The Art of Loving
In his book 'The Art of Loving' Erich Fromm talks about self-love and says you can't love someone else until you learn to love yourself. One of the problems that society faces today is that many people, particularly youth, don't have any self-respect. The preponderance of tattoos and piercings is a symptom of this. People who don't have self respect, or self love, can fall madly in love with someone who they see as a counterbalance for their own character. This mad infatuation lasts a while, only to be replaced by apathy, indifference or even loathing. The same character traits that endeared the person now makes them dislikeable. The truth is that you liked the aspects of their character that you shared. Now you dislike seeing your own reflection in the other person. I've mentioned previously ('Marriage') how in the past people would work through the infatuation and the dislike to come to a better understanding of themselves and their partner.
Lack of self respect is tied up with increased drug use and the lack of spirituality.
People in this state have highs, but also incredible lows. This is the state
of people in the twenty first century; suffering from a kind of manic-depression
going from transitory highs to black depression. Drug users experience this
but after a while the highs become just the relief of the depression, a hit
to keep the blackness away. Love, joy even sadness has disappeared, there's
only the drug and its effects.
Christians often mistake self-love for love of self or selfishness. It's not. Men who are violent to women and who treat women as sex objects don't have self-love. They have no respect for themselves and they take their own inner hatred out on their partner. If you don't care about yourself how can you care for someone else?
Erich Fromm makes another interesting point in the same book about kinds of love: love of a man for a woman, love for a mother for her child and love for a father for his child, love of a neighbour and so on. Mother love and father love, he says, are different. The love of the mother is unconditional whereas the love of the father is not. Of course this book was written nearly 50 years ago when attitudes were different. However what he says is as true today as it was then. I'll continue this theme later because the difference between mother love and father love is very important one.
