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With his book, The Meaning of Love in Human Experience, Reuben Fine has given the reader a work of considerable bulk and ambition. In nearly 400 pages of text and with no fewer than 800 items in the bibliography, from fields as apparently diverse as history, biology, sociology and psychoanalysis to name but a few, Fine argues, at times vehemently, for a reconsideration of the role of love in present day society. In addition, he feels that the topic of love receives far too little attention in the psychoanalytic literature. In its essentials his argument is as follows: throughout history, particularly the history of Western culture, people have been kept at a distance from human happiness by the demands of the prevailing culture which has been, according to Fine, a predominantly 'hate' culture. This hate culture which still predominates in the Western world, alienates individuals from a concept (defined as the 'analytic ideal') derived from Freud's well-known dictum concerning the ability to work and to love. What is this analytic ideal which appears and reappears throughout this book as its dominant theme? To quote Fine, 'love may best be approached in terms of the analytic idea', and he goes on to state that, 'we can say that the human being reaches the greatest degree of happiness when he or she can love, enjoy sex, have pleasure, feel yet be guided by reason, be part of a family, have a role in the social order, communicate with his or her fellows, work, has a creative outlet and is free from psychiatric symptomatology. The effectiveness of love can be evaluated by the degree to which a person's life reaches this analytic ideal' (p. 304).
In his pursuit of this analytic ideal the author spends the first three chapters establishing a supporting argument, referred to above, namely that, throughout its history, Western culture has been pathogenic and violent in the extreme. Prior to examining Western culture, Fine describes in some detail five cultures he de