“The Art of Loving”, love is presented as a skill that can be taught and developed, and which requires knowledge and effort, as opposed to being simply a pleasant sensation that arises by chance. Dr. Fromm argues that we use almost all of our energy in learning how to achieve success, prestige, money, and power, and almost none to learn the art of loving.He argues that most people see the problem of love as that of “being lovable”, as opposed to the problem being one’s capacity to love. People therefore go to great lengths to be worthy of love, taking care of their physical appearance, chasing after visible signs of success, developing pleasant manners and interesting conversation, and so on, in order to be deemed love worthy. In addition, people tend to think that loving is simple and what is difficult is finding the right the person to love.Fromm goes on to argue that love is an art; and in order to learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we would to learn any other art, such as drawing, medicine, carpentry, engineering, and so on. That is, we must master both the theory of love—like a student of medicine studies the human body and various diseases–, as well as the practice of loving. In fact, he argues that we must practice the art of love until we have mastered it.
The Anatomy of Love
Anthropologist Helen Fisher has studied love for over thirty years and has written several books on the subject, including “Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love”. Citing evidence from studies of humans and primates, Dr. Fisher demonstrates marked parallels between the behaviors, feelings, and chemicals that underlie “romantic love” and those associated with substance addiction.Fisher explains that the purpose of this dizzying dopamine-fueled process is for a man and a woman to come together long enough to conceive.In addition, she argues that because infants are helpless, there is an imperative for mother and father to cooperate in child-rearing. A different stage of love, which is “attachment”, involves a different chemical basis, and is meant to keep a couple together long enough to support a child until weaning. Love, then, has a chemical basis; and its main purpose is the perpetuation of the species.