my term) in relation to the comodification of relationships and the drive for consumption that organizes all of our actions as automatons within Western consumerist society. I appreciated that Fromm aims to be constructive and not simply descriptive. In once instance, he encourages the development of mature love by descriving observable qualities of immature erotic love using freudean speak. My only complaint here is that these obervations are male-based where a female based description of inmature love would have been of equal value. Much more could be said about the value of this work. Its clear and straight forward language and the universality of the topic makes it a great introduction to the work of Fromm and the marxist line of thought. A solid good-read."
"I underestimated the power of this rather unsophisticated looking book. I have no idea who Fromm is but I imagine since he's a German Jew and lived through both world wars that he's a pretty insightful scholar. He writes so eloquently about what love is and what is it not that I felt enlightened with every sentence. Actually, I was imagining myself as bell hooks reading it for the first time in preparation to write All About Love. So many of her premises are grounded in Fromm's theories and I love All About Love. Basically Fromm argues that love is an art that requires practice and it requires that we get outside of ourselves enough to want to get into the deeper parts of another person. He writes about the human passion for connectedness and our angst with the constant knowledge of our separation from the world. Love is a form of (re)union that puts us back in connection with God and earth and other beings. Sometimes we try to recreate that union with sex but sex without love does not solve the problem in earnest. He writes a lot about how love attachments are formed in childhood through our parental relationships-a mother's love is unconditional; a father's love is earned. He argues that our concept of a father God is rather infantile because we only aim (in Christianity in particular) to gain the approval of God instead of aiming to be like God-the embodiment of love. He admits to not believing in God so his God love sections are biased, but thought-provoking nonetheless. He also makes the argument that God had to become love. Well, that's not his argument really, but after reading I understand God becoming love throughout the Old Testament in his increasing promises not to simply kill as punishment anymore until we get to Jesus as the perfect sacrifice. I like the idea of God growing into love and me trying to be like God-it suggests that there is hope. I like his idea of love and sex as essentially giving and how one cannot love if one is either selfish or selfless because self-love is the premise for all other types of love and how one cannot have erotic love without brotherly love because to love the object of one's erotic affection is to embody the capacity to love humankind. Good stuff. All day."
"This is a slender and pithy (132 page) classic (1956) well worth reading. Fromm argues that there has been a disintegration of love in Western society. Not just romantic love (though that's a good part of it), but also love generally -- love for neighbors, for family, for humanity.
The problem, he argues, is that our rationalistic, capitalistic society is highly individualized, and hence promotes a kind of narcissism in which love is all about being loved, a kind of what's-in-it-for-me attitude. This is very selfish. This is not love.
Fromm compares this logic to Eastern logic, which calls "paradoxical thought" because it revels in absurdities that reveal the limitations of human cognition. Eastern logic doesn't waste time on arguing about whether or not one believes in God. It focuses on the here and now, on how to live life with compassion and kindness.
My favorite passage:
"The idea that one could find the truth in thought led not only to dogma, but also to science. In scientific thought, the correct thought is all that matters, both from the aspect of intellectual honesty, as well as from the application of scientific thought to practice...In short, paradoxical thought has led to tolerance and an effort toward self-transformation. The Aristotelian standpoint led to dogma and science, to the Catholic Church, and to the discovery of atomic energy."
(this, by the way, is more or less the same argument as Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)
Like the Eastern mystics, Fromm advises those seeking to learn the art of loving to practice practice practice an open and giving kindness, a selflessness that is not looking to fulfill needs. He presses us to mindfulness and patience and awareness.
"If I am attached to another person because I cannot stand on my own feet," he writes, "he or she may be a lifesaver, but that relationship is not one of love."
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