"Love requires pleasure in stillness, an ability to enjoy being instead of doing, having, or using.” (Fromm and Funk, 2024)

Voices on Love, Sexuality and Matriarchy from Social Psychology

My search for differing perspectives on love was brought on by reading Love. by Tom Ingls and my discovery of the views by Fromm and Funk has set me off on another thought spiral so I am documenting it here. As ever it will relate to my other writings and creative practice which may or may not become clear later.

Conversations with male friends offered interesting counterarguments to the continued dominance of patriarchy. At first, I was skeptical about their views, but then I remembered that everyone speaks from their own perspective. Their point was that matriarchies have existed historically and may still exist in some parts of the world today ergo Patriarchy does not dominate. ok.

My argument was informed by a statement made by Erich Fromm in an interview published in the February 16, 1975 issue of L’Espresso. It summarised his thinking on the often-problematic relationship between men and women: it is not simply their differences that create difficulties, but the ways those differences are used. (Fromm, 1975)

This connects strongly to my research. The way differences between the two sexes have been shaped and utilised within society. I want to understand which differences are natural and which are culturally produced. By suggesting that differences are “made use of,” it implies that the issue is not only what exists, but how those differences are mediated, presented, perceived, repeated and perhaps controlled. It points to the possibility of other influences shaping how gender is understood and experienced.

The attraction of one sex for the other apparently has a very limited significance in keeping human beings from using sexual difference for the purpose of domination. What is of primary interest concerning the problem between the sexes is the psychological effect the functioning of this difference has on an individual’s sense of identity and on human relationships, especially between persons of opposite sexes.

'Love of life, however, is “difficult to experience in a culture that emphasises results instead of processes, things instead of life, that makes means into ends and teaches us to use the brain when the heart should be involved.'

On Sex difference and Character

'Another aspect of man’s craving for prestige is his sensitivity toward ridicule, and particularly toward ridicule from women. Even a coward may become something of a hero under the fear of being ridiculed by women, and the fear of losing one’s life may be less than the fear of ridicule. As a matter of fact, this is typical in the pattern of male heroism, which is no greater than the heroism of which women are capable but different because it is coloured by the male sort of vanity.'

On the use of peculiar or 'weird' as a negative....

'In using the word peculiarities I should like to remind you how strange a fate this word has had. If we say today that someone is peculiar, we don’t mean anything particularly pleasant. Yet this should be the greatest compliment we can pay. Saying that someone is peculiar should mean that he has not given in, that he has retained the most valuable part of human existence, his individuality, that he is a unique person, different from anyone else under the sun.

On 'Marketing orientation' theory or as I call it, 'commodification'

'The average person today is terribly alone and feels alone. He feels himself to be a commodity, by which I mean he feels that his value depends on his success, depends on his saleability, depends on approval by others. He feels that it does not depend on the intrinsic or what you might call use value of his personality, not on his powers, not on his capacity to love, not on his human qualities; except if he can sell them, except if he can be successful, except if he is approved by others. This is what I mean by the “marketing orientation.”This accounts for the fact that the self-esteem of most people today is very shaky. They do not feel themselves worthy because of their own conviction: “This is me, this is my capacity to love, this is my capacity to think and to feel,” but because they are approved by others, because they can sell themselves, because others say: “This is a wonderful man” or “a wonderful woman.

This connects to the online dating model from my previous piece on 'Love as Capital'

Online dating as part of social media, perpetuates the idea because the platforms require people to market themselves rather than value capacities to love, empathise, respect; their personality etc

'Naturally, when the feeling of self-esteem is dependent upon others it becomes uncertain. Each day is a new battle because each day you have to convince someone and you have to prove to yourself, that you are all right.'

what a great analogy for online dating and self esteem...

'..consider how handbags would feel on a counter in a store. The handbag of one particular style, of which many have been sold, would feel elated in the evening; and the other handbag, of a style a little out of fashion or a little too expensive or which, for some reason or other, had not been sold, would be depressed. The one handbag would feel: “I am wonderful,” and the other handbag would feel: “I am unworthy,” and yet the “wonderful” handbag may not be more beautiful or more useful or have any better intrinsic quality than the other one. The unsold handbag would feel it was not wanted. In our analogy, a handbag’s sense of value would depend on its success, on how many purchasers, for one reason or another, preferred the one to the other."

both the sexes will feel the hit but I would argue society has more stories about women being 'left on the shelf' than men.

love and boredom

'If the choices in relationships between men and women are made on the basis of market orientation, of highly patterned roles, one thing must happen: people get bored. I think that the word bored does not get the attention it deserves. We speak of all sorts of terrible things that happen to people, but we rarely speak about one of the most terrible things of all: that is, being bored, being bored alone and, worse than that, being bored together.'

more on this later....

Notes:

All italics are the words of the authors. They said it much better than I ever could hope to and they said it first. I am documenting their words because they help make sense of concepts and categories while I am still working out my position.

Fromm, E. and Funk, R. (2024) Love, Sexuality, and Matriarchy. Open Road Media.

Inglis, T. (2013) Love. 1st edn. Routledge.