The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm

"Kjærlighet er det eneste sanne og tilfredsstillende svar på menneskelivets problem," sier Erich Fromm.

"Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love."

"Å bli elsket, ikke å elske er først og fremst menneskets oppfatning av hva kjærlighet er," mener Fromm. Og slik får kjærligheten alvorlige problemer.


Fromm har skrevet boken "Om kjærlighet". Orginaltittel: "The Art of Loving"

I denne boken beskriver han kjærligheten i videste forstand. Ikke bare den romantiske erotiske kjærligheten, men også kjærligheten til barn, mellom søsken og venner og kjærligheten til seg selv og til Gud.

Fromm fremsetter skarpt formulerte sannheter og slående iakttakelser relatert til kjærlighetens områder i vårt moderne samfunn. Han drøfter kjærligheten som en kunstform og berører kjærlighetens mange "teorier".

...

Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not towards one 'object' of love. If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. (Fromm 1957: 36)

The most fundamental kind of love, which underlies all types of love is brotherly love. By this I mean the sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life. This is the kind of love the Bible speaks of when it says: love thy neighbour as thyself. Brotherly love is love for all human beings; it is characterized by its very lack of exclusiveness. (Fromm 1957: 37)

Whilst we teach knowledge, we are losing that teaching which is the most important one for human development: the teaching which can only be given by the simple presence of a mature, loving person