2 Kinds of Love

Part 0 - Introduction

This is the first reading note for my website. Actually the original Chinese note was posted on my WeChat Public Account. Now I translate it into English and add it here.

This note is based on my reading experience of The Art of Loving and Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind, and aims to discuss the concept of unconditional & conditional love. I try in this note to investigate their traits, causes, and to provide insights of how we should practice love.

Part 1 - Unconditional and Conditional

Erich Fromm talks about all kinds of love in his book The Art of Loving, two very interesting ones of which are Motherly Love and Fatherly Love; both of them are discussed in detail in Chapter 2, Love between Parent and Child. Having seen the title of this note and the heading of this section, you probably have guessed what we're about to discuss - Unconditional Motherly Love and Conditional Fatherly Love.

However, we should first be clear on the fact that the Motherly/Fatherly Love discussed here is not really the specific Love of a Mother/Father; rather, is the abstract representation of two extreme kinds of love on an abstract continuum. In other words, here, Motherly Love simply represents Unconditional Love, and Fatherly Love simply represents Conditional Love. The reason for this is that it indeed captures the main trait of each kind; however, in real life, specific love of a father/mother is way more complicated, and obviously not apt for summarizing with just one word, be that conditional or unconditional. So, without extra confusion, and without further ado, let's move on.

Fromm describes motherly love as the extension of the baby's experience inside the womb: the baby is not yet able to distinguish the self from others, and the mother provides unconditional warmth, food, security, and happiness. As the child grows, he can gradually distinguish the self from others. And all the wonderful experiences provided by motherly love makes him get this feeling: I am loved, because I am me; or rather, I am loved, because of my existence itself. Thus, motherly love is the unconditional grace of happiness, which the child doesn't need to make an effort to win.

However, Fromm also points out there's a flipside to the unconditionality of motherly love: yes it is good that you don't need to fight for it, but that also means there's no active way to get more of it. If it is here, it would be such a bless; and if it isn't here, it would feel like everything nice vanished, and that you can't do anything to re-create it.

As the child continues growing, fatherly love becomes more and more important. if motherly love is about acceptance and caring, then fatherly love is about guidance and expectation. This conditional love helps the child to connect with the world, to explore the worlds of thoughts, artifacts, laws and orders. On the one hand, this conditionality sounds cruel and realistic , because it means that if you cannot meet the criterion, the love would be withdrawn; on the other hand, it also provides hope, because it means that if you can meet the criterion, you would get the love you want.

Knowing about these 2 kinds of love can indeed help us analyze many issues such as the causes of all kinds of neurosis. However, I am not an expert at psychoanalysis, and that is out of the scope of this note. Knowing something is nice enough, but knowing the reasons behind is even better. So, the next question to be discussed is, why do fatherly and motherly love diverge like this into 2 typical forms?

Part 2 - Unconditional also Conditional

To discuss issues concerning gender roles, evolutionary psychology is undoubtedly a powerful tool. And for the role differences between father and mother, there has been some rather mature theories. Let's begin with the so-called Paternity Uncertainty, which simply means that, throughout the whole evolutionary process, a child is 100% certain the mother's, but not so surely the father's. From this perspective, we can explain many phenomena, such as the fact that a female cannot stand the husband's unfaithful thoughts more than actions, yet that a male cannot stand the wife's unfaithful actions more than thoughts: it's because a female devotes more inevitably through the process of bearing and raising a child, and thus needs the male to devote more in terms of resources and safety. If a female's husband is unfaithful mentally, then he shall stop investing in her and her baby. And if a male's wife cheated on him, then however much he invests shall benefit another man instead of himself.

And from the perspective of parent-child relation, the corresponding term of Paternity Uncertainty is simply Maternity Certainty (actually this isn't quite a thing, maybe because of its obviousness). So, a mother needn't hold back on investing in her baby. The baby coming out of her own womb must extend her own life. But for the father, he can never be so sure, and has to at least check that the baby looks like him to continue investing more.

From here, we can see that, motherly and fatherly love share the same condition: the baby being truly the mother/father's. It is simply that, a mother has this condition unconditionally fulfilled, yet a father can never be so sure. However, when we think about it like this, are we just putting all kinds of love on the same level, and stating that all kinds of love have their conditions, and that truly unconditional love does not exist?

Part 3 - Unconditional-ize Conditional

Some people say that, the nature of interpersonal relationships is no more than resource trading. Indeed it makes sense when you take an analytic and deconstructive perspective. However, that sounds just so cold, cruel, and unacceptable. If a person emphasizes all the time that the nature of interpersonal relationships is no more than resource trading, do you, dear reader, dare to get any closer to him? Surely, seeing relationships that way has its advantages, such as helping us overcome sadness over sunk costs and make more rational decisions. However, if this that perspective is taken as the only perspective, more advantages would be lost. Take this analogy: eating is necessary for survival, and a craving for diverse diet is evolved for the balance of nutrition. But if you take the same nutritiously-balanced meal every meal, despite the fact that it solves the balance problem, you would still find it unbearable. Resource trading is indeed the foundation for relationships to exist, but it cannot explain everything of relationships. For us human, we should better go no deeper than the relationship level.

So, although I claimed that motherly love is also conditional, if we just conclude that unconditional love is just a hypocritical myth, it would sound too cynical and helpless. In fact, we should switch our perspective on this issue: since motherly love indeed seems and feels so unconditional, how do we unconditional-ize conditional love?

Still, let's return to the example of fatherly and motherly love, the key is ensure the binding of interests. In recent years, technological advances in paternity test (well there seems to be no maternity test) have assured fathers of their paternity certainty; this way, fatherly love can finally let its guard down, devote without worries, and finally transit to unconditional love.

It's just like the difference between promises and commitment: verbal promising is mostly vacant, reliant on trust, yet unable to build trust, whereas committing actions binds people into a unified community of interest, and facilitates trust, safety, and cooperation. Once this behavioral commitment is set in action, we would feel totally natural to let down our guards and view relationships in an emotional instead of analytical perspective.

Part End - Conclusion

In conclusion, this note expands on the concept of conditional and unconditional love, reveals their shared foundation, and, most importantly, identifies the key to transforming conditional love to unconditional love, and encourages cooperative relationships with more trust and security.

Thank you for reading till the end!