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We can feel more alive at any age By Irene Reiss
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| In the first part I explained that the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, founded in 1941 by Eli Siegel (see below) teaches that the deepest desire of every person, no matter what age, is to like the world honestly. And, Aesthetic Realism teaches that the world can be honestly liked because of its aesthetic structure: the oneness of opposites. |
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| ELI SIEGEL (1902-1978), poet, critic, philosopher, educator, grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1925 his "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" won the esteemed Nation Poetry Prize. "I say definitely," William Carlos Williams was to write of it, "that that single poem, out of a thousand others written in the past quarter century, secures our place in the cultural world."
Beginning in 1941, the year he founded the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, Mr. Siegel gave thousands of lectures on poetry, history, economics — all the arts and sciences. And he gave thousands of individual lessons to men, women, and children, which taught a new way of seeing the world based on this principle: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."
These lessons are the basis of Aesthetic Realism consultations now given at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York and by telephone worldwide. There are also public seminars and dramatic presentations, and classes, including a workshop in the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method — the educational method used with historic success for over 25 years in classrooms from elementary school through college.
Among Mr. Siegel's many published works are Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism; Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems, which was nominated for a National Book Award in 1958 (John Henry Faulk, speaking of the poems in this book, said on CBS radio, "Eli Siegel makes a man glad he's alive"); Hail, American Development, containing 178 poems, including 32 translations; James and the Children: A Consideration of Henry James's "Turn of the Screw"; and The Modern Quarterly Beginnings of Aesthetic Realism (1922-1923), including both "The Equality of Man" and "The Scientific Criticism."
Eli Siegel taught how crucial it is for people, in order to like themselves, to want to know and respect other people and the world. The following passionate, logical, musical lines from "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" stand for that just way of seeing — which he had all the time:
The world is waiting to be known; Earth, what it has in it! The past is in it;
All words, feelings, movements, words, bodies, clothes, girls,
trees, stones, things of beauty, books, desires are in it; and all are to be known;
Afternoons have to do with the whole world;
And the beauty of mind, feeling knowingly the world! |
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Mr. Siegel saw that the biggest interference to liking the world is our desire for contempt: the lessening of something else in order to build ourselves up, which often shows itself in boredom and loneliness.
We make a choice every moment between wanting to know and respect people and things, and wanting to have contempt for them -- and contempt (as I described in Part 1) is the "greatest life-sapper." The one alternative to contempt is honestly wanting to know and like the world.
It is a crucial fact that when you know your purpose is to respect and like the world, you go after it, and you are strengthened.
In 1947, my mother, then in her 70's, had the great good fortune to have an Aesthetic Realism lesson with Eli Siegel -- one of thousands he gave to men, women and children, who were seen with dignity and depth in relation to all history, literature, and world culture. Aesthetic Realism consultations given today at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation and by telephone nation-wide and overseas are based on lessons given by Mr. Siegel.
When my mother told Mr. Siegel that she was "lived-out" and afraid of sickness, he so kindly said to her:
When you were born, you were born into everything. When people get along with the world they meet, they are fighting sickness....If there is a good thing in the world and we don't see it as good, we're unfair to it. If there is a bad thing, if we can understand it we can be proud....Every person should be like a flower -- going towards the sun. I want you to begin life and not think it's over.
As Mr. Siegel spoke to my mother about her children, ex-husband, and more, she met the understanding every person longs for. I love him for encouraging her to like the way she saw everything. And now this lesson means even more to me because I see the importance for my own life of what he taught her.
All people deserve to know what my mother heard. But because persons on the press, furious with their great respect for Mr. Siegel and Aesthetic Realism, have boycotted this knowledge for decades, lives have been hurt and cut short.
In "Declaration about Old Age," he writes:
Aesthetic Realism would like to have every person feel that it was a glorious, splendid obligation to put down as clearly as possible: 'I liked the following today' with description....It will do something against the quite clear and usually victorious terrors of age.
I have seen firsthand that writing a sentence each day about something in the world I liked, with exactitude and joy, makes one feel proud. For instance, one day I wrote, "I liked seeing the Bartlett pears on the fruit stand which are rounded at the bottom, becoming narrower just before being topped off with their pert, perpendicular stems." I recommend that you, dear reader, get a notebook and in it write every day a full sentence about one thing you liked that day.
As an Aesthetic Realism consultant I have the privilege to teach other women what I have been learning, and to see the tremendous good effect of Aesthetic Realism on persons' lives.
To return to Part 1
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- RESOURCES for AESTHETIC REALISM
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"If there is a good thing in the world and we don't see it as good, we're unfair to it. If there is a bad thing, if we can understand it we can be proud." -- Eli Siegel
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A note on Aesthetic Realism and on classes
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Aesthetic Realism was founded by Eli Siegel, a poet of "the very first rank" (William Carlos Williams) and a critic whose "penetration [is] both original and extraordinary" (N.Y. Times Book Review).
All Aesthetic Realism classes are based on the inclusive way of seeing aesthetics that is the foundation of Aesthetic Realism.
The Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry is taught by Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism. "Poetry," Eli Siegel explained, "is the oneness of the permanent opposites in reality as seen by an individual."
The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method workshop for educators explains the aesthetic structure in each subject, from spelling to algebra, to show its beauty and relate it to students' lives. It is taught by distinuished New York City teachers, including Rosemary Plumstead, Patricia Martone, Lois Mason.
Aesthetic Realism and Anthropology, taught by Dr. Arnold Perey, discusses the Aesthetic Realism explanation of self to oppose racism and study what people have in common East and West, in the Arctic & the southern tip of Africa.
The Aesthetic Realism music classes, taught by Aesthetic Realism faculty members Barbara Allen, Anne Fielding, & Edward Green, and mezzo-soprano Carrie Wilson (Singing), are based on this principle of Aesthetic Realism: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."
Aesthetic Realism classes in art include The Visual Arts and the Opposites , a museum/gallery course taught by Marcia Rackow; The Art of Drawing: Surface & Depth, taught by Chaim Koppelman; and Critical Inquiry: A Workshop in the Visual Art s, in which works in process are looked at, taught by painter Dorothy Koppelman.
The Aesthetic Realism and Acting class, taught by Anne Fielding * is based on this concept stated by the founder of Aesthetic Realism: "Acting is a certain way of taking the contraries of the world. It is a way of being somebody else for the purpose of coming back home immediately."
In the Aesthetic Realism and Marriage classes, taught by Pauline Meglino, Anne Fielding & Barbara Allen, Aesthetic Realism consultants, women study "the opposites of contempt and respect in the history of marriage and in their own lives including yesterday's incident at the breakfast table."
In the Learning to Like the World class, Robert Murphy and Barbara Allen teach young people how "everything — from a flower to mathematics to their mothers — can be used to like the world!"
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* Director of the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company
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Aesthetic Realism Foundation