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whimsicalmeerkat's review against another edition
4.0
My review of this on another site was "Anyone who has ever been, is, or plans to be in a relationship should read this book." In many ways I still feel that way, albeit less dogmatically. It is an extremely earnest and, in my opinion, wise take on all the different types of love. There is a religious aspect that I do not particularly agree with, but nothing that takes away from the message of the book. It really is a wonderful book.
aprilconnolly's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.5
I read this book for a book club and it probably isnt a book that I would have picked for myself but that's exactly the thing i like about book club!
The reason I didn't care for this book was that most of the content was critical, how we are loving wrong, with very little helpful information about how we can improve our loving relationships.
It was also extremely heteronormative with a lot of talk about the roles that men and women perform. It was clearly written with mostly an male audience in mind since all of the examples the author provides are from a male perspective, but since he spends so much time talking about the ways that men and women are different, it felt like he was never speaking to female perspective.
He also completely dismissed heterosexual love which I obviously take issue with.
There were lots of lines and observations that I liked! And it brought on really good discussion amongst our group, but I didnt love the reading experience, nor do I feel like I took away anything particularly profound from the book that has stuck with me.
The reason I didn't care for this book was that most of the content was critical, how we are loving wrong, with very little helpful information about how we can improve our loving relationships.
It was also extremely heteronormative with a lot of talk about the roles that men and women perform. It was clearly written with mostly an male audience in mind since all of the examples the author provides are from a male perspective, but since he spends so much time talking about the ways that men and women are different, it felt like he was never speaking to female perspective.
He also completely dismissed heterosexual love which I obviously take issue with.
There were lots of lines and observations that I liked! And it brought on really good discussion amongst our group, but I didnt love the reading experience, nor do I feel like I took away anything particularly profound from the book that has stuck with me.
dylanberman's review against another edition
4.0
Honestly would be a five except for the singular paragraph where he just says gay people don’t actually experience genuine love and moves on lol. Very very insightful and important book though it’s not worth writing off over that.
baby_goes_apehit's review against another edition
4.0
Erich Fromms Buch über (sein) Verständnis von Liebe, Beziehung, Zuneigung, Selbstwahrnehmung und Befreiung.
Warnung: Es ist heteronormativ!
Als Vorwort: Es geht, wie der Autor selbst rasch klarstellt, nicht darum, eine/n Partner/in zu finden.
Sollte (KRITISCHE) Pflichtlektüre in der Schule sein. Bietet sie doch die Grundlage für eine befreitere Emotionalität und gesündere Liebesbeziehungen. Auch wenn es keiner sein will, ist es ein hervorragender Ratgeber, um an sich selber zu wachsen und seine Konzeption von (romantischen) Beziehungen zu reflektieren.
Warnung: Es ist heteronormativ!
Als Vorwort: Es geht, wie der Autor selbst rasch klarstellt, nicht darum, eine/n Partner/in zu finden.
Sollte (KRITISCHE) Pflichtlektüre in der Schule sein. Bietet sie doch die Grundlage für eine befreitere Emotionalität und gesündere Liebesbeziehungen. Auch wenn es keiner sein will, ist es ein hervorragender Ratgeber, um an sich selber zu wachsen und seine Konzeption von (romantischen) Beziehungen zu reflektieren.
sculpthead's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
mxunsmiley's review against another edition
2.0
Before you say "This was written 1956, it is silly to expect anything different," the same kind of perspective is still applied today and remains a poison to rational thinking about relationships between people. I have to say that gender essentialism is probably the most agonizing to read in books of a psychological orientation, especially when it comes to inane binary and homophobic conclusions. The real kicker is when Fromm asserts that the homosexual's Deviation (exact word) in failing to relate themself intimately with their Polar Opposite is the same as the heterosexual's failure to love in general... so I guess gays are just the real fuck ups in the conversation about love.
Then there's the maddening insistence on blaming people's orientation and attitude toward relationships on their relationships with their mothers and fathers, the Freudian impulse to frame everything on sexual fixation with the mother and/or father. He criticizes Freud a lot but all of Fromm's conceptions of love and its neurotic manifestations are based on whether you long for the womb or fatherly discipline or something.
The gender essentialism is just absolutely ridiculous in how it equates certain qualities, in the spirit of what I described earlier, with mothers and fathers and hence, men and women, also attributing this kind of immutability to them. You just have to take as truth that men are bent toward sadism and women toward masochism... much like everything else he has to say are qualities inherent to femininity and masculinity.
I did find his piece about the love of God to be interesting, though. His indictment against the society of his time (which, frankly, has only gotten worse in the respects he criticizes) also makes sense. I think his brand of psychoanalysis blended with social/political philosophy can read extremely strangely much of the time, because the latter checks out more or less, but then the former enters the picture and I'm like, am I reading the same guy? But psychology still refuses to deviate from assumptions about concepts like biological sex and gender, so of course he wouldn't be any different, being from an earlier time.
Then there's the maddening insistence on blaming people's orientation and attitude toward relationships on their relationships with their mothers and fathers, the Freudian impulse to frame everything on sexual fixation with the mother and/or father. He criticizes Freud a lot but all of Fromm's conceptions of love and its neurotic manifestations are based on whether you long for the womb or fatherly discipline or something.
The gender essentialism is just absolutely ridiculous in how it equates certain qualities, in the spirit of what I described earlier, with mothers and fathers and hence, men and women, also attributing this kind of immutability to them. You just have to take as truth that men are bent toward sadism and women toward masochism... much like everything else he has to say are qualities inherent to femininity and masculinity.
I did find his piece about the love of God to be interesting, though. His indictment against the society of his time (which, frankly, has only gotten worse in the respects he criticizes) also makes sense. I think his brand of psychoanalysis blended with social/political philosophy can read extremely strangely much of the time, because the latter checks out more or less, but then the former enters the picture and I'm like, am I reading the same guy? But psychology still refuses to deviate from assumptions about concepts like biological sex and gender, so of course he wouldn't be any different, being from an earlier time.
wabi_sabi's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
renss's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0