The Art of Active Love: A Rereading of Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving (1956)

Introduction

Contemporary critical discourse has hesitated to treat love as an appropriate topic within scholarly investigations. Granted, love has recently become a key concept that encompasses overlapping philosophical theories. This “scene of Two” has changed drastically in modern dating, where Erich Fromm warns us about the dangers of forged love and urges us to learn about love in his book, The Art of Loving (1956). The annihilation of our existentialist fears will be healed through love, as shown by Fromm using Lacanian theories. Many philosophers and theorists have various meanings of love; so, it is important to note that I will be writing about my thoughts with the influence of Fromm and Lacan. In this article, I offer a review of Fromm’s book, exploring his definition of mature love and expanding on love in the 21st-century dating scene.

Lacan’s Theories on Sexuation

It is important to note Lacan’s theories on sexuation in his Seminar Encore XX (1972-1973). He explains that being a man or a woman is not determined by biological anatomy; rather, it is how a speaking subject relates to language, desire, and the phallic function. It is an unconscious structural position regarding how an individual seeks enjoyment. The masculine holds all, whilst the feminine holds none. The feminine divine is castrated, allowing the masculine to love what they do not have, whilst the feminine has what the masculine seeks. It is worth noting again that the masculine and feminine do not distinguish between man and woman; rather, they are both all and none, reaching harmony,

We need to rethink what it means to give one’s lack to the other. To surrender oneself to the divined other is fundamental to mature love. This castration allows us to transcend our possession into accepting the individual’s independence. Possessing the desired object eliminates their self-ownership; although castration makes it possible for two people not to be complete, but to choose each other to relate to. However, there are no “perfect” formulas for love. There are gaps between these subjects. As Lacan once said, “there is no sexual relation,” explaining that love arises from this impossibility. Castration means acceptance, and there is much fear in this because we are accepting the uncertainty of the other. Love is terrifying, unpredictable, and unknowing, but we can find genuine desire through this fear, and that is what makes it beautiful.

The Issues of Modern Dating

I relate to what Fromm calls the “personality market.” Society has constantly changed the ideal man and woman; however, in dating, the personality market adapted to society's standards. I closely relate modern dating to capitalism, where men and women work to become marketable to each other. Harmful as it is, it becomes subconscious to us because of our narcissistic traits of wanting to be desired by others. We fix ourselves to current standards, not for ourselves but for the Other’s desire, hoping to become someone that another person can have.

Although having someone means to own, I want to reiterate that “owning” is not mature love. Love can easily be turned into obsession with the mental image and narcissistic envelope of oneself in the desired object, which I call “the imaginary body,” an apparently unified, self-evident form that conceals the underlying ambiguity of the desire’s uncertainty. There are two distinct ends of the type of lover. One end is the perverse, the one who is confident and all-knowing; the other end is the hysteric, the unknowing, who gives the Other a lack of themselves, filled with uncertainty.

We create this fantasy of the desired object, which we call immature love. In Lacanian terms, the fantasy is not merely a decorative interpretation–it structures it. The fantasy presents an image that makes desire seem knowable and complete; thus, the interpretation acquires the imaginary body. The hysteric’s uncertainty keeps desire alive and mobile. The pervert’s certainty closes desire into a repetitive circuit. The fantasy is no longer questioned but continually reenacted. In Lacanian terms, the irony is that the pervert’s apparent transgression is not true freedom; rather, it rests on the fantasy of possessing the phallus and knowing the other’s desire, and it remains bound to every symbolic order it imagined it had overthrown.

The pattern that I have witnessed in modern dating is that people are confined to immature love. Love begins with idealization, but mature love is not merely the discovery of perfection. We are stuck in the fantasy of the other and their image of perfection in our eyes. Modern dating challenges the idea of sustaining a bond with someone’s ordinary, fragile existence.

Transitioning Immature Love to Mature Love

Before explaining immature love to mature love, it is important to know why people have this feeling of desire. As shown by Lacan, love does not simply heal; instead, love reveals our lack and unconscious desire–simply, “to love is to give and to give is to love.” Fromm further develops Lacan’s ideas by explaining that genuine love overcomes isolation, fosters psychological growth, and enables a person to become themselves.

Mature love means inserting ourselves in what I call “sans le voile,” a French phrase that translates to “without the veil.” If one removes the layer of idealization that covers the beloved, one sees the ordinary person underneath. Immature love starts with idealization, which includes three parts: illusion, projection, and blindness. Here, one puts the person on a high pedestal; one sees traits that are not really there; and one misses their real flaws and basic human limits, respectively. When we have this desire, we elevate the beloved. The beloved becomes special and is invested with exceptional significance beyond their ordinary qualities.

Fromm transcends the definition of penetration from literal insertion and eroticism to insertion into the life of the beloved. The more we learn about someone, the closer we get to knowing the Other, though the lover cannot fully know their desired object. Meaning that knowledge does not equal mastery, because a part of the other remains unknowable. The mastery becomes more apparent the more the lover discovers the object. Overall, to love someone, one has to learn the Other. Though genuine knowledge and awareness also teach that the lover can never know them completely.

We start discovering what I call “the secretive man.” The mystery of the “secret man keeps the desire alive in mature love. This shows how love is active because the lover is actively learning about the Other. The secret of love is the act of active penetration; it is understanding, learning and accepting the other person without the veil that covers them. Though we can say that love goes into knowledge, and we can learn the other person when we desire them, learning can pose more questions than answers. To understand the secret that is hidden behind the veil will never lead to understanding. As I stated before, love requires knowledge, though it is the knowledge of knowing nothing.

Conclusion

It is safe to say that love includes trust, vulnerability, and learning. It is never easy to be the lover of your beloved other, but when we love, and transcend past the veil, we become comfortable with the uncomfortable. This discomfort suggests that we question our beloved, asking them questions that, in the end, create more mystery.

From writing the first word in this article to now reaching the end, I myself have asked more questions than I started with. I may have given you more uncertainty than clarity, similar to what Fromm did to his numerous readers of his book. This is me giving my “lack,” giving my vulnerability to those who read, explaining my desire to understand love, and trying to learn and understand it. We give empty signifiers, and we end up asking clarifying questions. As Fromm (and I) intended, he (we) give(s) “lack” as a gesture of love.