The Art of Loving

The Art of Loving is a slim volume of only a little over a hundred pages yet it packs one hell of a punch. Written some fifty years ago, here is a more damning indictment of modern society than anything the existential crowd of Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus or Jean Paul Sartre could cook up. The Art of Loving is a very concise and pithy read, it is written in the terse lucid style of gospel, each word in each line serving a critical function. This is not a writer's style nor is a critic's but that of a scientist, impartial and wholly objective - some may think of it as cold. But it is also easy to see that it is written by a man who is completely at ease with his ideas, who has followed them to their natural conclusion - that Love is a dead flower; and only one in a million may ever resurrect it in his or her life.

Something as audacious a title as The Art of Loving could only have been pulled off by a man of the calibre of Bertrand Russell, and as a social philosopher, reformer and rebel Erich Fromm is no less great a name. As a psychoanalyst, he diverged from the typical Freudian obsession with unconscious drives and insisted on the importance of economic and social factors for mental well-being. His works are noted for their emphasis on a "sane society", one which is based on rational human needs and where individuality is not compromised in the name of economics or authority. Erich Fromm is one of the pivotal figures in the Humanist movement that reared its head for a short flicker after World War II. His highly influential works (including Man for Himself, Escape from Freedom, The Sane Society, etc.) paint the pathetic picture of dazed consumer and encourage a renaissance of new, enlightened values to salvage our humanity.

And it's more than just talk - in The Art of Loving, Fromm quotes effortlessly from Marx, Huxley, Rumi and several religious texts to hammer in his points. Is Love really an art? Undoubtedly, he answers, in as much as Life itself is an art - which has a very nice ring to it, but seems to be a wholly outdated formula - and which is where our problems begin. The world is a Market today, Fromm says, and our whole culture is based on the idea of a "mutually favourable exchange". So it is with people and 'Attractive' usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market" - which is largely a Hollywood construct - and how "Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human relations follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and labour market."

Fromm goes on to establish the necessity of Love to human existence. He lists the most common ways people use to deal with the riddle of existence. Either they opt for sensations and all manner of orgiastic states - which explains drugs and sex - and in that brief flash of heightened sensitivity and consciousness pick up the idea that they're alive - which also explains addiction. Or they go for the "herd instinct", blending in, fitting in, taking the 9-to-5 routine just like everyone else, doing what everyone else does in a normal capitalist culture, looking to the herd for guidance, individuality only surfacing in pathetic, superficial deviations from the norm, "the initials on the handbag, the nameplate of the bank teller, etc." And last is artistic expression, the act of creation, union with the object one has created. But all these are partial answers - none permit a union that is anything more than temporary and little more than skin deep. The only logical answer to human existence is Love.

The most interesting chapter is Love and its Disintegration in Contemporary Western Society. Love is undoubtedly the most misunderstood, misinterpreted and oft-quoted word in our cultural vocabulary, so much so that hardly anyone even knows what it means anymore apart from "boy meets girl" and "happily ever after" - French romances and Hollywood have made it an effective economic formula. The average individual grows up thinking that it is a birthright of sorts, a "given", something that will inevitably "set him free", the world will suddenly resonate with colours - and in the meantime he must make something of himself, he must establish a secure foundation to guarantee that his mate sticks with him: for the male it is usually economic security, and for the female, perfecting her charm.

Fromm discusses oftentimes what passes off for Love nowadays. One of the most common - and familiar - perceptions is that of "the smoothly functioning team", an alliance of two against the world; which is little more than a glorious manifestation of ego, a smoothly running script, almost a computer programme. And there are the people who shed tears at the cinema over a romantic tragedy, who live only in their heads, or in the distant future, their own lives and marriages nothing more than simple routine. And the reasons are always the same: Humanity has been subordinated to Economics. Fromm goes on to elaborate: "Modern capitalism needs men who co-operate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free and independent,