Dear Unknown Friends:
We are publishing, in two parts, portions of a definitive lecture—at once definitive and warm—that Eli Siegel gave in 1974. The title is What Are We Going After?, and here, in this issue, is the second and final part.
At the point we’ve reached, Mr. Siegel has been commenting on an article, “The Demoralized Mind,” by Jerome Frank, published in the journal Psychology Today. It provides, Mr. Siegel says, an opportunity to show what differentiates Aesthetic Realism from other ways of seeing the human self.
A central, enormous difference is in the lecture’s title, What Are We Going After? Aesthetic Realism shows that there is a fundamental purpose had by every human being, just as every human being has arteries. That purpose, in us from birth, is to like the world through knowing it.
Unlike the various approaches referred to by Frank, Aesthetic Realism is philosophy and certainly is not in the psychiatric field. So let us take a famous statement by a great and lovable philosopher, Aristotle. He wrote, at the start of his Metaphysics: “All men by nature desire to know.” Aesthetic Realism would agree with that—but, I believe, would say too that the more knowing is authentic and untainted, the more it goes for like of the world as such, through seeing what many instances of the world truly are. In fact, if we want to know certain things yet also feel the world they’re in is an enemy, or unimportant, our desire to know will have big limitations. There will be so much we won’t see as worthy of our knowing.
What Competes with Our Valuing the World?
Our huge desire, to see value, meaning, beauty in the world, has a competitor in us. This competitor, the most hurtful thing in everyone, Eli Siegel is the philosopher to describe. It is contempt, “the disposition…to think we will be for ourselves by making less of the outside world.” Contempt sees reality and people as to be managed, not known. Our contempt looks on our fellow humans in terms of: how much do they praise us, make us comfortable and important, do what we want them to? That way of seeing goes on in every field of life.
Yet one of the magnificent things about the human self is this: if we go after something contemptuous, not in behalf of caring truly for the world—even if we seem to succeed at our unjust aims, we will not like ourselves. We’ll feel inevitably, however hiddenly, ashamed. And we may feel we need to pursue those contempt victories even more intensely, make them bigger, more thorough.
Many examples could be given. But take a woman we’ll call Allie. When she married Jonah she felt (though she wouldn’t put it this way) that his largest purpose should be to make much of her, praise her, make her feel she was superior to everyone. He was not chary with his compliments—but they couldn’t satisfy her. That’s because, though she doesn’t know it, her deepest desire as to him is for something else. It’s to see the world better through knowing Jonah; and, through knowing and caring increasingly for the world, to be fair to him in all his puzzlingness and hopes and depth. But Allie doesn’t know Aesthetic Realism’s understanding of the self. So she feels more and more fiercely that Jonah must give her adulation, and is more and more dissatisfied with whatever praise she gets.
The Oneness of Opposites
Along with explaining, after these many centuries, what the self—our own self—is after, Aesthetic Realism explains the basis on which this world can be honestly liked. “The chief reason,” wrote Eli Siegel, “…for liking the world is that the world has the opposites which, as one, we see as beauty itself.” Let’s take three aspects of an art that has stirred people for thousands of years: beautiful singing.
1) When we hear a singer who is very good, we hear sound that comes to us with vividness, sound that’s proudly definite; yet, at the same time, we hear nuance, mystery. And, isn’t the world itself both definite and mysterious? Isn’t it right before us, yet impossible to sum up?
2) As this good singer presents the song’s notes and words, they move along with a certain lyrical efficiency; they’re not bogged down; they go rightly forward. Yet there’s a feeling, as this singer proceeds from note to note, word to word, that the previous sounds we heard in the song are not put aside, forgotten; they’re somehow present as meaning in the new sounds. Is that like the world itself? Is the world simultaneously motion and lingering, present and past?
3) This singer, as we hear her, is herself; she has individuality. And yet, if she is truly a good singer, we feel as we hear her that she stands for everyone, even everything. Is that like the world as such? Is every instance of the world just itself, a soloist? Yet can each instance of reality also be seen as an ambassador from all reality, as representing all reality?
These are some pairs of the world’s and art’s opposites. And they are our opposites too. In keeping with the instances I just gave: 1) We want to make sense of ourselves as definite, as firmly here—and also as mysterious, as not understood, including by ourselves. 2) We want to feel we’re in motion in our lives and meeting new things, yet we’re troubled because we don’t know how to put the new together with what we already experienced, with honoring what has been. 3) And of course we want to be just ourselves, in utter individuality; yet we’ll be achingly lonely unless we feel, at the very same time, that we’re related to everything.
The opposites, Aesthetic Realism shows, are the makeup of art, of reality, and of your own self. If the opposites that are the world’s are also beauty’s and are intimately yours, this is evidence that, as Eli Siegel so carefully and courageously wrote, “The world is more friendly than you know.”
An Addendum about Truth
Since, in the discussion you’ll soon read, something important is said about truth, I am very glad to affirm the following here: I have seen, through looking critically for many years, that Aesthetic Realism is true. Further, I’ve seen that its value for every person is immense—indeed, is limitless. And I saw that Eli Siegel himself was always beautifully true to the great philosophy he founded.
—Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism
Chair of Education
Yourself and the World Together
By Eli Siegel
As the Frank article comments on various approaches to mind, the largest thing it leaves out is purpose, or objective. The purpose of every Aesthetic Realism lesson any person ever had was to enable the person to see the world better and therefore like it more, no matter what else is going on. The purpose of my talk today, for everybody here, is to have you see the world better and therefore like yourself more. That has never changed. And it is a central way Aesthetic Realism is apart from what Dr. Frank is talking about.
Aesthetic Realism says the deepest desire or purpose of a person is to like the world on an honest basis—which means to have good will for it. [Note: Mr. Siegel defined good will as “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.”] Good will is the oneness of the utmost in criticism and the utmost in encouragement. It’s not the saying of “nice” things. To have good will for a person includes not wanting to miss anything that should be disliked in the person, or that the person is worried about, or any defect. If you don’t want to criticize a person for the strength of that person, you don’t have good will.
So again, good will is the oneness of criticism and kindness, the oneness of encouragement and the showing that some things are too much or too absent. And Aesthetic Realism is alone in this: in saying its purpose with a person, in a lesson or consultation, is to increase good will in that person.
Our having good will for a person begins with our desire to like the world. They are the same thing with a different approach. They’re like microscope and telescope: the same world is seen under the microscope that is seen under the telescope. But under the microscope, what you do is see small things as clearly as possible. And through the telescope, you look at large things and see as clearly as possible. Good will is the seeing of a person beginning with him- or herself. Liking the world is seeing that person beginning with what he or she is in. But the same purpose is there. Whether you see milk as coming from Wisconsin or as on the table, it is still milk, distant or near.
No Real Success without Truth
Dr. Frank writes that the various psychological approaches
seem to have about the same success rate; despite vigorous polemics, no one approach has succeeded in driving out its rivals.
Well, another notion that has to be looked at is: what does it mean to have success? There are two kinds of “success” in this field. One is that a person feels better, at least for a while. People have felt better even when they weren’t sure that what they heard was true. It happens that if you have a chance to say to another what is troubling you, and the other is listening, it can be useful. (Of course, there can be, too, a lot of pretense.) And also, persons have gone to various gatherings and weren’t sure what they heard was true, but it was a certain atmosphere that made them feel better.
The success of Aesthetic Realism lies chiefly in the fact that its central principles are true.
Frank has used the word success, and he writes, “no one approach has succeeded in driving out its rivals.” Aesthetic Realism, of course, is not interested in “driving out” any “rivals.” The desire is for people soberly to see two things: one, that the way Aesthetic Realism sees the world and oneself is true; and two, that the way it is true about the world and oneself can be indefinitely useful.
How Do We See?
According to Aesthetic Realism, the deepest desire of a person is to see the world in a certain way and oneself in a certain way. If the world is not seen in a way we’re proud of, and if we ourselves are not seen by ourselves in a way we’re proud of, we can say that our lives, that much, are not successes. There is a desire that every person who has ever lived has had: I’d like to like the way I see. I’d like to think that the way I see is so good I can approve of myself. And in a certain sense, to use a term present in the Frank article, no person is “well” who either doesn’t have that desire accomplished, or is not honestly going after it. Any person who doesn’t say, I want to like the way I see, is unwell. That is a tall statement; but again, there’s reasoning behind it.
The chief thing in what has been called man is the way he, or she, sees. Persons will say to themselves, I don’t like my life. I don’t like the way my life is going. That happens to be a majority feeling. Everyone is dissatisfied. But people don’t put it in this form: I don’t like the way I see. And the full statement, I don’t like the way I see, and therefore I don‘t like myself—that is not made.
Something More Magnificent
Everybody has discomforts, pain—there’s not a day in which a person doesn’t go through some, or think of going through some. At the same time, while we wish that all our pain would leave us, we have some larger notion: that life is not just for the purpose of banishing discomforts and pains: it’s for something a little more magnificent.
Now, happiness, in the largest sense, is magnificent. It also has something very confined. For instance, if your shoelace is broken and you get another one, you’re happy. If your button is off and someone sews it on, you’re happy. So happiness has a confined meaning and also is as wide as the world. The purpose of Aesthetic Realism with a person is to have you see the world in a way that you find lovely and magnificent. It is to have you see yourself, and the world, and everything, in a way that is magnificent. If, in the process, you feel better, can understand and do away with some difficulty—God bless you. So there is a magnificent purpose as to happiness; then, there’s an immediate purpose.
Again, everyone wants to be happy. And if that is different from liking the world, we should know it. Happiness that is not based on liking the world is too uncertain, is not lovely enough, because it’s not really your happiness. It doesn’t come from the way you see, but comes from the fact that the right coconuts fell into your hands at the right time. There’s a difference.
Happiness can be defined in many ways. I have defined it as “dynamic tranquility.” But the other meaning would be a keen sense that you like yourself and the world at the same time. Aesthetic Realism explains that a person living in Asia, living in South America, on an island in the Caribbean, in Manitoba—every person—wants to make some oneness of the world and its diversity and just him- or herself, and between the immediate world and the world of all time and space. That is the same as being happy.
Displeased with How We See the World
Why are people displeased with themselves? That is a large, cultural question—it doesn’t belong as such to psychiatry. To live is to be displeased. Everyone knows that to live is to have a debating ground all in oneself. What goes on under one’s skin? A prolonged debate.
Whether we know it or not, in the same way as we’d like to walk as well as we could, sing as well as we could, play the piano as well as we could, we would like to see as well as we could. Now, seeing (in the meaning with which I’m using the word) happens to be the large differentiation between humanity and other kinds of life. Other kinds of life see, but they don’t see that they see. That is the big difference. A person can say to himself or herself, “I don’t like the way I see things now.” But a dog can hardly say that. A dog doesn’t complain of its method of introspection, retrospection, or inspection. And this being able to see our seeing is the differentiation.
It happens that the largest thing outside of ourselves, which is the world, is that which we see the most wrongly. The largest thing that is of us, ourselves, is also that which we see in the most unfortunate manner. In other words, the human being has so far been a flop as to the biggest things that could get his or her attention: the world, and what oneself is. On some other things—on how to sell cars—a person has done pretty well. And also on some big things, like building a building—a three-story brownstone in the 1840s or a skyscraper in the 1920s—that, the human being has done well. But how one sees the world and oneself and their relation is the biggest flop of man so far.
These Two Big Matters
When we ask How is it we should see?, there are certain matters that come down to this: we should see clearly and we should see kindly. That is, we should see something as sharply and neatly as possible, and also with as much feeling as possible.
Let’s take a person important in literature, Jonathan Swift. Swift was very kind to individual Englishmen and Irishmen, but there was too much pleasure he had in seeing humanity as a failure. His scorn, even in Gulliver’s Travels—which is one of his kindest works (there are other works that are not so kind)—his scorn is not in proportion.
What is it the human mind is looking for? It is looking for kindness and clearness about as many things as possible, including the world itself. This is what Aesthetic Realism goes after. There’s nothing that can’t be seen better, including the world itself.
Let’s take four people who wrote in the first part of the eighteenth century: Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, and Daniel Defoe. Pope has been seen as not wholly generous in what he did with people’s correspondence, how he saw Mary Wortley Montagu and some others, how cruel he was to some persons. Yet others said, He was one of the kindest persons I know. Swift also was seen as kind by many people. Joseph Addison is generally seen as cold, and Pope described him as cold. Then, Daniel Defoe—there was something that was, well, too driving in him. He wrote ever so many things, but there was a feeling that he wasn’t lyrical enough. Some of the feeling that Wordsworth later had, or Yeats had, is not in Daniel Defoe, although his works are a big thing.
I am saying this because often when one criticizes an author, as I’ve been doing, one gets to some things that have to do with what mind as such is looking for. For instance, in looking at Dickens and Thackeray, a critic would show that neither saw the world in completely the best way. There were some things that Thackeray saw. His portraiture of Major Pendennis is something that Dickens couldn’t have got to. Then, certainly, there are things in Dickens that are not elsewhere.
The point is that the world and ourselves are waiting to be seen in the best way. That is the purpose of Aesthetic Realism.