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\title{Erich Fromm's \underline{The Art Of Loving} and Irving Singer's
\underline{The Pursuit of Love}}
\author{David Golombek}
\date{April 4, 1998}

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\maketitle
\newpage

\section{Introduction}
{\Large
Erich Fromm dictates a set of actions that an individual must perform
in order to be a loving individual in his book \underline{The Art of
Loving} (henceforth to be referred to as TAL).  Fromm bases these
actions on the underlying precept that loving is giving, and then
explores what actions are part of healthy loving and which are not.
Irving Singer, in his book \underline{The Pursuit of Love}
(henceforth TPL), instead argues that loving is a matter of the
bestowal and appraisal upon another of those qualities a person feels
is important.  He argues that in order for a relationship to be fully
loving, each partner must both give and take seomthing from the
relationship, although taking is broadly defined here.  Despite
covering very similar territory, the two authors have very different
emphases and styles, and the two books end up diverging down separate
paths.  In this paper, I will pull together some of the issues covered
by both authors, compare their commentary, and then add some of my
own, hopefully leading to a fusion of the two works, both of which are
very interesting on their own.
}
{\Large
Fromm takes a very instructorial approach to talking about love,
starting with the assumption that very few people in his society had
managed to find it.  The book was originally written in 1956, in
America in the boom after World War II, and Fromm is very convinced
that love is a dying art in his society.  He seems to take a very dim
view of his society, but perhaps it was in order; TAL was written less
than twenty years after \underline{Brave New World} 
(which despite being about British society, similarly held in America), a
book from which Fromm draws frequent reference.  Rather than attempt to
analyze why people had been failing in their attempts at love, Fromm
blaims their previous failures on misunderstanding of the subject.
He claims that the current norm of trying to find love is to wait for
others to fall in love with you, rather than taking an active role in
the matter.  Fromm instead proposes that love is a series of actions
that one must take, although there is no single series of actions that
works for everyone.  In particular, love is about giving to your
partner, especially care, respect, responsibility, and knowledge.  By
giving these four things to your partner, you show true love for them.
}
{\Large
Singer takes a much more relaxed approach in his writing, never flatly
coming out with all the ideas he is presenting, but rather wandering
through ideas, discussing each as they come along.  He ends up
mentioning all the same points as Fromm, and many others as well, but
does so in a much more round-a-bout course, as compared to Fromm's
straight arrow run through the subject.  Although TPL is broken up
into chapters on the different types of love (such as ``Sexual Love'',
``Love in Society'', and ``Religious Love''), each chapter covers so
much ground that one can get lost trying to navigate within it.  A
large part of the difference between Fromm and Singer's approaches is
that Fromm is a minimalist, attempting to cover only those details
that matter to his thesis, while Singer is attempting to be expansive,
discussing all parts of the subject.  
}

\section{Brotherly Love}
{\Large
Fromm uses the term brotherly love to describe love between neighbors
and friends, those without any filial or romantic relation between
them.  He takes the term from the bible (a frequent source of examples
for him), and uses it well to denote a special type of love.  Fromm
treats this as the most fundamental of all types of love because it is
perhaps the most difficult to hold.  This is the love for all people,
no matter their faults or sins, because they are human beings; this is
treating everyone as an equal, and giving aid to all.  This is the
full Christian ideal of loving your neighbor, and it is a mighty task
to live up to.  Unfortunately, after describing the ideal well, Fromm
gives no hints on how to attain it, unlike every other subject is his
book.  This is undoubtedly due to the difficulty of the question,
because while the theory of loving everyone sounds great, it becomes
much harder to maintain when in contact with the masses of society.  
}
{\Large
Singer uses the term ``Peer Love'' to describe something similar to
how Fromm uses ``brotherly love'', although Singer uses his term on a 
much more limitted basis.  Rather than extending peer love out towards
everyone, Singer sees it as something extended out to a few choice
friends.  He especially ties it to childhood, when we have the most
friends, rather than later in life when (for a majority of people),
your primary friend becomes your spouse.  Despite this much smaller
scope, this really is the same subject that Fromm was discussing,
because this is love for those whom you have no filial or romantic
ties, just simple friendship.  Because Singer limits the range of
those to whom peer love is extended, he is able to analyze it more
fully, covering how friends both like each other, and are like each
other, and how friendships can be based on so many different things.
}
{\Large
The love of everyone that Fromm describes as Brotherly Love is a
wondeful ideal, and perhaps the most important idea of the Christian
teachings.  Unfortunately, it is one that comes only with great
patience, compassion, and understanding, for the ways of many people
are frustrating and annoying, if not worse.  To accept the actions of
others, as much as you might disagree with them, and still love the
person who committed them, takes a great deal of caring and
forgiveness.  Certainly not many people are capable of Fromm's
botherly loving, which makes it questionable for him to say that it is
the basis for all other forms of love.  I would say that Singer's peer
love is the basis for all other forms of love, since it is the first
type of relationship that people develop (mother-child relationships,
discussed below, don't count, because they exist without work on the
child's part).  Fromm's brotherly love instead might be described the
highest form of loving, having reached plateau where one is capable of
loving everyone else.
}

\section{Mother-Child Love}
{\Large
While Freud seemed to trace everything back to sex, Fromm seems to
trace everything back to mother-child love, or father-child love.
Fromm sees the love a mother sees for her child as purest form of
love, because it is completely unconditional.  A mother will love her
child just for existing and living; the child doesn't need to do
anything to earn this loving, and would be hard pressed to do anything
to stop this loving.  By comparison, father-child love is much more
based on authority and priviledges, as the father is seen as a source
of both authority and power, holding both, and perhaps being willing
to dole some out his child, if the child is worthy.  Fromm sees the
unconditional love of a mother for her child as something that is
always missed after childhood, and as one of the things that people
are looking for in later relationships.
}
{\Large
Singer sees mother-child love as a somewhat less unconditional thing,
because mother requires feedback from the child to know it is alive
and doing well, and to see the child's growth and development.  He
also claims that a mother places demands on her child, a role reserved
for the father by Fromm.  A mother places social and civil
requirements on her children, and although these are usually presented
much less forcefully than a father's demands, they are equally
important to the child.  Singer presents a much broader role for the
father, allowing him to a much wider range of possible influences on
his child.  This is largely due to the change in child-rearing ideas
in between the times the two authors were writing, as a fathers role
has been largely redefined, and greatly broadened.
}
{\Large
Although Singer brings up an important point that a mothers point is
not entirely unconditional, I believe it's close enough for reasonable
approximation.  A mothers love for her child is simply there, and even
when a mother is enforcing rules, the removal of love is never a
threat.  This is one of the reasons that fathers are frequently better
at discipline --- the child tends to be more worried about the
punishment, and thus learns the lesson better, because they don't know
what will happen to them.  Children seem to learn extremely early that
their mother (usually) isn't capable of hurting them, and thus become
less worried about discipline from her.  
}

\section{Self Love}
{\Large 
Fromm's views on self love can be summarized by quoting yet another
author, Meister Eckhart, ``If you love yourself, you love everybody
else as you do yourself.  As long as you love another person less than
you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but
if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one
person and that paerson is both God and man.  Thus he is a great and
righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally.''
That is to say, self love is essential to loving other people, and
loving other people is essential to self love.  Unselfishness is a big
part of this, as to properly love other people (and yourself), you
cannot treat yourself above other people.  This pulls back in Fromm's
notions about brotherly love; he here ties a love of yourself into the
ability to love everyone else.  Unfortunately, Fromm does not explore
this chicken and egg problem, and merely leaves these as statements
that one may take or leave as desired.
}
{\Large
Singer mentions Fromm frequently in his treatment of self love,
pulling references from throughout TAL to put together his own
description of the subject.  Surprisingly, despite disagreeing with
all of Fromm's individual points throughout, Singer still comes to
a very similar conclusion to Fromm, that self love and love of others
are extremely intertwined.  However, Singer avoids the chicken and egg
problem that Fromm built into his definition by describing self love
and love of others as being cross-strenghening, being originally
separate, but growing stronger together and becoming more
intertwined.  Singer also claims that self love is a prerequisite for
all other types of love, that until one his happy with himself, he can
never love someone else.  
}
{\Large
Here I must entirely agree with Singer over Fromm; Fromm's views of
self love sound nice and are phrased very prettily, but they have
little real bearing on anything else.  Singer presents a much more
cohesive set of descriptions of self love, and how it is related to
other forms of love.  Self love can be both healthy or unhealthy, and
this is very much related to the selfishness that both authors
mention.  A fixation on yourself, with only self-adoration in mind, is
not healthy self love.
}

\section{Conclusion}
{\Large
Fromm and Singer both present a wide variety of views on a wide
variety of different types of love.  Each covers a great deal of
ground in his book, Fromm a bit more structuredly than Singer, but
Singer with more depth and development.  In those areas that they both
cover, it is interesting to see the similarities and differences
between their views.  In particular, both authors cover brotherly love
(love between non-filialy or romantically related people),
mother-child love, and self love.  Although both cover a wide variety
of other topics, it is on these subjects that they have the most
overlap.  Fromm tends to make more sweeping generalizations and not
back up his statemens as well on these subjects, but this is partly
because they are somewhat side stops on his route to showing how to be
a good lover.  Singer takes a more relaxed route through these
subjects, taking as much time as needed, and explores them more fully,
supporting his arguments and taking time to analyze other people's
claims.  
}
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