Terrific. You/he did it again. I wouldn't
have thought of more than 10% of that,
even on a good day.

There are some connections with some of
the content in 'The Art of Loving',
especially his -- rough quote:

"The fundamental problem in life is
getting security in face of
the anxiety from the realization
that we are vulnerable to the hostile
forces of nature and society.
Human intelligence enables this
realization.
For responding to this anxiety,
only four approaches have been
tried, (1) love of god,
(2) love of spouse,
(3) membership in groups
(get praise, acceptance, approval,
feeling of belonging, coalition, support),
and (4) 'orgiastic' behavior
(sex and drugs) to suppress
the feelings of anxiety."

So, the "idolatry" can be seen as
another response to the
anxiety, that is,
a false approach to
(1)-(3).

Fromm had another one, that can
regard as a 'secret scorecard'!
He explained that in a good case of
love, the couple
gives to each other
knowledge, caring, respect,
and responsiveness. So, in "knowledge"
they keep each other informed
on their thoughts, feelings, concerns,
desires, etc. In "caring", they
actually, actively care about each other.
In "respect" they respect the other
person, e.g., don't regard them
with contempt or to be manipulated
or exploited. For "responsiveness",
they 'respond' to each other,
e.g., don't do what was long in the
Sunday newspaper cartoons of the
wife talking to the husband
over the breakfast table
and the husband behind a newspaper
repeating "Yes, Dear. Of course,
Dear. That's right, Dear.
That's nice, Dear. Yes, Dear.".

Then take these four 'attributes'
and evaluate them for couples you
know. If the couple gets a bad
grade on all four, try to short
the stock of their marriage,
if it is possible to do that!
Or be very cautious about marrying
one of their children!

That little scorecard can give some
surprising results: Can discover that
some couples are going along for
decades with what externally to
the community looks like a good
marriage but according to the
scorecard really would like to
knife each other in the back!
Or, people can put on some really
big acts.

There's more, from Fromm, and still
more if combine Fromm with some
other good sources (of which
I know only a few).

Here's an exercise: Watch 'Roman Holiday'.
There the reporter Bradley
(Gregory Peck)
and Princess Anna (Audrey Hepburn)
were from the beginning basically
lying to each other about whom
they were but slowly mutually
but silently worked past the lies.
Then evaluate the scorecard:
They did great. On each of
the four, they started off okay
and then grew to a grade of A or A+.
Then they were in love. Otherwise
they showed it by only quite
subtle means, but it was
convincing and enough. The
writer (Trumbo), director
(Wyler), and the actors did
fantastic jobs. Fromm's scorecard
wins again!

People really in love will likely
be doing well on Fromm's scorecard
whether they have heard of the four
items or not. If they are not in love,
are pretending to the public to be
in love, and
have not heard of the four items,
then there is a really good chance
that their act is not working and
they are showing that they
are not in love by getting bad grades
on the scorecard.

I doubt that Trumbo or Wyler
had read Fromm, but they knew enough
about love to give a really good
presentation of it including on
Fromm's scorecard.

Note: I call Fromm's four attributes
a 'scorecard'; I doubt that Fromm
ever did!

That Fromm's little four item
scorecard can look like X-ray
vision through the public
'presentation' of couples
trying to pretend in public
to have a good marriage is to me
amazing and astoundingly valuable.
Some of the best information about
anything I ever got.

One more exercise: The first item on Fromm's
scorecard is giving knowledge.
Well, that is a form of 'intimacy'.
If you are in a romantic relationship
without intimacy, then you are in
deep trouble! On the other hand,
if meet a girl and soon she is
telling you lots of things
from between her ears, then that's
intimacy and inviting a romantic
relationship. I've been in
'romantic' relationships where
the girl was much more open about
what was between her legs than between
her ears. Or in 'Roman Holiday', they
started between their ears and
slowly worked down to, say,
a nice hug and a kiss. In real life,
it can be much more common to start
below the waist and maybe move up,
maybe never get above the shoulders,
and only rarely get between the ears.

Or, in middle school
it can appear that a lot of the mothers
told their daughters to stay away
from boys, not to talk to them:
"Don't tell them anything. If they
ask 'why', just say 'because'. Say
it over and over until they feel
insulted and give up." So, such
mothers know that this way they
can throttle a path toward intimacy
for their middle school daughters.

Fromm's amazing.