Free Friends Forum 36: PAIRING TODAY FOR LIFE
The Highest Human Achievement: An Intimate, Equal, Permanent Partnership
“The Art of Loving” Book Quotes by Erich Fromm 0:20
I am currently building a new website: PAIRING TODAY FOR LIFE.
This will be a unique online matching service for more life mature—personally developed, self-actualizing—single females and males who are seeking consummate, permanent partnerships. This will be a continuance of my 1997 PARTNERS FOR LIFE in downtown Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
I was on Brisbane, Queensland TV “Women With Vision”
JACK CARNEY ON AUSTRALIAN TV PROGRAM "WOMEN WITH VISION" FEATURING "PARTNERS FOR LIFE" - Part 1 of 2
Take the Romantic Attraction Questionnaire (RAQ) and the Emotional Maturity Rating Form (EMRF) by Harld Bessell and discover how genuinely bonded and mature your relationships are/have been.
Email me, Jack, your RAQ and EMRF results for a no charge discussion: responsiblyfree@protonmail.com
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PSYCHOANALYST & PHILOSOPHER ERICH FROMM ON LOVE Aaron Ginoza, Feb 15, 20123. 1:22
[REVIEW] THE ART OF LOVING (ERICH FROMM) SUMMARIZED 9Natree, March 29, 2024. 6:13
These are takeaways from this book.
Firstly, Love as an Art, Erich Fromm establishes the central thesis of 'The Art of Loving' by arguing that love is not just a feeling but an art that requires knowledge, discipline, and effort.
Secondly, Components of Love, Fromm breaks down the components of love into four interconnected elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. He argues that each of these elements is essential in cultivating a loving relationship.
Thirdly, Love and Self-Discovery, Fromm posits a strong connection between the capacity to love others and the development of one’s self-love and identity. He suggests that true love is impossible without the foundation of self-awareness and acceptance.
Fourthly, The Obstacles to Love, Erich Fromm identifies several cultural and individual obstacles that hinder people’s capacity to love. He discusses the impact of modern capitalism, which promotes materialism, individualism, and an instrumental approach to human relationships. Fromm argues that these societal influences foster isolation and anxiety, making genuine love more challenging to achieve.
Lastly, Theory of Love as Union, Towards the end of 'The Art of Loving', Erich Fromm introduces his theory of love as a union – an active striving to integrate two beings, to overcome separateness and achieve interdependence while preserving individual integrity. This union involves mutual giving, not as an economic exchange, but as an expression of abundance and strength.
THE ART OF LOVING | THE ERICH FROMM CHANNEL. July 22, 2024. 1:46:13
A video essay based on the book 'The Art of Loving' by Erich Fromm. First published in 1956 , this bestselling work remains Fromm's most well known and widely read book. In 'The Art of Loving', Fromm penetrates the concept of love and explores the different types of love such as self-love, erotic love, love between a parent and child, and various pseudo-loves. He also explores many other threads connected to the art of loving, such as narcissism, destructiveness, herd conformity, and many other concepts.
ERICH FROMM ON LOVE'S TRANSFORMATIVE POWER: THE ART OF LOVING. Artificially Aware, Feb 23, 2024. 8:19
In this enlightening video, we embark on a profound journey guided by the wisdom of Erich Fromm, exploring the essence of love and its capacity to transform lives and society. Through an in-depth analysis of Fromm's seminal work, "The Art of Loving," we uncover the intricate components of love, the challenges of achieving genuine love in the modern world, and the profound impact love can have on personal growth and societal harmony. With a blend of philosophical insights, practical advice, and reflective questions, this video invites viewers to contemplate the art of loving as a skill that requires knowledge, effort, and a commitment to growth.
What is Modern Dating? | Erich Fromm and The Art of Loving. PhilosophyToons, April 3, 2023. 5:24
In 1956, Fromm observed that people focus on being loved rather than loving, and this is done by improving yourself in some way. This has led to “market thinking” when it comes to love, trying to find the best partner available to you considering what you offer in return. Fromm’s observations about love and society are not only validated but reinforced with the internet, where dating apps and social media presents us with more attractive options than ever.
A TALK I GAVE IN 1997 FOR MY “PARTNERS FOR LIFE” INTRODUCTION AGENCY FOR SINGLE MEN AND WOMEN SEEKING PERMANENT PARTNERSHIPS
The Intimate & Equal Permanent Partnership As The Ideal For Human Relationships.
Notice the word is “Part-nership” and not “Whole-nership”. Parts make up partnerships and not wholes. My theme is just this: we are all parts and none of us are wholes, entirely self-sufficient. That is, we need others to complete ourselves. I believe the most completing relationship is that of an equal and intimate permanent partnership.
The word “Part” comes from the same root as our word “Par” meaning equal. The kind of ideal partnership I aim at fostering, is an ideal whole mutually created by real equal parts committed to bringing out the best of each. Such a whole of a consciously completing couple would be a catalyst in creating other larger communal wholes which too will be based upon real equal parts committed to creating and maintaining ideal wholes.
Unless human individuals – parts – are equal in value and of the highest value to each other, then this ideal partnership will not be created or maintained. I think this whole of the intimate couple relationship made up of equal parts, is what we all long for. But there are many other versions of relational wholes we belong to or long to be part of. For we either belong or we long to be. To be only a part alone and to know it, is to be condemned to the hell of solitary confinement.
Once we became human, that is, self-conscious, we left our Garden of Eden of instinctual oneness behind. It is because each of as separate individuals is apart from all else that we need to become a part of all else. Separateness is our barely tolerable human condition and we all deal with our isolation in different ways.
We are all of us wanting to be saved, that is, etymologically, to be made whole. Some of us get saved (made whole) by beliefs or ideals such as the Supernatural or Historical Materialism, some by chemical substances such as drugs and drink, some by trying to succeed in the marketplace, some by raising children, some by saving others through their charismatic certainty that they know the saving truth.
I believe that the whole of an intimate and equal permanent partnership – human love – is the most viable whole for us in this modern culture to pursue. But no matter which whole we idealise, we will all to some degree make that attempt to relieve ourselves of our separateness of which we are so acutely aware today. Most of us make ongoing attempts to be saved of our painful condition and be made whole.
Our current Western society is, historically, a very disconnected society, a society of many isolated parts desperately looking for wholes by which to be saved. For many of the old wholes, such as the Christian God and traditional male and female social roles, no longer are capable of saving us—we are turning from a belief to a knowing society.
And what we most fundamentally are coming to know is that we are separate entities who will die and must create our own meaning of life as we go. As one wit put it, science has given us the new gospel of the selfish gene: we as evolved life forms are suffering from a sexually transmitted disease that ends in death.
I suggest we need to counteract our socially disruptive influences intentionally—we need to consciously connect to life through cultivating personal intimate partnerships. Human relationships must become our society's primary end if our society is to continue. I am personally committed to helping establish the goal of a permanent, intimate partnership as possible and worthy of being achieved as our highest human ideal.
Our flourishing as the most social of social animals comes with the pursuit of the ideal of human relationships. Now how many of us consciously intend intimate relationships as our primary goal or ideal—as the most important thing in our lives?
It seems in fact that a number of us act as if many other things were more important: careers, making money, gaining fame, having power. As Eric Fromm wrote in the Art of Loving:
"Love is an art...and the mastery of the art must be a matter of ultimate concern. Yet in spite of our deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else in our culture is considered more important than love: success, money , power—almost all our energy is used to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving."
As a society today we certainly are not putting human relationships as the most important goal or holding it up as our ideal. We are busy doing the opposite as we continue to subvert the social to the economic and rationalise away the meaning of being human which is relationships. Our cult of efficiency pursues the end of profit, that is, making things or providing services for as little money as possible in order to sell things or services for as much money as possible.
The human person today is factored into the efficiency equation only to make more money. The question of human meaning is not a concern of the marketplace unless of course you can sell that human meaning to make money. Which is what not a few of the personal development or business gurus are busy doing. Just a brief aside here on the New Age selling of soul as the latest market commodity.
This area of the marketplace has over the past 25 years come of age: we are obsessed today with the selling of soul, that is, human meaning – exactly because we lack it. But such meaning cannot be sold, it can only be developed and exchanged between people who equally respect one another and are, at least to some degree, knowledgeably engaged in the search for liveable human values.
Unfortunately, not a few people enthusiastically buy what the market offers for meaning without the maturity necessary to discriminate between mindless need for belonging and mindful acknowledgement of the need to belong. I recommend an antidote to the mindless enthusiasm of the Werner Erhardts (EST) and his many clones such as Robbins– read I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional by Wendy Kaminer if you want a critical assessment of so much of today’s leave your left lobe alone regime.
Kaminer writes: “The New Age promises to take us beyond language and reason itself: in nonsense lies salvation. Listening to the weird New Age babble of bliss- speak, techno-talk, and personal development proverbs, while the experts bemoan the excessive rationality of our culture, I wonder. Am I the only person who thinks we’ve gone crazy? Because I seldom feel surrounded by rationality.”
But to get back to my main theme: your best investment is people because it is on them you truly depend and not on market transactions or things. My experience with the dying demonstrates to me that if you were attending to the dying of one you were deeply connected to – you would find that the efficiency of market was of small consequence. Instead you would be valuing and attending to the value of relationship. Which is only to say, we all really know what the true "bottom line" is: it is human relationships—we are our most important products not material things.
Yet for many historical reasons which won't be gone into here, we have, as a Western Culture, evolved into a society which is valuing human relationships less and less in comparisons to material goods and the marketplace.
This is what my life is about: persuading your through reasoned emotion to hold the intimate and equal permanent partnership as the highest goal which in pursuing will bring all your other subordinate goals into an enriched focus.
Isn’t in your best interests to prioritise your values with relationships as the highest and guiding value? To be so motivated perhaps you may have to feel what I believe is the true and painful condition of being without a permanent partner for life. I'll let Plato speak to us from his dialogue, The Symposium:
"So all this to-do is a relic of that original state of ours when we were whole. Now, when we are longing for and following after that primeval wholeness, we say we are in love. It is our duty to inspire our selves and friends with reverence and piety, so we may attain the blessed union of love. We are like pieces of coins that children break for keepsakes - making two out of one - and we are forever seeking the half that will tally with ourselves. If we cling to love in friendship and reconciliation, we shall be among the happy ones to whom it is given to meet their other halves."
It is out of this pain of disconnection from our deepest source of life—our intimate other, that we find the motivation to connect. To recognise that we are really "halves" and that we need our completing other to make us "wholes" is our awakening to the human condition. To feel, admit and use this separative pain is the corrective for today's lack of guiding ideals and resulting meaninglessness.
To this end I’d like to share with you:
The Eleven Rules For an Equal and Intimate Partnership
1. Never Guess, Never Assume – Your Task Is to Ask
We usually imagine the worst instead of the best.
Rather than guessing or assuming you know what your partner’s behaviour means, learn to ask your partner what he/she means.
2. Your Partner Is Not a Sex/Money Object
Your partner is not a thing or a means to your ends; your partner is a person and an end in him/her self. Your relationship is much more than the trading of sex or wealth. More important are the intimate values beyond social roles – those of trust and affection, respect and responsibility.
3. Your Partner Is Not a Therapist/Emotional Nurse
Your partner is not a replacement for a mother/father or a therapist. A partnership requires caring adults rather than needy children. Although you should use each other to grow in maturity, to depend on one partner for your emotional “fix” is an addiction neither of you should support.
4. Teamwork Makes Love Work
A partnership is not a matter of parallel, independent lives sharing the same space and time for economics or fun – it is about making two lives into one while allowing each their fullest freedom to be who they are. Unilateral decisions divide; dialogue is essential in every area of your relationship to keep you working as a team. Every important action should be considered in the light of its effect on your partner.
5. Give the Four A’s Every Day: Attention, Acceptance, Approval, Affection
Try to give the Four A’s to your partner consistently throughout the day, every day, where possible. Schedule a minimum of 10 minutes near the end of each day for “one- to-one time” in which you specifically practice the four A’s. Each of you has 5 minutes to tell the other anything whatsoever without the listener interrupting with any comment. Only head nodding is allowed. When listening you convey the attitude that your partner is the most important value in your world – you try to give full attention, acceptance, approval and affection.
6. Build Common Interests
Learn to develop activities you can do together. Explore and share your curiosity and fantasies to come up with common interests. Have the courage to take on new things for the good of the relationship even if you may not want to do it for yourself.
7. Learn to Be a Better Lover
Lovers are made, not born. Trust enough to ask what pleases your partner and to tell what pleases you.
8. Do Not Play Games
There is no such thing as a “win/win” mental game between lovers – every personal strategy to get a need satisfied less than honestly will end up a “lose/lose” move. Say what you mean and mean what you say. One-upmanship is one overboard the relation-Ship, leaving the winner a captain carrying an empty hold of loneliness and no port to land in.
9. Take Risks for More Intimacy
Practice measured intimacy. Slowly learn to risk inviting your partner inside your innermost thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to his/her desire to enter in comfortably. It takes time to develop the trust necessary to explore your partner’s differences as well as similarities.
10. Be Polite
Being familiar with your partner does not mean taking them for granted. You should be even more polite and well mannered to your partner than anyone else.
11. Be Concerned with Loving Rather than Being Loved
Since your partner is the ultimate value in the world, practice the art of loving rather than worrying about being loved. The mature partner says, because I love you I need you; the immature partner says, because I need you I love you.
(adapted from The Love Test by Harold Bessell)