Alienation in the Post Cold War Era
Chapter 14
On the Ability to Love
(page 5)
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Giving often involves sharing the deepest part of us, which involves our real emotional experience, or our creative accomplishments which we deeply care about and want to share with others. These who can truly receive the sharing of the giver, give back a warm loving response. Thus, true receiving involves giving. Giving and receiving are complementary parts of the same ability to love. Those who can truly give can truly receive, and those who can truly receive can truly give. Or to put it differently, those who cannot give cannot receive; in each case they cannot love.
Giving and receiving constitute the essence of love in which the experience of sharing in a loving way becomes the point in human relationships. The giver is proud of sharing his/her productive and creative life without being attached to it with his/her ego. There are of course a lot of fakers out there whose giving is an act of manipulation. In our alienated society we do not always know how to detect that. But a sensitive enlivened person can tell when the giver is genuine or a fake. You can tell, for example, when a photographer, who returns from a trip, loves to share his/her creativity in taking beautiful photographs because he/she enjoys expressing the love of life through sharing the act of taking pictures. In this case the photographer expresses the life in him/her that shows in the pictures. The people respond with a genuine gratitude and excitement, and the atmosphere is filled with a warm exchange of joy and appreciation. The giver gives his experiences, creativity and love, and people receive it with open arms; they give back love and warmth to the giver. But in a second case, for example, when the photographer has egoistic motives, he/she may give the unspoken message that “I am a great photographer and I need you to acknowledge it and rub my ego.” He/she may go on and on about the trip and him/herself; the atmosphere becomes tense, since the people sense his/her ego centrality. Even if the photographs in the second case are as beautiful, the level of joy and appreciation would be much lower since the human exchange comes from the attached ego, and not from the giving heart. Let take a third case when there is zero giving, zero receiving, and total alienation. Such a case could occur when our photographer shows his/her pictures to an art director because he/she attempts to publish them. In this case there is no giving and life whatsoever. The photographer does not give any genuine part of him/herself and his/her creativity. He/she only shows and says what one is supposed to show and say to get the pictures published. The busy art director who flips through the photographs quickly to examine their marketability does not care about the pictures. The photographer does not give, and the art director does not receive the pride of the photographer or enjoy the pictures. There is no human life in this case — only the deadness of the market.
I cannot overemphasize that the ability to give and love can develop only when a person is capable to transcend the alienating psychological character of bourgeois society. Eric Fromm expresses this bluntly:
“It is hardly necessary to stress the fact that the ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person, It presupposes the attainment of a predominantly productive orientation; in this orientation the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic omnipotence, the wish to exploit others, or to hoard, and has acquired faith in his own human powers, courage to rely on his powers in the attainment of his goals. To the degree that these qualities are lacking, he is afraid of giving himself — hence of loving.”[5]
Thus, giving and loving can only be accomplished by a character who transcends the deadness of the market personality. This is, of course, hard to do. If the reader is genuinely interested in the art of loving and giving, I can suggest some obvious things to do. Avoid as much as possible the market personality. Associate with loving friends who are capable of being genuine and give from the heart. Try to change your routines when it comes to giving. Instead of shopping for gifts, create something that express part of your real self and give it to a beloved person. In your circle of friends, you can make it a habit to encourage people to give the best and real part of themselves in the safe atmosphere of support and love. This can be done by encouraging people to show and express their creative originality or activities that express their self-love to the group e.g. the example of the photographer earlier, or when a group prepares creative signs for a show or a demonstration. Or you can just encourage people to share their emotional and intellectual experiences that are truly theirs in an atmosphere of support and acceptance.
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[5] Fromm, The Art of Loving, pages 21-22, my emphasis.