The Esnce of Love
Brief Introduction
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) is known as one of the most outstanding figures of the 20th century humanism. As a figure received wide-spread reception and influence all over the world, he is also an excellent and successful writer who books were translated into many other major languages and earns a readership of many millions.
Fromm's best ller The Art of Loving, first published in 1956, is an interesting treati on love in the modern world. The excerpt here from it discuss the esnce of love, in which Fromm talks about the theory of love—“love is an activity”, and “莲花茶it is primarily giving, not receiving”. Mature love, Fromm states, is an attitude toward all of humanity, not just a single object of love. Using the concept of "半盏屠苏犹未举productive love," Fromm here shows the conquences of a humanistic ethics for the understanding of lf-love, love of one's neighbor, and love of one's fellow man.
The style of the writing is ter (简洁的) with the rich u of parallelism and omission; though the words are plain and simple, they freshly convey the ideas rich in philosophy when the author explored from a new angle and showed a unique understanding of a theme so common that everyone may em an expert yet may find misunderstanding here and there. Even though the essay was written almost half a century ago, such exploration is still relevant and instructive to loving people and the beloved ones in the twenty-first century.
The Esnce of Love
by Erich Fromm
In contrast to symbiotic高清写真 union, mature love is union under the condition of prerving one's integrity, one's individuality. Love is an active power in man; a power which breaks through the walls which parate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the n of isolation and parateness, yet it permits him to be himlf, to retain his integrity. In love the paradox occurs that two beings be
come one and yet remain two.
If we say love is an activity, we face a difficulty which lies in the ambiguous meaning of the word “activity". By “activity,'' in the modern usage of the word, is usually meant an action which brings about a change in an existing situation by means of an expenditure of energy. Thus a man is considered active if he does business, studies medicine, works on an endless belt, builds a table, or is engaged in sports. Common to all the activities is that they are directed toward an outside goal to be achieved. What is not taken into account is the motivation of activity. Take for instance a man driven to incessant work by a n of deep incurity and loneliness; or another one is driven by ambition, or greed for money. In all the cas the person is the slave of a passion, and his activity is in reality a “passivity" becau he is driven; he is the sufferer, not the “actor''. On the other hand, a man sitting quiet and contemplating, with no purpo or aim except that of experiencing himlf and his oneness with the world, is considered to be “passive," beca
u he is not “doing" anything. In reality, this attitude of concentrated meditation is the highest activity there is, an activity of the soul, which is possible only under the condition of inner freedom and independence. One concept of activity, the modern one, refers to the u of energy for the achievement of external aims; the other concept of activity refers to the u of man' s inherent powers, regardless of whether any external change is brought about. The latter concept of activity has been formulated most clearly by Spinoza[1]. He differentiates among the affects between active and passive affects, “actions" and “passions". In the exerci of an active affect, man is free, he is the master of his affect; in the exerci of an passive affect, man is driven, the object of motivations of which he himlf is not aware. Thus Spinoza arrives at the statement that virtue and power are one and the same. Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of a human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as the result of a compulsion. 五成语
Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a “standing in,"[2] not a “falling for." [3] In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.
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What is giving? Simple as the answer to this question ems to be, it is actually full of ambiguities and complexities. The most widespread misunderstanding is that which assumes that giving is "giving up" something, being deprived of, sacrificing. The person who character has not developed beyond the stage of the receptive, exploitative, or hoarding orientation, experiences the act of giving in this way. The marketing character is willing to give, but only in exchange for receiving; giving without receiving for him is being cheated. People who main orientation is a non-productive one feel giving as an impoverishment. Most individuals of this type therefore refu to give. Some make a virtue out of giving in the n of a sacrifice. They feel that just becau it is painful to give, one should give; the virtue of giving to them lies in ht every act of acceptance of the
简笔画小女孩sacrifice. For them, the norm that it is better to give than to receive means that it is better to suffer deprivation than to experience joy.
For the productive character, giving has an entirely different meaning. Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience mylf as overflowing, spending如何注册qq[4], alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not becau it is a deprivation, but becau in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
It is not difficult to recognize the validity of this principle by applying it to various specific phenomena. The most elementary example lies in the sphere of x. The culmination of the male xual function lies in the act of giving; the man gives himlf, his
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xual organ, to the woman . At the moment of orgasm he gives his men to her. He cannot help giving it if he is potent. If he cannot give, he is impotent. For the woman the process is not different, although somewhat more complex. She gives herlf too; she opens the gates to her feminine center; in the act of receiving, she gives. If she is incapable in this kind of giving, if she can only receive, she is frigid. With her act of giving occurs again, not in her function as a lover, but in that as a mother. She gives of herlf to the growing child within her, she gives her milk to the infant, she gives her bodily warmth. Not to give would be painful.
