Dear Unknown Friends:

We are proud to publish here part of an Aesthetic Realism lesson conducted by Eli Siegel, to which we have given the title A Young Woman & Her Mother. Different from the lectures Mr. Siegel gave on subjects as diverse as the world itself—including history, the arts and sciences, the human self in all its aspects—in an Aesthetic Realism lesson he spoke to an individual person about the questions of that person’s own life. And I believe that never have human beings felt so deeply and truly and consistently comprehended as in those Aesthetic Realism lessons. I speak from enormously grateful personal experience, and with careful perspective.

Principles That Are True

Nothing is more important than the fact that each lesson was based on principles that are true, the principles of Aesthetic Realism. This philosophy, founded by Eli Siegel, explains what no other approach to the human self ever has. Every person, Aesthetic Realism shows, is an aesthetic situation. The questions of the life of each of us are answered in outline in all good art: “All beauty,” Mr. Siegel explained, “is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

Further, Aesthetic Realism is the knowledge that shows what the big fight is in everyone: the fight between the desire to respect the world and the desire to have contempt for it. From the first—the desire to respect—all kindness arises, and all true intelligence. From contempt comes every injustice and cruelty.

In Aesthetic Realism lessons, the way those principles were present was never the slightest bit formulaic or academic or rote. The principles were of one’s intimate self, explaining one’s angers, hopes, tossings at midnight. We can see that in the lesson here, as Mr. Siegel is speaking about a drama of closeness and distance, for and against—and as he enables a person’s contempt to change into the desire to respect.

The consultations that take place at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, whether in person or by video conference, arise—in both their principles and beauty—from the lessons Mr. Siegel gave.

An Aesthetic Realism lesson was not therapy of any kind. It was education. It was culture. Often relations were made to literature, science, history. And one experienced what is in this sentence from Eli Siegel’s Self and World: “No self can truly know itself and be ashamed.” All this is so of Aesthetic Realism consultations too.

The section of the lesson published here was about how a young woman we’re calling Daphne Baker saw her mother. Present at the lesson were colleagues of Ms. Baker in her study of Aesthetic Realism. She had been angry with her mother for years, but as a result of this discussion, she and her mother became deep friends.

Ways the Family Is Seen

Throughout the millennia, people have been mixed up about the family—a fact that world literature illustrates. Today in America there are two frequent ways of seeing the family, both of which can be described delicately as inadequate. One, put forth by numerous therapists, is: people in your family, particularly your parents, are to blame for your woes, because when you were growing up they didn’t show you how exceedingly special you are. The second way is: the family is in an exclusive realm; it’s intrinsically better and warmer than—and unrelated to—all other human beings, because this family is yours.

Meanwhile, as we approach the holiday season, advice and jokes abound in the media and online about anger, discomfort, and dread regarding family get-togethers. I’ve seen such titles as: “Tips to Manage Anger around Your Family during the Holidays” and “How to Deal with the Dread of Going Home for the Holidays.” There’s an article on the Psychology Today website titled “4 Ways to Survive Holidays with the Family.” (The heading for point 3 advises simply: “Escape when you can.”)

The way Aesthetic Realism sees the family is beautifully, kindly different. Every person, it explains, including every person in your family—parent, sibling, cousin—while related to you, has to do with the whole world. And his or her profound need is to like that world. The largest, most primal imperative in familial love, as in romantic love and love for a friend, is to want that person to be in the best relation with the world in all its diversity. And central to this imperative is the desire to know the person: to know how that person sees—and sees not just you, but reality.

In the following discussion, a young woman was being encouraged to know—herself, her mother, humanity. This was taking place because of something magnificent in cultural history: the desire to know that was Eli Siegel’s.

—Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism
Chairman of Education

A Young Woman & Her Mother

From an Aesthetic Realism Lesson

Conducted by Eli Siegel

[Note. As this discussion begins, Mr. Siegel is speaking with Daphne Baker about the mother of Nick Odell, the man she has been seeing.]

Eli Siegel. So Ms. Baker, do you think sometimes a young woman and the mother of a young man can have the same attitude?

Daphne Baker. Possibly, yes.

ES. Do you think there are ten things you and Mrs. Odell agree about? Or do you have to fight mothers all your life?

DB. No, I don’t want to.

ES. For instance, about mothers: their dislike for a sudden rainfall when they don’t have an umbrella, I share. Also, their unwillingness to find bits of wood in their rice. Could you agree with Mrs. Odell in some ways?

DB. Yes, I can.

ES. And there’s your own mother. There are various topics for Aesthetic Realism consultations. One is: all in all, how have daughters seen mothers in American history? It’s a very big topic—it concerns you. How do you think daughters have seen mothers in American history?

DB. I don’t think they see them too well.

ES. It happens that two things are present in every close relation: devotion and rivalry. They take many forms. For instance, Mr. Odell, perhaps at the age of three, decided that he was smarter than his father—and insisted on proving it. Do you think, Ms. Baker, you’re smart about your mother?

DB (swiftly). No, I’m not, Mr. Siegel.

ES. Not so fast. Where do you think you’re not smart? When we’re not smart about someone close to us, we’re either foolish in our rivalry or foolish in our devotion, or both.

DB. I think some of both.

ES. All right. That is a fairly orthodox answer. Now we have to get to details. Where do you think you’re not so smart in your rivalry with your mother? When any two people quarrel, they’re saying in some way, “I can take better care of myself than you can. I don’t need you.” You’ve said that to her often, haven’t you?

DB. Yes.

ES. Are you saying it now?

DB. Yes, I am.

ES. How does she like it?

DB. She doesn’t, Mr. Siegel.

ES. What do you want to do about it?

DB. I want to be kinder.

ES. Good. How are you going to be kinder? For instance, if you wrote: “Dear Mother, I had one of the greatest times in my life meditating on the better aspects of your meaning for me.”

DB. Oh, that’s lovely.

ES. It’s lovely, but do you want to make it true? You have dismissed her, haven’t you?

DB. Yes, I have.

ES. It’s a custom for daughters to dismiss mothers. It’s the greatest social sport in America. It’s done all over. Are you good at dismissing?

DB. Yes, I am.

ES. How did you work it with your mother?

DB. I don’t listen to her.

ES. That’s pretty dismissing. Do you see you said that in a warlike, triumphant tone?

DB. I heard it.

ES. Do you think your mother could ever say anything worth hearing?

DB. Yes, my mother can.

ES. Now, don’t get soft. —Yes, Ms. Nathan?

Tara Nathan. Mr. Siegel, Ms. Baker’s mother is a very interesting person. She’s interested in various arts.

ES. And, Ms. Baker, your father—what does he do?

DB. He’s a lawyer.

ES. I can say this: to understand what a lawyer goes through is very important. Your mother is well-educated, then?

DB. Yes, she is. She always had a care for the arts, and for decorating.

ES. That doesn’t sound so bad. I’m interested in I don’t know how many arts—if it’s art, I’m interested in it. Mrs. Baker’s interest in quite a few arts is nothing against her. Yes, Ms. Nathan?

TN. I think Ms. Baker’s mother plays eight instruments.

DB. I think it’s six.

ES. Do you feel she uses that to say she’s better than you?

DB. Yes, and I think she also uses it to get away from us.

ES. Is that forgivable?

DB. I hope more than I’m forgiving. Yes.

ES. Ms. Nathan, do you think using a musical instrument to get away is the unforgivable sin?

TN. I certainly don’t.

Disappointment Can Be Studied

Eli Siegel. Do you feel, Ms. Baker, that your mother has been disappointed in you?

Daphne Baker. Yes, she has.

ES. What is she disappointed in? It happens every mother has a pattern in her mind of what her daughter should be. Aristotle asked in a lost passage: “What is that which makes for the greatest kinship between mother and daughter?” Do you know what his answer was?

DB. No, I don’t.

ES. “They both can be foolish.” What do you think was the most foolish thing your mother did about you?

DB. She wasn’t interested in me when I was growing up.

ES. As you were growing up, she didn’t see the daughter she wanted? You were somewhat r-e-j-e-c-t-e-d?

DB. Yes, I was. They were very free with me, with letting me stay out as late as I wanted.

ES. Did they have any reason for doubting you that you can make sense of? Were you fresh?

DB. I was sullen.

ES. Those are the two things that make children unpopular: being sullen and being fresh. Why were you sullen? Did you want to be made more of?

DB. Yes, I did.

Tara Nathan. Mr. Siegel, it’s important that Ms. Baker’s mother had a long sickness.

ES. So your mother had some tribulations of her own, Ms. Baker?

DB. Yes, she did.

ES. You will grant that at the time when you were sullen, you didn’t know what you wanted?

DB. Yes, that’s true.

ES. So you were looking for something, which you didn’t get, and your mother was looking for something, which she didn’t get? And you have this in common: you were both disappointed.

DB. Yes, we were.

ES. Do you think it’s possible for you to talk about your disappointments? That is a situation that goes on with mother and daughter, father and son. A father is looking for affection—he wants to play at trains with his son, and is disappointed.

Do you think, Ms. Baker, you just felt you were being put aside, but you didn’t know your mother’s feelings?

DB. That’s true, that’s true.

TN. Daphne has a brother who’s younger by a number of years. She’s told me about fights in which her father takes the side of Teddy and her mother does too. He’s eighteen.

ES. When he came along, Ms. Baker, did you feel they cared more for him?

DB. Yes, he was the favorite.

ES. All right, but by that time you had left the family in your mind, hadn’t you? You had already said, “To hell with the family”?

DB. Yes, I had.

ES. So what do you expect? People who don’t play hockey games can’t win. —What do you think of Teddy now?

DB. Since I’ve been studying Aesthetic Realism, I’m prouder of him, much prouder of him.

ES. And he sees you as less ill-natured?

DB. Yes. He can’t believe how much I’ve changed!

Dependence & Independence—Aesthetic Opposites

Eli Siegel. What is it, Ms. Baker, that you miss now?

Daphne Baker. Somebody taking care of me.

ES. Whom do you want to take care of you? Mr. Odell, would you like to say, “Daphne, you don’t have to think about anything from now on. You have me. I’ll take care of everything”? —Ms. Baker, you would like to have not a care in the world and everything arranged for in advance, wouldn’t you?

DB. Yes.

ES. So where does being taken care of stop and your independence begin?

DB. That’s my big question.

ES. Then you have something called the opposites. You want to be taken care of inordinately, and you want to be independent inordinately.

DB. Yes, I do.

ES. That’s just the problem of, say, Ms. Nathan. She wanted somebody to take care of her, every step to be thought of in advance. She wanted to have a friendly hand on her shoulder every moment of her life, cheering her up. At the same time, she wanted to raise hell and be independent.

Tara Nathan. You described it!

ES. So, Ms. Baker, do you feel there’s any chance of those two desires being mingled? That’s what we’re studying now.

DB. I’m glad!

ES. Do you think you could ever like your mother?

DB. I feel more that I can. I’m thinking about her now!

ES. How does she spend her day?

DB. She teaches nursery school at the local Y. In the evening, she reads and she practices.

ES. I don’t think we’ve found any indictable material yet, have we? Your mother is multiple in a way?

DB. Yes, she is.

ES. It’s wonderful that with the tremendous disadvantage of a mother interested in too many arts you still can smile.

This Is Present

Eli Siegel. There are many things that are present in relation to you and your mother. I think one is: Mrs. Baker cannot put together her being a woman and a mother, a person and a mother. This occurs, and in various ways. If you read Rousseau’s Émile, you will see the first time it was noted. He describes women who gave birth to children and immediately farmed the children out to nurses in order not to take care of them themselves, because they were more interested in being women than in being mothers. Some mothers are at heart always debutantes. It’s a very frequent thing. But another aspect is: many women feel, “I wasn’t born to take care of this child day after day—I want the arts!” Your mother, apparently, is like that. Will you forgive her for caring more for the Muses than for you?

Daphne Baker. Yes. I see I can now.

ES. The situation is very frequent. In the meantime, it can be understood. Your mother has gone through things. What was she sick of?

DB. She had some kind of an injury to her neck, where she was in bed for six months. She had given up. She said, “I’m going to die.”

Tara Nathan. Mrs. Baker, it seems, while having great energy, has been sick from various things over the years. It seems she spent a good deal of time in bed, almost like a semi-invalid.

DB. She spent hours—that’s how I saw it.

ES. Do you think she really wants to scorn you? Is she interested in your good opinion?—she wants to be approved of?

DB. Yes, she does. I hadn’t thought of her wanting that from me.

ES. The basis for being truly popular with somebody is, make it clear they have a right to exist. If your mother felt you were approving of her, do you think at that moment you would feel she was warmer to you?

DB. Yes, I do. I understand.