Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is the first part of the magnificent lecture Truth & Beauty Have a Love Affair, which Eli Siegel gave in 1974. As we read it we are in the midst of philosophy, excitingly and strictly. We’re in the midst of what art and science are. We’re also learning about the intimate, hoping life of everyone.

How we see truth is the biggest thing in our lives. And truth versus lies, lies versus truth, is also a blazing national matter. Throughout the centuries, lying has certainly been much present in politics. People have joked about it, and been disgusted by it. But in recent years and months there is something that feels, sickeningly, new: the gigantic and continuous falsification, the blatant and multitudinous dishonesty, the fabrications one after another, issued from high places.

I’ve written in some recent issues about matters America is in the midst of. Here, I’ll comment on this fact: Aesthetic Realism explains, as nothing else can, what a lie comes from in the person who tells it, and also what a lie appeals to in others—why there can be a huge readiness to “believe” a lie.

Truth vs. Contempt

In his Definitions, and Comment, Eli Siegel defines truth as “the having of a thing as it is, in mind.” Truth is always a oneness of the two biggest opposites in everyone’s life: self and world. It is always a self’s seeing justly some aspect of the world-not-oneself, making that world-thing one with oneself, having it “as it is, in mind.” All the trouble about truth arises from that in us which Aesthetic Realism shows is everyone’s constant danger: contempt, “the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it.”

Contempt sees everything—man, woman, happening, fact—not in terms of what is this? what is so about it? but in terms of what will make me important? what will make me comfortable? what will give me my way? “The first victory of contempt,” Mr. Siegel writes, has been people’s feeling “that they had the right to see other people and other objects in a way that seemed to go with comfort” (Self and World, p. 3). That is what impels any person, from child to politician, to tell a lie or go along with one—the feeling that what matters most is what will make me comfortable, important, superior. In fact, as Mr. Siegel describes in the lecture we’re serializing, there’s a desire in people to feel, What soothes me and aggrandizes me constitutes truth. That equation can run a life. And sometimes it has run a nation.

We need to see what lying and the welcoming of lies comes from in order to have truth really win. And in order to love truth, we need to see that it, truth itself—“the having of a thing as it is, in mind”—is what makes us important, gives us individuality, ease, and self-expression. The evidence, Aesthetic Realism shows, is in every instance of authentic art.

Two big fields in which people have welcomed lies are politics and love. I’ll comment a little in relation to the second field. My comment is in the form of a story. And of course, if one wants to take what’s said of the protagonist and apply it to another field of life, one is free to do so.

This Is the Story

Once upon a time there was a young woman named Ava. She was not happy. She resented many things about her life. She was angry (here, justifiably) that she didn’t have enough money. But she also felt that most people weren’t good enough for her—that they were selfish, phony, and stupid. She resented people and the world for not giving her the exaltation she wanted, and blamed them for her confusion and unsureness. Ava did not want to think deeply about the situations and people she met, and was tremendously disinclined to be critical of herself, to question her purposes. She thought she should be made to feel superior, even regal—and that this would end her turmoil and give her the ease and self-esteem she longed for.

What I’m describing in Ava are aspects of contempt, and they’re present in millions of people across our land. In this contempt is the way of seeing that will welcome lies, in any field—intimate, national, and more.

Some weeks ago, Ava met a man, Neal. He presented himself as a candidate for her love. As it happens, he was a terrific liar. And as it happens, she welcomed his lies, with a certain bliss and fervency—because they corresponded with the way she wanted to see herself and the world.

He called her his Princess, and had a way of making her feel that both she and he were so much better than millions of other people. (He’d sometimes say, “We’re winners and they’re all losers!”) Further, he made her feel that if she stuck with him, adored him, scorned other people as he did, she’d be sure of herself at last.

At first she was a bit shocked at the utter way that he put people down—presented as scum anyone who displeased him. But she rapidly came to like and be excited by his overt and untrammeled showing of contempt for people. (She had had this contempt too, but had felt she should try to temper a little her expression of it. Now, seeing someone just wipe the floor with people gave her a thrill! Somewhere in her she was ashamed of that thrill, but the thrill seemed to win out over the shame.)

And she felt, “Here’s a man who shows so much disgust for other people, yet he praises me!” That added to her feeling of importance. She told herself she was passionately in love.

There were people who didn’t trust Neal. Ava’s mother said Neal was a con man—and mentioned some things she’d heard about his stealing from people he’d worked with. Ava said that those stories had to be phony and that the people who told them were jerks. Ava’s friends advised her not to believe Neal’s statements of undying love, and they mentioned several women who’d been tricked by him (including financially). Ava said those women were spreading false stories—probably out of revenge because he wasn’t attracted to them.

Meanwhile, Neal borrowed money from Ava, several times—a sizable amount, considering she didn’t have much—and her credit card debt grew. She felt increasingly uncomfortable when he asked her for money. But her sense of self-importance and superiority was so tied up with him that she tried to put aside her doubt and handed over the cash.

And there was the time Neal got into a fight in a bar. Ava knew five people who had been present, and they each informed her that Neal had started it. He said he had not! He said the others told her that fake story because they were jealous of his superiority—and of hers too. She kissed him and said she believed him.

What We Need to See

There are many more details to the story of Ava and Neal. She is finding it harder to believe his lies. Yet she still defends him and attacks anyone who questions him. That is because he has been able to provide for her a sense of self-love through contempt, more than any other person she ever met. It must be said, though, that Ava increasingly has times of a panicky self-loathing—and then seeks the sneering/flattering bluster of Neal more than ever. Meanwhile, he has never paid back the thousands of dollars she “lent” him.

So, hooray for truth, the real thing! And hooray for Aesthetic Realism, which can have people see what we so much need to see: that to care for truth—which also means to want to know—is the same as being important, at ease, and, yes, really alive and happy.

—Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism
Chairman of Education

Truth & Beauty Have a Love Affair

By Eli Siegel

This talk is called Truth & Beauty Have a Love Affair. However, while I’m putting the idea purposely in a rather frivolous form, these opposites of truth and beauty, like some other pairs of opposites—life and death, love and hate, order and freedom—have torn apart the life of every person. That is because what we know to be true has often not been to our liking, and what has been to our liking has not been true.

Poetry and science are one in this matter, because they both say a great deal about it. The problem of science is how to present a fact in all its power so that its full meaning is seen—how to get to fact, but also see fact in the largest, most powerful, most meaningful way possible. And when a fact is presented in all its power and its full meaning, the notion of beauty is gone after. The idea in poetry is how something that one has imagined can be made as real as anything that one has seen or even been kicked by.

The essay I’m going to read from has sometimes been called the most important essay in American philosophy: “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” by Charles Sanders Peirce. It appeared first in Popular Science Monthly in January 1878. And it brings up the problem that later took the form of pragmatism, with its famous idea that truth is that which works for man—though various pragmatists put that in different ways. (As some persons said, If it’s successful, it’s true.) Pragmatism has been revived, though never fully revived. The American philosophers most noted in the field are William James and John Dewey, George Santayana somewhat, and even Josiah Royce, though he’s an idealist.

The subject of pragmatism, then, was the relation of workability to truth.

There’s What We Prefer

Peirce had a troubled time as a philosopher, but he wanted to have his ideas clear and be honest with himself. I don’t think he wholly succeeded. —One important statement in his essay is this:

It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction of inert matter in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty.

That is a strong long sentence of Peirce. What we get from it is that we’re always looking for notions, perceptions, ideas that can bring us comfort. There is a preference: we all prefer that something be true as against something else.

I don’t think Peirce uses the word unclear in the best way. What he means is that the thought is not organized, it’s not a one, it’s not coherent. And that’s usually because we prefer the unclarity. We prefer to have our ideas unclear because we can (we feel) function better that way. In this terrible sentence of Peirce, a person got a single unclear idea and it hurt him for the rest of his life. It’s one of Peirce’s most striking sentences.

We have to ask, how did the person he tells of come to this “unclear idea”? Did the unclear idea just knock at the door and keep on knocking, and say, Please have me? No. The person must have been attracted. In other words, he must have seen it as beautiful in his fashion, because nobody ever picked up any intellectual junk who didn’t somewhere see it as beautiful or comfortable. One reason we welcome an idea is that we see it as harmonizing with our hopes. And that’s the danger—that something bad harmonizes with our hopes. Then, in welcoming the idea that seems comforting, benign, undisturbing, soothing, ego-enhancing, personality-increasing, and psyche-strengthening, we give it self-room and it keeps on doing damage.

Peirce talks about thought. One purpose of thought is, quite clearly, efficiency. A thought can also make for comfort: How can I arrange the typewriter, the piano, and little Billy’s bicycle in such a way that I won’t stumble? Peirce also says that in order to be happy, you have to have the repose of belief, that when you believe something you’re at rest.

How we come to the idea of truth concerns science, but also concerns poetry. One thing that scientists have not recognized is that, whether the persons who are sincerely seeing poetry know it or not, their problem with truth has been as severe as that of any scientist. There is a desire to think something that one can accept is true.

So, what is the purpose of thought? The purpose of thought is to help us, assist us, make us more efficient. It’s also to have our minds more orderly. Then, it’s also supposed to give us something that can make us rest with our belief. And then, it also serves beauty.

The idea of belief is the big thing in Peirce, James, and the other pragmatists: there is the view that we can believe only that which will work—then (arising from this), that which we can see. Pragmatism has been called a later form of empiricism: the only thing you can see as true is that which you can get your fingernails in. Peirce says about thought:

Its sole motive, idea, and function is to produce belief….Among dilettanti it is not rare to find those who have so perverted thought to the purposes of pleasure that it seems to vex them to think that the questions upon which they delight to exercise it may ever get finally settled.

That goes on sometimes on television programs, where people show how diversely verbal they can be. That is, they want to show their brilliance instead of getting to any belief. That’s for one’s grandmother—to have belief. The idea of having a belief—it hinders one. If you can be brilliant about something, that’s all that’s necessary. Peirce, who was a quite brilliant person, was worried about that. What is the purpose of thought—is it to show how bright we are? That problem is in poetry too, because poetry often consists of “bright” poetry, where you show how many metaphors you can get to.

That Which Is Always True

“It seems to vex them to think that the questions upon which they delight to exercise [thought] may ever get finally settled.” I think that every person interested in Aesthetic Realism ought to ask: What dogmas has Aesthetic Realism put forth—in other words, statements which it says are true and will be true under any condition? And if you feel there is a condition under which a principle of Aesthetic Realism will not be true, if you find any instance against it, please say so. There has been in people a fear of something that is true, will be true, has been true, is true under all conditions. For example: The purpose of poetry is to make truth and beauty one—that is, to present the world truly and also in a way that you can like. I present that as a dogma. And if you feel there’s something unsound about it, please protest. But don’t be glib and don’t be limp.

It is necessary for everybody, as much as possible, to see something they really think is true. If you don’t now, you can wait for a hundred years—that isn’t the chief matter. The chief matter is to think about whether it’s possible. The word dogma has had a long history, associated with a pope too often. But the question is, how true can a truth be? And how truly can you believe something?

We come to a question about belief, and it’s a philosophic question: whether any sincere belief is dogmatic. To believe something is to be willing to go on as if it were true. For instance, a person is dogmatic in saying, Nothing is falling from the fifth story window, and therefore I can pass by on the pavement.

Belief is a term that brings together poetry and science—and also music. Sometimes we listen to music and we don’t believe it. We think that the way the notes were brought together did not come out of reality or art—it came out of the composer’s will power or whim. So, what is belief? The Aesthetic Realism definition of belief, roughly, is: a sincere willingness to go on as if true. For instance, you believe that no car is coming, so you cross the street. You believe (sometimes people haven’t) that the ceiling is fairly sound, so you don’t get restive. You believe that the floor is somewhat sound, so you’re not worried about where you’re sitting. To live is to have belief. Most often, people have the belief that the next moment they’ll also live, which is very sensible.

The question in poetry and also in science, is: What is it we can believe and feel proud believing—feel we’re not a sucker? And if we don’t believe something—for example, something Keats says in “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” to which we say Well, that’s poetry; I don’t believe it—we should ask why. What is the difference between the belief that we give to music and the belief that we give to a theorem or an equation?

What Our Minds Are Really For

Peirce has been speaking about people who like to show their brilliance, and he says, “This disposition is the very debauchery of thought.” In other words, the purpose of our minds is to honor reality, not to show how brilliant we can be with it.

Thought in action has for its only possible motive the attainment of thought at rest; and whatever does not refer to belief is no part of the thought itself.

That is, we should use thought to come to a conclusion that can really please us. At the same time, thought should be a stimulus to do things we haven’t done yet. So the purpose of thought is both to rest in the inn and to run around the block.