You Can’t Love One person if You Can’t Love Everyone

Alias · Post by **Alias** » February 13th, 2021, 9:38 am

So, nobody should love their dog, their country, baseball, liberty and ol' school chums? No loving-kindness toward fellow travelers in this vale of tears? Not even for the grandkiddies?
Just absolute dependence on one person for all your emotional needs and everyone else could go hang? Fromm thought that was an unhealthy state of being. I'm inclined to agree.
I have a feeling your copy of that book was never opened.

Post by **Sy Borg** » February 13th, 2021, 6:25 pm

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑February 13th, 2021, 7:51 am
BobS wrote: ↑February 12th, 2021, 6:54 pm I'm not seeing any evidence offered that Fromm knew everyone or that he conducted any empirical studies of the issue. Nor any evidence that love is and always will be the same for every single person. Does anyone really believe that?

For my own part, I do know that I loved my wife of 38 years. I don't know what sort of logic or evidence Fromm could possibly come up with to prove me wrong. And since Hitler has been mentioned, I'll admit that I'm not feeling any love there. Nor do I care why Hitler was the way he was. Maybe his dad was mean to him (but see p. 19 of the recent Volker Ulrich biography: "From all we know, Hitler seems to have had a fairly normal childhood"). Does that make him more or less lovable than if the explanation were simply that he had "bad genes"? Or that his school mates weren't as nice to him as they could have been? It seems to me that Hitler was pretty unlovable no matter how he got there.

In any case, if we accept Fromm's position that "You Can’t Love One person if You Can’t Love Everyone," the reason Hitler was the way he was is irrelevant. We're simply supposed to love Hitler in order to love anyone else. Merely expressing such a thought should be enough to see its invalidity. At least for me, though I'll concede that Fromm's mileage apparently varied.
It's so obvioulsy BS.
You loved your wife. Did you love all women? Clearly she would have had something to say about that!!!
Case is closed on Fromm I think.

The thread title is misleading. It should have read something like "Love for one person is questionable if that is your only love", implying that a single object for one's affections will result in desperate clinging. Fromm was suggesting that love has more to do with the subject than the object.

Logically, as you say, the object matters. I love the dog and loathe Murdoch, but doggie is not all that I love. I also love other animals, gardens, parks, bushland, beaches, music, movies, etc - but not all of them. I love the Earth and the Sun and planets, stars and space, despite some degrees of separation.

Based on my observations, the above attitudes are common. That is, most people feel passionate about various aspects of life. From what I've seen, those who lead healthy and happy lives are at least in part sustained by passionate interests.

Alias · Post by **Alias** » February 13th, 2021, 10:17 pm

There is also this unaddressed question of kind, degree and duration. It's no accident that we have so many words for feelings and states of mind - we're capable of so many. Why deny or reject any of them?

Post by **LuckyR** » February 14th, 2021, 1:55 am

Alias wrote: ↑February 13th, 2021, 10:17 pm There is also this unaddressed question of kind, degree and duration. It's no accident that we have so many words for feelings and states of mind - we're capable of so many. Why deny or reject any of them?

Exactly. Those numerous descriptors are key, since they represent different levels of fondness. I "love" going to the beach, but I'd do anything for my daughter, not so much for the beach.