Another excellent piece of writing Brittany. I believe it is perfectly timed to write about this subject as with the transition from one year to the next many people will consider what is important looking forward into this coming year and I’m sure fostering love and appreciation for others would stand out. I really enjoyed your reminder that virtue is about joy, not sacrifice. Thank you!
Outstanding piece Brittany- I read this classic nearly 50 years ago, when my older sister gave me a copy in high school- no idea that it had such obvious links to Stoicism… your writing continues to be so helpful- looking forward to reading more on this theme!
I often think about this standing vs falling in love dichotomy, which also applies to happiness. Sure, happiness and love are things we can experience through happenstance due to exposure to externals we find pleasing, but their manifestation is mediated by internal disposition.
Both emotions can be generated through concentration and discipline, as you write. And for those of us who lack an automatic sunny dispositions due to our habitual casts of mind, it takes conscious reframing and concentration to go beyond these random bouts of happiness/love to make them a regular feature of our life.
I recently wrote a substack email about a simple technique I use to "turn on," happiness through concentration. I feel like the loving-kindness meditation of Buddhist philosophy works the same way for love.
I wonder what spiritual exercises/explicit instructions of this nature we're missing from the Stoic literature. I wonder what the Stoics would make of this sort of meditation? Would they see it as falling inside prosoche?
Yes, I do think the Buddhist loving-kindness meditation goes well with Stoicism. I practice it myself and have found it very beneficial. I have to always remind myself, though, that the goal is to develop correct judgments about the world rather than chasing the type of elevated mood that many people call happiness. Doing these exercises helps me to stay in a good frame of mind to show compassion to others.
Your technique sounds really promising! You might also be interested in a series of meditations I did for the Stoa meditation app, which are coming out in the next couple weeks. I'll share more about them in my next Substack post, but they were designed to fill some of the gaps you mention. I think there is always room to create fresh exercises that are relevant to our lives.
Thank you, Brittany, for this enriching post. It's fascinating what parallels exist here and also the timing of Ellis' REBT - like you write, too much to be merely coincidental. Makes me want to grab my copy of “The Art of Loving” straight away and follow your thoughts.
I'm interested:
Did you find any traces of a similar concept to the Stoic oikeiôsis in Fromm's work? Something about how to enlargen your love from yourself to others, how to learn to include all mankind in your loving and giving attitude?
Thank you, Anne! Yes, Fromm does advocate something similar to both personal and social oikeiosis. On the personal side, he consistently highlights the need for maturity through character development and a full realization of our highest human potential. (This is certainly characteristics of the humanist tradition, as well as Stoicism.) He also sounds quite Stoic about social oikeiosis:
“I cannot be truly objective about my family if I cannot be objective about the stranger, and vice versa...To have acquired this capacity for objectivity and reason is half the road to achieving the art of loving, but it must be acquired with regard to everybody with whom one comes in contact. If someone would want to reserve his objectivity for the loved person, and think he can dispense with it in his relationship to the rest of the world, he will soon discover that he fails both here and there" (p. 109). In particular he mentions national tribalism: "The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble."
In order to overcome this, he recommends developing our ability to reason objectively and apply the same standards to everyone. So he doesn't provide any new techniques, but it is quite interesting that he explicitly ties the development of love to the development of reason and objectivity.
This is very good Brittany and has been on my mind recently and for a very long time.
One of the reasons we have so many problems in the world, and so many failures in relationships, is that many people have no idea what love really is. Even though there is an incredibly deep tradition in the Western world about the nature and purpose of love, it is not even noticed or considered today.
I suppose that's the triumph of the consumer society over deeper human values?
Thanks, David! Yes, I agree with your last statement/question, and it's something Fromm strongly emphasizes. He talks about how love is seen as a commodity, just like everything else in our overly commercialized society, and how people focus on increasing their value on this consumer market (and try to find the best "product" on the market). He's also quite critical of conformity: "Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority" (p. 13). So while I disagree with his prescription (Marxism), I agree with his diagnosis of the problem.
That is really great. In the past, I had a copy of the book, but it never made it with me from the United States to Europe.
Of course, the quote from Fromm actually applies to many people who have unconsciously assimilated ideas from Marxism without understanding where they came from. I know this happened to me when I was a college-aged youngster (which is when it normally happens), and fortunately I was able to work myself free from those ideas later in life.
I recently wrote to a friend or two about how rare real love is now due the the fact that we live in a culture of consumerism, which profoundly affects nearly everything — so I was really delighted to discover this confirmation from Fromm, and am definitely going to revisit this book with fresh eyes.
Lovely read! 😊
Another excellent piece of writing Brittany. I believe it is perfectly timed to write about this subject as with the transition from one year to the next many people will consider what is important looking forward into this coming year and I’m sure fostering love and appreciation for others would stand out. I really enjoyed your reminder that virtue is about joy, not sacrifice. Thank you!
Awesome, thanks Gaz! Wishing you much joy in the new year.
Outstanding piece Brittany- I read this classic nearly 50 years ago, when my older sister gave me a copy in high school- no idea that it had such obvious links to Stoicism… your writing continues to be so helpful- looking forward to reading more on this theme!
Thank you, Tim! Best wishes for the new year!
Great piece.
I often think about this standing vs falling in love dichotomy, which also applies to happiness. Sure, happiness and love are things we can experience through happenstance due to exposure to externals we find pleasing, but their manifestation is mediated by internal disposition.
Both emotions can be generated through concentration and discipline, as you write. And for those of us who lack an automatic sunny dispositions due to our habitual casts of mind, it takes conscious reframing and concentration to go beyond these random bouts of happiness/love to make them a regular feature of our life.
I recently wrote a substack email about a simple technique I use to "turn on," happiness through concentration. I feel like the loving-kindness meditation of Buddhist philosophy works the same way for love.
I wonder what spiritual exercises/explicit instructions of this nature we're missing from the Stoic literature. I wonder what the Stoics would make of this sort of meditation? Would they see it as falling inside prosoche?
Yes, I do think the Buddhist loving-kindness meditation goes well with Stoicism. I practice it myself and have found it very beneficial. I have to always remind myself, though, that the goal is to develop correct judgments about the world rather than chasing the type of elevated mood that many people call happiness. Doing these exercises helps me to stay in a good frame of mind to show compassion to others.
Your technique sounds really promising! You might also be interested in a series of meditations I did for the Stoa meditation app, which are coming out in the next couple weeks. I'll share more about them in my next Substack post, but they were designed to fill some of the gaps you mention. I think there is always room to create fresh exercises that are relevant to our lives.
I needed to read this today, thank you.
A wonderful and perceptive essay. Thank you!
Thank you, Brittany, for this enriching post. It's fascinating what parallels exist here and also the timing of Ellis' REBT - like you write, too much to be merely coincidental. Makes me want to grab my copy of “The Art of Loving” straight away and follow your thoughts.
I'm interested:
Did you find any traces of a similar concept to the Stoic oikeiôsis in Fromm's work? Something about how to enlargen your love from yourself to others, how to learn to include all mankind in your loving and giving attitude?
Thank you, Anne! Yes, Fromm does advocate something similar to both personal and social oikeiosis. On the personal side, he consistently highlights the need for maturity through character development and a full realization of our highest human potential. (This is certainly characteristics of the humanist tradition, as well as Stoicism.) He also sounds quite Stoic about social oikeiosis:
“I cannot be truly objective about my family if I cannot be objective about the stranger, and vice versa...To have acquired this capacity for objectivity and reason is half the road to achieving the art of loving, but it must be acquired with regard to everybody with whom one comes in contact. If someone would want to reserve his objectivity for the loved person, and think he can dispense with it in his relationship to the rest of the world, he will soon discover that he fails both here and there" (p. 109). In particular he mentions national tribalism: "The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble."
In order to overcome this, he recommends developing our ability to reason objectively and apply the same standards to everyone. So he doesn't provide any new techniques, but it is quite interesting that he explicitly ties the development of love to the development of reason and objectivity.
This is very good Brittany and has been on my mind recently and for a very long time.
One of the reasons we have so many problems in the world, and so many failures in relationships, is that many people have no idea what love really is. Even though there is an incredibly deep tradition in the Western world about the nature and purpose of love, it is not even noticed or considered today.
I suppose that's the triumph of the consumer society over deeper human values?
Thanks, David! Yes, I agree with your last statement/question, and it's something Fromm strongly emphasizes. He talks about how love is seen as a commodity, just like everything else in our overly commercialized society, and how people focus on increasing their value on this consumer market (and try to find the best "product" on the market). He's also quite critical of conformity: "Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they have arrived at their opinions as the result of their own thinking—and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as those of the majority" (p. 13). So while I disagree with his prescription (Marxism), I agree with his diagnosis of the problem.
That is really great. In the past, I had a copy of the book, but it never made it with me from the United States to Europe.
Of course, the quote from Fromm actually applies to many people who have unconsciously assimilated ideas from Marxism without understanding where they came from. I know this happened to me when I was a college-aged youngster (which is when it normally happens), and fortunately I was able to work myself free from those ideas later in life.
I recently wrote to a friend or two about how rare real love is now due the the fact that we live in a culture of consumerism, which profoundly affects nearly everything — so I was really delighted to discover this confirmation from Fromm, and am definitely going to revisit this book with fresh eyes.
Yes, it's definitely worth a re-read!