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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
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Thank you for making the show possible. 🙂
I love my partner as much as I loved him 10 years ago, and I don't force expectations on him and do all I can to make sure he is happy and he does the same for me. I think too many people have forgotten how to truly love someone.
This has helped me shape my life immensely.
I don't know how to put in words about how much this means to me.
This has made me a better and kinder person and has helped me help my friends through a lot of hard times and has helped me find love.
Thank you.
My knowledge on the most seminal works of western philosophy and theology might be missing, but I have some. I think many comments are mentioning how love is a verb, not a noun, how it's about giving, being kind in general, without any agenda and without any requirements/checklists, how love for ourselves/others/for the world are the same thing with true love, how it needs to be learnt as a skill. Someone also clarified how it relates to attachment in relationships and how it can be difficult to pick it apart from general genuine kindness, considering the best interest of others. It is difficult.
But what I think is one of the biggest points which the podcast and Fromm makes, which many listeners might have missed is the analogy with Art. For this I think one really has to understand the difference between the process of true artistic creativity and that of casual creativity or "passion projects", "side hustles", "part time hobbies". Its a bit like the bad father in the Fresh prince of Bel Air, who takes care of Will as a coat that he picks up whenever he feels like wanting to be a father. That's not real love, attention or caring.
Fromm seems to emphasize how improving a skill on a level of artistic mastery makes this endeavour become one with the fabric of who that person is, they see the world through their craft, and they express who they are, how they feel in that "way of living". Therefore the 4 principles: 1. humility, 2. courage, 3. rational faith and 4. discipline. I think these 4 points really need to be understood. They really go deeper than general kindness, good intentions.
This can become long but here we go. 1. if you think you already know something/everything or what you are looking for you stop being open to whatever presents itself available. 2. you need to be courageous to make a choice, because that way you need to say no to everything else. in the case of art you need to choose your craft. so you let go the greed of trying be good at everything or wanting to confirm to social pressures. in case of love although you love everyone and everything, you still make a choice that you let go of your agendas, make yourself open and you choose who you dedicate your time to, but all in all you choose to dedicate yourself to improve the skill of love instead of trying to "get love".
3. rational faith and not just regular faith means, being and staying practical when faced with roadblocks, puzzles, frustration, resistence or hostility. sitting down at the piano the 1000th time but also focusing on what to improve specifically. An artist believes that steady small increments consistently will lead to result or rather the right way. You are in a marathon, not a sprint. A bit like Simon Sinek's infinite game. You are not in it for the results you are in the game to be able to continue playing, the process and not to have a good finish. if you want to win or be better than someone you already lost. Be better than you were yesterday.
4. discipline means a kind of tough love, a bit like stoic value of "moderation". it means finding the balance in not being too hard on yourself, but gently pushing yourself forward everyday consistently, instead of looking back or way too forward in the future. stopping your ambitions to stunt your progress.
At this point Love is analogous with Mastery, Creativity and Art in the truest sense. True with who you really are.
i couldn't help but think of kendrick lamar's 'poetic justice' whenever you started talking about love as a verb, now it's stuck in my head again
Thanks you magnificent human
Just saw this come onto my screen! How precious we live in the same timeframe!
That was beautiful!! Thank you
I’ve been understanding and doing my best to follow Erich Fromm’s definition of Love, but it seems to me that the majority of people believes in the “Disney-type of love”. I’m glad to see more people think alike on what Love is.
What a great insightful episode! Thank you
Loved this, Stephen. Thank you so much.
"Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love."
“Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love toward themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others.”
Happy 150! Here's to a million more! Thank you!
Eric Fromm had a prequel to the "Art of Loving" titled, "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness." Together, both of these books give context to the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders."
This was wonderful! I love Erich Fromm. "The Revolution of Hope" is one of my favorite books of all time. Maybe you'll be talking about that one too? These topics are so so relevant to everything going on in the world today. I think your interpretation was spot on and appreciate the clarity of your explanations. :)
what is "The Revolution of Hope" about?
Excellent stuff much appreciated
Thank you so much..
You are saving more lives than you know Stephen.. thanks a lot.
Phenomenal summary! Thx a lot
Best podcast ever
Thank you!
The problem of consciousness has made love a commodity. But if you do it the right way, love is an art. I Iove this. The evil Frankfurt School strikes again.
Fascinating!
Such a great episode
Dude, thank You. 💖
Fromm is an absolutist who brings back a quasi religious definition of love. I wonder if he experiences it or practices it himself.
This guy was nutts, how can he separate will to go to gym as only artifical product of capitalism, without recognising that in evolutionary psychology perspective, being have muscle was one major factor of procreation. They reject biology, cause there's no equality in it, its so ludicrous...
This is SO good, it played my heartstrings like a harp. Thank you Mr. West!
The concept of love is so easy to grasp, when you separate it from relation issues, which in turn are basically mere attachment. Let me explain.
Pure love is simply the will (feeling of wanting to do) and deeds of benevolence. It is benevolent, constructive and healing energy directed. It streams from one to another, but can also be directed to oneself. It has a target, so to say.
What we erroneously call love between people is an unhappy misconception by Plato, Jung and other philosophers, mixing it up to a point it's getting incomprehensible. A relation may well contain pure love, as you surely understand, but this is merely an "add-on" to the true nature of relationships, which are attachment in different levels of intensity. It's bonding in other words. With this distinction love is quite easy to understand, leaving the problematics of relationships to a category by themselves.
I gladly deepen my thoughts, if someone's interested.
Hey please elaborate more, I am interested to know your thoughts deeper. :)
@@toshiva3493 Thanks for your interest! We have two directions to take this matter, one being the character of love itself (which isn’t that wide a subject, regarding what I already have established). The other direction would be the relation of love and relationships, or perhaps why I consider love not being the essence of relationship dynamics. Well, a component or an ingredient, yes, or rather a bonding force, but not “the whole thing”.
It may feel too simple saying love is “just” the will to think and act benevolently, to make good deeds instead of evil ones, that is. As such you could say “being good” (vs. evil) and “loving” are synonyms. But I think it hasn’t to be more complicated, because this is the true meaning of what “practicing love” factually is about. So even in relations. It is quite possible to imagine a relation without love, which would be a relation of exploiting, usually one of the partners. Mostly relations contain a varying amount of benevolence, and to be true, they mostly (or I would say always) start with a period of excessive “love” - that is, showing attention and nice deeds to each other.
So you can tell “love” is something that usually belongs to a relationship, but isn’t a relationship in itself. That’s not to say it wouldn’t be a very important factor, because it certainly is the “glue” or the binding force in attachment, making strong bonds between individuals. You tend to like persons who treat you nicely (that is, with love), and as a baby or a toddler this is crucial to really create the strong bond of attachment. An environment surrounded by loving is the ground for self-confidence, trust and inner security, but also for internalizing the capacity of loving (i.e. “how to love”). I truly think we learn to love - or not.
It seemingly is “love” being the relation itself, but all the different variations of love relations by Plato (“eros”, “filia” and “agape”) aren’t really variations of love, though, but differences in relationships (that is, romantic relations, friendship and a religious relationship). Love may well be an ingredient in all these, in a way or another, but still as a separate “binding force” only.
True love is not to be confused with the thing we erroneously call “falling in love”. In Swedish and in Finnish we got a separate word for the phenomenon (“förtjust”/”förälskad” and “ihastua”/”rakastua” depending on the grade of seriousness in the feeling), while “love” is “kärlek” and “rakkaus”, quite different words (except “rakastua”, which is an equivalent to “falling in love”). We could perhaps use “take a fancy to”, but it’s quite lame all the same describing the strong feelings. But let’s look closer to this phenomenon anyway.
When you “fall in love”, it’s in fact based on a very egoistic feeling: “I want this human to be mine”. You connect to the person with strong emotions, but it’s mostly about feeling good inside yourself and wanting to be near, possibly even to engage in a sexual relationship. Sometimes the latter only, just to satisfy your sexual urges.
It’s not ruled out, however, that you might feel “true love” (that is, benevolent feelings) against the person, but as you see it’s completely a different matter, a “spice” in the relation, if you will, you can add in desirable amounts.
So as you can see, in “falling in love” it’s all about bonding, making a connection - an attachment - between two human beings, and thus a relation issue, not about “true love” per se. The concept of “love” can thus be released to signify the energy of benevolence only, used in different situations, but as a phenomenon completely of its own.
What exactly IS love then? What is benevolence? When you foster children and teach them to love in turn, it’s about attention, acceptance, affection, nurture and healthy challenges (e.g. keeping sound boundaries and promoting creativity). With adults, it’s just about the same but in different amounts - or perhaps, we tend to provide it largely for ourselves (meaning “self-care”). It’s all about caring, cherishing and healing, attending to, being constructive and positive in the end.
It’s about helping and making everybody to thrive and to prosper.
Brilliant!
Beautiful content, this channel should have so many more subscribers. I only want to add that the art of love doesn't have to be entirely counter culture. The skills and principles described are applicable to being a good manager in a business environment - love your team, treat them with love, accept them for who they are and you'll find conventional success, albeit perhaps unconventionally.
Great video
'The Art of Loveing' was a good book.
Great topic. I've been trying to learn more about critical theory and how it became so pervasive in public conciousness and the education system.
teachers love facebook.
@@deprogramr i heard a guy today reciting like it was the pledge of allegiance that "whiteness robs us our true heritage". The school system must be hammering these ideas into kids today.
“Critical theory” is a very broad term and means different things to different people. But generally speaking it encompasses works that look at the stories and insights that have been “edited” out of our shared understanding of the world and seeks to tell the stories that have been suppressed. This includes commentary on slavery and the black struggle in America and the forces of capitalism that influence our everyday life but are invisible to us (debt, finance etc) and much much more. As the saying goes: “history is written by the victors” and as the winner of WWII, western powers have written and codified a certain view of the world that excludes these important narratives. Critical theory seeks to capture them and make them visible.
@@jetblack8250 to what end? Social discord? Some may suggest that the human propensity to forget isnt actually a flaw.
Hello, i wanted to ask if the newer podcast are going to be uploaded to Spotify?
Perhaps love and hate form an object with two sides, love is available, easy to grab because it has tendrils. Hate or fear is a slick polished object. The fear itself inspires fear because one can't get a handle on it. It's a two way street with humans since they carry a greater internalized awareness. The more awareness, the more engagement with complexity, the more experience, the stronger the identity and the more it needs to be altruistic, to keep open that field and maintain that identity as not a slick polished rigid inflexible weak fear identity but as an open, strong in context then changing as that context changes. Like a flock of birds raising an awareness identity with their calls (engaging with the environment) then that field breaking apart and reassembling in a different place with more "food". Humans need to do this in their heads, and do it externally, like birds with their calls, or others with scent, or pings or whatever. Culture is the awareness field, but the identity is supposed to be emergent and not contrived thru marginalization.
Thanks a bunch for these videos!!
thanks a lot ....
I love this for the most part (pun intended). However, I'm very skeptical of the last section in particular. There have been plenty of artists who had terrible lives. Some have killed themselves, gone crazy, and perhaps some have even somehow done worse things than that. Yet, a large number of them made amazing art. Nietzsche went insane, and there's a long list of artists who killed themselves. Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Cobain, Chester Bennington and Robin Williams, to name a few.
I don’t think anything you mentioned contradicts Fromm or at the very least relevant to the point being made. Love doesn’t mean an alleviation of neuroticism. In his book Escape From Freedom he indicates it may be a symptom of finding authenticity as it’s wrestling with individuality rather than strictly conforming to society.
@@tannerhagen774 You misinterpreted my point. The guy in the video clearly states that Fromm was arguing that mentally unhealthy people make bad art.
@@CancelledPhilosopher I did not get that impression. If you can point to what was actually said that led you to this interpretation that would be great. He is making a analogy from art to love insofar as one looks at intrinsic value rather than material gain hence why "personality market" has pejorative connotations. Love has a paradoxical element which is self-love (different from mere egoism) which is laid out in the video. Mr. West alluded to the airplane mask analogy where a mother must put on her mask first in order to take care of the child not because she cares about herself more but due to the fact that her responsibility is to take care of the child who lacks the capacity. If someone enjoys writing movie scripts but wallows in depressed they take measures to create their art despite that depression because they love their art hence Fromm's analogy from art to love. Mental illness or not, their perspective and approach to art displays a love and in turn they obviously eat enough (or what have you) in order to carry on fulfilling that art. That was my shot in the dark but hope this helps!
@@tannerhagen774 Ah okay. Well it sounds like I maybe just misinterpreted that.
There's a guy at work whom everyone despises. He works hard and faithfully, but his personality grates. That said, I can't help but loving him--maybe I'm on the right track.
I love you all.
And we loves you back!
I’m not sure but I think this changed me.
The old school system is a product of fear, the fear of children going wild, of their power that needs to be controlled and directed. The fear instinct part of the brain is just a bit quicker than the thinking part, and this is the inspiration for the structures we created that marginalized and so produced fear. Plastic and other materials are a product of fear and control over the environment, the learning and engagement involved tends to rescue this a bit. The environment is already at peak accessibility and what we can do is limit that, and these materials have their ripple influence. Puking on a sheet of plastic is different than on the ground, one is accessible and the other isn't as much. The vomit on the plastic will endure because the plastic is slick and polished and one thing, not like tree bark or a rock face. With humans, there's two objects, the environment as structure and the person as structure, both fields in which activity takes place (neurons and bacteria for humans) which raises an identity. On a universal level, mass and for us, the person. By building with inaccessible materials we influence the world. This limits the planet life field which is the larger whirlpool that our little whirlpools exist in, and the larger whirlpool maintains when that little one fails. Similarly, when planetary life fails the universe moves on, that greater force having its way. The only thing seemingly that affects the universe is entropy which is the exhausting of all possible experience.
Do you know of any podcasts similar to yours about philosophy but in German?
Money is a tool that saves work in goods exchange. Like a hammer, it can build or destroy. The "goods exchange" is interaction with the environment from a human perspective. Money initially takes from human experience, by substituting for the actual goods, but has the capacity to return it. The tool that is money is a way of looking at the environment, looking at it by appointing a representative and running it thru its paces to see what it does, what it is. It's like looking sideways and squinting at the "environment". By being more human-centric, experience becomes diminished in complexity but more focused. So love would be about maintaining complexity AND focus? I think this would be a good "identity" for a collective representative. Simply reverse the direction of money, so easy...have it go to those without (human and non-human) instead of flowing to those with. This increases access to the environment for individuals and would be a positive demonstration of love. Love, like justice, must be seen to be done.
Tinder says hello!
5:26 wait until he hears about Colleen Ballinger...
“Love is a passionate affirmation of an “object”; it is not an “affect” but an active striving and inner relatedness, the aim of which is the happiness, growth, and freedom of its object."
What does he mean by "affect"?
He means it isn't something that happens to you, it is something you do.
Let's goooo
What happened to the Amazon banner?
If human bias is removed, an act of love on my part could consist of throwing open my window and vomiting onto the ground, for no particular reason except as an act of love. You can bet there would be billions of creatures that would fling themselves on the stuff with glad cries, their own expression of love.
What Fromm probably is suggesting is not this kind of love all creatures which is a sort of Eastern philosophical tradition, which is indeed absurd.
He probably refers to subjects being treated as objects. Assuming that only humans are capable of subjective thinking, this refers only to humans. Even humans incapable of thought like mental patients would be included because they are related to other humans and they would not like mistreatment of lunatics. Or simply we won't like it out of humanity.
Now we might talk about right wing populists like Hitler throwing their garbage ideology everywhere and humans happily lapping it up. But then, that was just an appearance of being good for humans. It ended up leaving a toxic legacy. Just because someone consumes something doesn't mean it is good. It can be poison. Vomit on the other hand is indeed healthy food for a lot of microbes but certainly not for other humans.
@@gamer-ff6mh Thanks for the reply. It seems to me that the question, are there objects or not, is a huge one. I think there are, but not in the way usually thought.
Objects are sequestered from other objects, by humans and for a necessary gain. There's the perception of objects (the person) and the physical object or body. Is the person an object? Or is it, the way our senses are arranged horizontally, that inspires triangulation of objects, for survival. That's one bias towards objects.
The other bias might come from being able to lay down longer as newborns. This comes from the first bias, where we see different worlds depending on whether we're laying down or not. Just tilt your head to one side to see this. A radial force from two massive objects, Sun and Earth, or Earth and Moon, vs the triangulation of objects when the child is upright...the beginning of awe and spirituality possibly, to see the difference and not understand.
So this spirituality plus the sheer computing power of human brains does make the person an object, essentially the same as a flock of birds only internalized. Not a rigid object, but cohesive. This is where the Hitlers go wrong, they and the crowd become objects that feed off of the fear of that childhood perception, the awe that turns to fear when the relation is wrong...they lose themselves into the group object, lose context and identity but not efficiency (at least at first) becoming the stupidest animal as the group size increases. They sublimate themselves (the real object) into the contrived object, the group. We are not birds but we imitate them since they're so visible.
It's only a toxic legacy if the lessons aren't learned.
Wowwwwwwwwwwwww
11:41
Love is not a noun its a verb
who else high af
I love Erich Fromm :)
I might be misunderstanding here, but it seems to me that he only updates to a secular modern audience the same conclusions of the classical philosophers and religion (specifically Christianism)? I mean, it's a nice talk, but hardly adds to anything to what has already been said before. Can anyone please help me understand what else he brings to the table?
My knowledge on the most seminal works of western philosophy and theology might be missing, but I have some. I think many comments are mentioning how love is a verb, not a noun, how it's about giving, being kind in general, without any agenda and without any requirements/checklists, how love for ourselves/others/for the world are the same thing, true lovex how it needs to be learnt as a skill. Someone also clarified how it relates to attachment in relationships and how it can be difficult to pick it apart from general kindness, considering the best interest of others. It is difficult.
But what I think is one of the biggest points which the podcast and Fromm makes, which many listeners might have missed is the analogy with Art. For this I think one really has to understand the difference between the process of true artistic creativity and that of casual creativity or "passion projects", "side hustles", "part time hobbies". Its a bit like the bad father in the Fresh prince of Bel Air, who takes care of Will as a coat that he picks up whenever he feels like wanting to be a father. That's not real love, attention or caring.
Fromm seems to emphasize how improving a skill on a level of artistic mastery makes this endeavour become one with the fabric of who that person is, they see the world through their craft, and they express who they are, how they feel in that "way of living". Therefore the 4 principles: 1. humility, 2. courage, 3. rational faith and 4. discipline. I think these 4 points really need to be understood. They really go deeper than general kindness, good intentions.
This can become long but here we go. 1. if you think you already know something/everything or what you are looking for you stop being open to whatever presents itself available. 2. you need to be courageous to make a choice, because that way you need to say no to everything else. in the case of art you need to choose your craft. so you let go the greed of trying be good at everything or wanting to confirm to social pressures. in case of love although you love everyone and everything, you still make a choice that you let go of your agendas, make yourself open and you choose who you dedicate your time to, but all in all you choose to dedicate yourself to improve the skill of love instead of trying to "get love".
3. rational faith and not just regular faith means, being and staying practical when faced with roadblocks, puzzles, frustration, resistence or hostility. sitting down at the piano the 1000th time but also focusing on what to improve specifically. An artist believes that steady small increments consistently will lead to result or rather the right way. You are in a marathon, not a sprint. A bit like Simon Sinek's infinite game. You are not in it for the results you are in the game to be able to continue playing, the process and not to have a good finish. if you want to win or be better than someone you already lost. Be better than you were yesterday.
4. discipline means a kind of tough love, a bit like stoic value of "moderation". it means finding the balance in not being too hard on yourself, but gently pushing yourself forward everyday consistently, instead of looking back or way too forward in the future. stopping your ambitions to stunt your progress.
At this point Love is analogous with Mastery, Creativity and Art in the truest sense. True with who you really are.
I just don't get it ... in many cases, philosophers' private lives belie all their lofty teachings. If the integrity of our lives is reflected in our actions, what are to make of these disparities? Hard to take a treatise on love seriously when we examine the writer's personal life. I still enjoy the ideas and theories ... but I often remain cynical.
No discussion about love is whole without God. God is love. He's our points of start and finish, whether we acknowledge Him or not. It's truth.
"Love is a verb, not a noun"? Uhmmm I wonder the word "love" is used as noun or verb when you call "love is art"
Edit - I just got to that part of the video and he means it as a verb. Love is an art, as in it is something we do that requires practice.
Because of this episode I read the book. But I was dissatisfied. The book is sexist, homophobic, and a lot of mommy and daddy issues. 😅
Nevertheless, most of the insights in the pod makes sense.
No one has fun playing Monopoly, a broken, horrible game...