Flawed Conception of Love relationships: Few reflections from Erich Fromm
One may start with the pointed observation that Erich Fromm makes in his illuminating book The Art of Loving that despite so much attention that the matter of “love” receives, the question is, why does it fail so frequently in our world? Why do most of the so-called love relationships spin off into bitter hatreds? Fromm notes that its genesis lies in the mistaken assumption that love comes easily without any ethical prerequisites. Probably one of the most brilliant insights that Fromm comes up with is the fact that a good, loving, humble & compassionate relationship naturally demands the fact that the individual human beings tied up in that relationship are themselves loving, humble, unselfish and compassionate. A good, healthy, loving human relationship is only enabled by inner goodness of the people that compose that relationship. Therefore, to formulate a successful human relation, ethical disciplining of one’s own self is a prerequisite. For example, as long as one is egotistical and self-centered, one cannot properly contribute in a loving & giving relationship.
It is completely taken for granted that one’s own character, individual being, one’s own ethic, goodness, humility, arrogance, selfishness, and other personal traits will not have their ripple effects on the relationships that the individual is going to enter into. Love is given such a naively neutral station as if it isn’t part of who we are. Falling in love does not necessarily mean that one has been purified of all psychopathological tendencies. Falling in love may give rise to “all is good” kind of a pleasant sensation but soon ego pathology surfaces up in these relationships, thus making the inevitable point of the unavoidable prerequisite of individual soul making as a preliminary necessity.
The problem with prevalent dominant conception of (most of the) love relations is the fact that the “I” is at the center. One is not “loving” but in love with the feeling of being loved. Most of the so-called sad poetry that saturates social media is all about so and so left “me”, why don’t they love “me”, etc. This psychology has to do with unconscious infantile mode of relationship (of childhood) where one was at the center of maternal love. First of all one has to realize that the “world” is not the “mother”. One has to come out of this infantile mode of being where one expects people or world to function & behave like one’s own “mother” whose love expectedly is perfect, total, predictable and without malice. Once one comes out of this “mother complex” (which unconsciously drags people down emotional tortures soon after “world” in general or some human in particular forsakes them), one is instantly treated. Following this, one has to next realize that love in its essence means expansion of being; it is a virtue & not a reductive pleasant sensation or feeling. Ego cocoon, when broken free, gives rise to love. It is a result of ethical goodness. A human being who is “loving”, sees every other human being as part of his own self/being. “Wish for the other what you wish for yourself” is the ultimate Prophetic definition of a mature “loving” human being. This flowering out of one’s horizon of being/self is love. This expansion of self naturally renders all selfishness irrelevant.
Love is “giving” in its very nature rather than expecting the fact that one should be put at some high pedestal, by others, like an infant. Again, Fromm highlights the importance of self-work for formulating healthy mature human relations and that is by “sacrificial love” he doesn’t mean “giving up” things in the sense of a buying-selling dynamic but rather it is the overflowing of one’s own bliss that is shared with the other. It is one’s own inner stability and strength that makes one “loving” rather than arrogantly and narcissistically expecting others to love them.
It is for these reasons that Fromm considers love as an “art” (or a mode of being) that needs sincere effort rather than a reductive pleasant sensation that one “falls” into. A loving human relation has ethical prerequisites and needs self work. For Fromm, people confuse initial “falling in love” sensation with the permanent state of “being in love” which demands permanent character traits — requiring prior self work. Here Fromm makes another brilliant point that needs our attention; he says that the initial intense feeling of falling in love is in fact an indication of one’s own previous loneliness. The intensity of “falling in love” gradually starts to fade out once the participants in the relation get more acquainted with each other; disappointments begin to surface up because the original inherent loneliness sticks its head out again. One recalls here Jung’s and Campbell’s point that most infatuations are projections of one’s own inherent ideal images which begin to shatter as the real person emerges from beneath the projected image, leading to creation of multiple fault lines. If one is selfish and lonely (owing to persistent ego-centeredness which fails to participate with the “collective” where ego has to recede), the initial intensity of so called “falling in love” followed by its failure essentially points to deeper individual problem of the person.
Fromm traces the repercussions of mistaking love as “being loved” rather than “being loving” to a problematic mentality. Under this mentality, a person is more concerned with how to be more “lovable” as an “object” and, therefore, starts with the trajectory of self objectification. It is not surprising, says Fromm, that people today market themselves out as products. One invests in (say, for example) gym, guitar skills, etc to increase one’s “market value” in the capitalistic transaction (ironically) called as “love”. Young boys and girls, as one observes the social media space, seem to forcefully put themselves out there as “objects” with certain “skills” (like functionalities of a child toy bought from a toy store) in order to be loved by the audience.
An irritation of seeking attention from others all the time inherently points to one’s own deep loneliness that actually calls for serious self work to amend the problem. Marketing oneself as a product with certain set of high value functionalities stems from deep rooted ego-centeredness which is caught up in an eternal thirst of validation and love from others. This is a result of childish mode of being where one projects oneself as an “infant” to be loved by others rather than a mature individual who loves other person as an “other”.
Most relations in today’s world come crashing down simply because the foundation work is very poor. Physical abuse, mental abuse, and all kinds of problems are testament to the fact that we assume mere “falling in love” guarantees individual human goodness when in fact it needs prior individual self work.
