The Art Of Loving

Fromm establishes his central premise that love is an art requiring knowledge and effort, rather than merely a pleasant sensation that one experiences by chance. He observes that despite the cultural obsession with love—evident in countless films and songs—most people do not consider love something that needs to be learned.

Fromm identifies three fundamental misconceptions that perpetuate this attitude. The first misconception focuses on the problem of being loved rather than one’s capacity to love. People primarily concern themselves with how to become lovable instead of how to develop their ability to love others. He says that men typically pursue this goal by seeking success, power, and wealth, while women often focus on physical attractiveness. Both men and women also cultivate pleasant personalities and helpful behaviors. Fromm notes that these approaches essentially reduce lovability to a combination of popularity and sexual attractiveness.

The second misconception involves viewing love as a problem of finding the right object rather than developing the capacity to love. This perspective gained prominence in the 20th century with the rise of romantic love as the basis for marriage, replacing the convention-based marriages of earlier eras. Fromm connects this shift to modern consumer culture, comparing relationships to marketplace transactions.