The way we relate to each other and the world around us is predicated on a variety of social, economic and cultural factors. From social values, class segregation, and laws to religious beliefs, politics, and the media, such factors influence how we perceive ourselves as well as those around us. Such factors provide us with our view of the self, our view of others, and our worldview. During the twentieth century major changes in social, economic, and cultural factors, have reshaped and redefined the concepts of family, love, sexuality and friendship. We will now explore some of the attitudes and values that have emerged as a result of such changes, as viewed by a variety of authors.
The increasingly secular nature of society, the sexual revolution, and the industrialization of the U.S. economy all played a role in changing attitudes and beliefs with respect to family, love and sexuality, and friendship in the twentieth century. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than with respect to love and sexuality. Erich Fromm argues that changes in attitudes and beliefs in regard to sexuality stem from the tendency to confuse sex and love. Fromm argues that erotic love encompasses an exclusivity not found in fraternal or motherly love. As he writes, erotic love, ôis the craving for complete fusion, for union with one other person. It is by its very nature exclusive and not universal; it is also perhaps the most deceptive form of love there isö (Fromm 160).
FrommÆs contention is that our desire to explore and conquer another through love is a cyclical process that ultimately leads to disillusionment and the search for a continual stream of new partners. The desire for complete union can never be fulfilled because this cycle involves confusing love with sexual gratification, lacking in the ôsort of congenialityö Bertrand Russell argues is essential for successful, long-term unions (164). Russell believes that prevailing atti...