Dear Unknown Friends:

In this TRO we begin to serialize an immensely important, very surprising, scholarly, of-the-present-moment lecture: Contempt Here and There, which Eli Siegel gave in June 1975. And we include here too part of a paper given by Dr. Jaime Torres at an Aesthetic Realism public seminar. The subject was “What Do Men Most Need to Know about Their Anger?”

So we have two matters that the people of America need tremendously to understand: contempt and anger. These human aspects, emotions, ways of mind are affecting people terrifically now. And, in all politeness, I have to say that the so-called psychological experts are fundamentally ignorant about them. Aesthetic Realism, however, does explain anger and contempt—as it also explains beauty and kindness.

The Mass Shootings in These Years

There is the terrible matter of mass killings, which have been so abundant in this land. For someone to go (for example) into a school and shoot children and teachers, that person of course has to be very angry. But he also has to have contempt. So, what is contempt?

Eli Siegel is the philosopher, historian, critic, who identified contempt as that in the human mind which causes all injustice and cruelty. It is the “disposition in every person to think we will be for ourselves by making less of the outside world.” You cannot mow down fellow human beings unless you have made them less real than you are, see them as lacking the feelings, hopes, worries that you have.

You also cannot plan and carry out their slaughter unless you are angry at the world they represent.

I’m not writing here about specific angers that are in America now, though I have done so, and shall in the future. And Jaime Torres writes in his paper about the vital difference—which Aesthetic Realism alone explains—between a good anger and a bad. But without anger-plus-contempt, without contempt as central to the anger, the horrific killing of men, women, and children in stores, schools, and places of worship would not be. An outline of what goes on in a mass shooter is in the following sentences by Eli Siegel. He is describing something much less ferocious and massive, but the principle behind what took place recently in Uvalde and Buffalo is being described:

A human being…would like very much to change [his or her] anger into contempt. It is like a prizefighter summoning up his combative strength to defeat an opponent; but should he find the opponent lying on the floor with the referee counting over him, the prizefighter’s purpose has been successful: he can now have the repose of contempt. All anger would like to become contempt. Anger has pain in it, but contempt is inward bliss; repose; some quietude. [Self and World, pp. 8-9]

The people killed in any mass shooting represent a world the shooter saw as against him and wanted to triumph over. Contempt has been present in each of the shootings in two ways: 1) there was contempt, for people and the world, within the anger; 2) the anger was trying to become sheer triumphant contempt, through the use of weapons on human beings. (My purpose is not to comment on any possible legislation as to this matter. Yet clearly, an accessibility of powerful weapons has been a means to have persons’ contempt succeed, fast and thoroughly.)

Contempt Is Also Ordinary

Contempt is huge ugliness. But it is also ordinary. We won’t fight well enough the horrors it causes unless we see and are against contempt in its everydayness. In the great lecture we’re serializing, Mr. Siegel speaks about the multitudinousness of contempt, including in relation to literature.

And contempt, in everyday life, is what makes people ashamed. That is because our deepest purpose is contrary to contempt: it is to see that we are fully ourselves through being just to what’s not us—just to the world. This purpose is good will. It is aesthetics: the oneness of opposites. Aesthetic Realism is the study—for us and our nation—of how to have this true purpose succeed!

—Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism
Chairman of Education

Contempt Here and There

By Eli Siegel

I hope that good will, soon, comes into its own. It’s the greatest, subtlest thing in the world—I’ve said that very often. And it has been made into a kind of hypocritical password.

The first thing in seeing what good will is, is to ask two questions: How many forms can kindness take? And what can kindness be about? Next, which is important, is to ask: How many forms can contempt take?

In order to show the depth and scope, and sometimes the surprisingness, of contempt, I’m going to read from two reviews that appeared in English publications. Both are included in a book titled Select Reviews of Literature, published in Philadelphia in 1812. I’m discussing them, pretty casually, because they’re a means of seeing that reality is indefinitely sprinkled with contempt.

The first is by Francis Jeffrey and is reprinted from the Edinburgh Review. It’s a review of John Ford’s Dramatic Works, edited by a person who has a melodramatic place in Lockhart’s Life of Scott, Henry Weber. One of the reasons I’m using this review is that many years ago, when I read it first, I came to the notion that even epochs could have contempt for each other; that literatures of different times, let alone of different nations, could have contempt for each other—in the same way that most persons, say, below twenty have contempt for anybody who lived before them. The feeling “Anybody who isn’t in our club in chronology is worthy of contempt” has been present in all times.

Contempt for the 18th Century

When Jeffrey was writing, the Romantic period in England was occurring. Jeffrey himself made fun of one of the larger persons in that Romantic time, Wordsworth. He did so with his famous phrase about Wordsworth, “This will never do,” but in other ways too. Meanwhile, Wordsworth, in this review, is mentioned as if he mattered a pretty good deal. It happens that because there was a greater interest in Romantic writing (as it’s called), there was a tendency not to think so much of 18th-century writing. So for a few decades, in the early 19th century, Alexander Pope had a hard time. He came out of it all right, but there was a time when to say that you felt Pope was a real poet would put you down as a boor.

Whenever there’s a change in civilization, the zeitgeist changes. Contempt and respect are allotted differently. It’s very subtle. It’s like what happens as an article of clothing goes out of fashion. (The most disastrous thing in clothes recently was the Nehru jacket; it had a hard time.) Something was very fashionable—and then people would rather be dead than wear it, except if you were very bold. And that matter of fashion is present in everything.

I’m trying to show that contempt, while sometimes being as specific as a needle’s point, is as wide as the whole world of atoms. And the review of Jeffrey makes this fact more vivid, more acceptable.

The Restoration vs. the Elizabethans

The writers of the Restoration, which technically began in 1660, did seem to say they were not so fond of large passion and deep feeling—that it was better to be witty than fervent. Which is more important: having a large emotion or really playing it cool? The Restoration did play it cool. The writing of then is different from the passion associated with the Elizabethan times, which preceded the Restoration. With the Restoration, there was a tendency to be satirical, and the great poems of the Restoration are as satirical as anything. The greatest poems of Dryden are, including “Mac Flecknoe” and “Absalom and Achitophel.” Jeffrey, who is aware of this, is talking of the change going on in literature from the Elizabethan period to the Restoration:

Instead of tenderness and fancy, we had satire and sophistry—artificial declamation, in place of the spontaneous animations of genius—and for the universal language of Shakespeare, the personalities, the party politics, and the brutal obscenities of Dryden.

Jeffrey didn’t know the whole story, because he’s a part of the story. He shows a care for Romantic literature and also a great distrust of it.

“Instead of tenderness and fancy”—that’s in the field of non-contempt—“we had satire and sophistry.” Shakespeare in his songs shows both. The songs in As You Like It have both contempt and Romanticism in them, in the Forest of Arden.

It happens that Dryden (whom Jeffrey criticizes) is important here, because in his “Essay of Dramatic Poesy” he shows both feelings: care for coolness and also for large emotion.

The Coolness of Satire Can Have Feeling

Occasionally in literature, satire gets to be very passionate. And a thing that interests is, the more satire is passionate—and passion is on the side of what is not contempt—the greater it is. This is so of Jonathan Swift. There is the satire of “A Modest Proposal,” which presents itself as an attempt to solve the food situation of Ireland by having little babies serve as food.* The idea is dealt with with such “seriousness” that, while one is disgusted, the control of Swift is simply admired—there is passion in that essay. Then, there’s great passion in the Gulliver’s Travels of Swift; however, in it, a human being is made fun of as much as can be. The fact that a person wants to hide is made fun of in the section on Lilliput. The fact, also, that one makes oneself more important is made fun of: the false size that one can take on is made fun of in the section on Brobdingnag. And there are many other aspects made fun of in the two other parts, about Laputa and the Houyhnhnms. But the point is that one can have a certain contempt, a just contempt, and also be passionate. As soon as contempt becomes truly passionate, it takes on the quality of poetry. It takes on a certain largeness. So Juvenal, in ancient times, is seen as important because, while he was condemning or censuring or disliking ways of Rome, there was something in him passionate about it.

Contempt is usually cool. And with customary contempt, as soon as you get to be stirred or lack control, your contempt changes into anger and frenzy.

In one way or another, coolness was the thing the Elizabethans didn’t go for (though, to be sure, there are some cool Elizabethans). And when Dryden in an essay talked of “the last age” (which was the Elizabethan age), he knew that his audience was waiting to have writers of the past condemned, including, a little, Shakespeare. A person like Webster was seen as impossible, and Tourneur was impossible; they were writers of “the last age,” which, of course, was more barbarous.

The first point, then, that I’m making is this: because we live in a certain city, or we live in the country, there’s a desire to have contempt for another city, or have contempt for what is not the country: “You city guys, you sure are going through a lot of unnecessary trouble. Here am I in my garden, smoking my pipe, and here is my wonderful doggy, who keeps away from the flowers because he loves me.” Anything that you prefer is a big danger for your having contempt for what you don’t prefer.

The Two Angers

By Jaime R. Torres, DPM

I believe that anger has been understood truly and comprehensively by Eli Siegel. In his lecture Aesthetic Realism and Anger, he defined anger as “pain, with the desire to destroy the cause of it” (TRO 893). And he has shown that there are two kinds, which come from different sources in the self. “A good anger has like of the world in it, has respect for the world in it; and a bad or hurtful anger has dislike of the world in it, or contempt for the world in it” (TRO 188).

I Had These Two Angers

As a child on the island of Puerto Rico, I was in a terrific mix-up between good and bad anger. When I was ten, a school in the countryside was damaged by a hurricane. I was angry that the local government was slow to help, and volunteered to collect supplies and books for the children. This anger came from my hope to respect people and affect them well, and I felt proud.

Meanwhile, as the first son and grandson in my family, I was doted on by my parents, grandparents, and aunts, and few things were denied me. I was given specially prepared meals, trips, plenty of toys, and many compliments. I used all this to feel superior, and was angry when other people—shopkeepers, teachers, children—seemed not to see the immense value I had. I wanted things on my terms and got annoyed (for example) that math was so complicated, or if I had to wait in line, or had to walk more than three blocks to buy something.

I was a little tyrant. After just three piano lessons I insisted that I needed an organ. When my parents said it would be better to wait until I improved, I threw a tantrum and got the organ. But after a few weeks it became an unused piece of furniture. I angrily felt, “It’s too hard to learn all those notes!” And for years, the sight of the organ made me feel ashamed and angry.

As I grew older, I could be outwardly affable and seem easygoing, yet inwardly I often seethed. Since I thought angry people were unlikable and rude, I cultivated an inner life that never saw the light of day, in which I made fun of people, felt that persons who had opinions different from mine were ignorant, felt that the world was one impediment after another.

In the lecture from which I quoted, Mr. Siegel describes a “quiet” anger: “the kind that is smooth disappointment—where we act as if the world will never really please us.” One form this quiet anger took in me was the way I collected grievances in my mind: I never forgot or forgave what I saw as an insult. In a consultation early in my study of Aesthetic Realism, I was asked whether the desire to hold on to grudges and go over them in my mind made me weaker or stronger.

Consultants. For example, when you’re nourishing a grudge, how does the world look to you? Does anything else exist besides the person you have a grievance against?

JT. No. Everything else is in the background.

Consultants. And at that time, are you interested in whether the person has any accurate criticism of you?

JT. That is the last thing in my mind.

Those questions and others I heard were liberating. I began to reconsider my grudges, my nurturing of them, and my sense that they made me superior and noble. I began to see that among the consequences of my unjust anger were my feeling separate and my inability to care much for anything or anyone.

Anger Interferes with Love

A mistake men make about love—and it’s a huge one—is using a person as a haven, a consolation in a world the man sees as against him. And men have gotten very angry when the loved one acts clearly like something other than an adoring adjunct.

When I met Donita Ellison, a tall, beautiful woman from Missouri, who was a teacher using the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, she affected me very much. I was swept by the passionate way she spoke about education and her students, combined with her easy Midwestern manner. With every conversation, the world looked better to me. And when I asked Donita to marry me, she said yes.

But (like men throughout history) I also resented having to think deeply about my wife. I resented the fact that she had opinions different from mine and even sometimes had the nerve to offer some useful criticism of me. I’d seemingly agree with a criticism she gave me, but would battle with her in my mind, telling myself, “I’m a good husband—I provide well, don’t drink or smoke or stay out late, and I’m doing good work. She should be happy with this good husband!” I was angry—and wasn’t proud of my anger.

When I told about this in an Aesthetic Realism class on ethics, Ellen Reiss spoke to me in a way that changed deeply how I felt. For instance, she asked if I thought the ideal of many people was to be completely adored and completely unbothered, and if that was my ideal. It was. I said that I sometimes didn’t even want to talk with Donita about work that I care for very much—in behalf of a just healthcare system, something Donita is also very much for. Ms. Reiss said:

ER. The thought about a woman’s inner life can seem very different from thinking about what is fair to people in a large way.

JT. Yes, I think I’ve seen them as too different.

And she asked: What is the relation between trying to understand the depths of a person close to one, and fighting hard so that people everywhere get the justice they deserve? She explained: Good will, the desire to have someone else stronger, is the purpose that relates the personal and the wide, care for one person and justice to people in general.

I’m grateful to be in the midst of this thrilling study with my wife, whom I love very much.