Part I: Why I Don’t Want to Teach This Book
1. It appears arrogant. Who am I to assume the mantle of authority over such lofty matters of love?
2. There is an implicit pretentiousness in a professor who decides to teach a book about love.
3. The potential for hypocrisy if I don’t live up to the standards I discuss.
Part II: Why I Feel Compelled to Teach It
1. We live in a culture that pretends to give a damn about love but doesn’t really, only in words, not deed.
2. We live in a culture that is obsessed with a chimera or false idea of love, but not love itself. We confuse love with romance, self-fulfillment, popularity, and success. We confuse love with something we receive, when in fact love is a personality trait that bleeds through every thing the person thinks and does.
Part III: 10 Reasons Why The Art of Loving Is Not a “Self-Help” Book:
1. Self-help books promise the lie of easy answers to complex problems whereas Fromm admits change requires patience, discipline, and consistency. (student offended that you would lose 21 pounds a year if you cut 200 calories a day).
2. Self-help books condescend to the reader and insult the reader’s intelligence by dishing out cliché’s and self-evident truths dressed up in phony language.
3. Self-help books encourage narcissistic self-importance while Fromm helps us overcome our narcissism in a culture that rewards narcissistic behavior. See page X of Introduction.
4. Self-help books, such as The Promise, make narcissistic selfishness equivalent to spiritual fulfillment.
5. Self-help books are written to become best-sellers by pandering to their readers’ egos and never challenging the reader to examine his flaws while The Art of Loving exposes our weaknesses and prescribes a course of action that requires painful and slow change. See xiv.
6. Self-help books erroneously talk about “love” as a commodity that can be earned by being attractive, successful, or charming. Also, Fromm points out that self-helps books tell the lie that love is a cheap sentiment that can be indulged (like a romantic comedy or melodrama). In contrast, Fromm defines love as an art that defies the conventions of modern society’s materialistic values. See xiii.
7. Self-help books ignore the inherent tragedy of human existence while The Art of Loving argues that the love must be grounded in the wisdom from understanding the tragedy of human existence. (We will die short of fulfilling our potential and without totally understanding other people and ourselves)
8. Self-help books attempt to “fine-tune” this or that deficiency like doing a brake change on a car while The Art of Loving argues that change can only result from a total comprehensive altering of the entire personality. See the Preface.
9. Self-help books promise that change is easy while in The Art of Loving Fromm points out that most people’s attempt to love will fail, that loving in the fullest sense is in fact “a rare achievement.” See the Preface.
10. Self-help books romanticize love by accepting the popular culture notion of love as a “pleasant sensation” while The Art of Loving defines love as a discipline to a culture that disdains discipline. See page 1.
Part IV: The 10 Modern Fallacies of Love
1. Love is not a bite of chocolate ice cream or an alcoholic buzz or a caffeine jolt as many unconsciously believe from movies and commercials. See page 1.
2. Love is not something we receive like a milk bottle offered to a hungry infant. See page 1.
3. “Getting love” is not about being “loveable.” See page 1.
4. Finding love is not about achieving wealth or material success. See page 1.
5. Finding love is not about looking attractive. See page 2.
6. Finding love is not about having a “winning, positive attitude.” See page 2.
7. Love is not about finding “the right person” to love. See page 2 and top of page 3. (it’s not about object; it’s about faculty)
8. Love is not a commodity exchange in which two people reciprocate each other’s desires of the ideal lover or the “attractive package”; Fromm equates this “search for love” to looking at real estate; see page 3.
9. Love is not “falling in love”; this falling in love process is a dangerous addiction and cycle; see page 4.
10. Love is not an easy or natural pastime; it requires hard work; see page 4 bottom.
Part V. The Correct Way to Think about Love
1. Love is an art.
2. Love is a discipline that requires commitment and consistency.
3. Love is not about being loved; it’s about the act of loving, which requires a total personality change; you can’t just fine-tune yourself to be loving.
4. One must master the theory of love.
5. One must then master the practice of love.
Part VI. The Type of Personalities That Do Not Embrace Loving
1. Consumer Philistine
2. Automaton or Conformist
3. Perennial Child; become dependent on an adult or authority figure to feel safe and provided for.
4. Power-Monger
5. Sentimentalist
6. The Vain Narcissist
7. The Addict
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