Devorah Tarrow, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:
On Saturday, August 12th, 11 AM-12:30 PM, the Understanding Marriage! Class will discuss “Complaint in Marriage; or, Can We Be Both Critical & Kind?” and the eminently practical answer to that question. The class, taught by Aesthetic Realism consultants Barbara Allen, Anne Fielding, and Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, is based on this groundbreaking explanation of marriage, by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: “The purpose of marriage is to like the world.” The cause of the pain and fury in married life is, he explained, is that “People have tried to love in a way that would mean less of a like for the world—in fact, a contempt for it.” The class is open to all women.
At this cultural event, women will be studying the following sentences from Mr. Siegel’s great lecture Aesthetic Realism and Dissatisfaction:
The being able to mingle criticism with compassion is very difficult….One of the reasons husbands and wives can’t talk to each other is that two motives, wanting to be critical and also wanting to be sympathetic or considerate, cannot be managed right: if you’re considerate you’re not critical, and if you’re critical you’re not considerate. But in the nature of things, there is no reason why one can’t be both considerate and critical. The problem of being both compassionate and critical is an aesthetic problem, a problem that, if solved, will always be like art.
That a wife hopes to do what art always does, to put opposites together, is liberating knowledge! “All beauty,” Aesthetic Realism explains, “is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” A woman attending this class will be learning: her criticism and kindness will go together, be one, when both are for the purpose of respecting her husband and the world more. That is the purpose that will make her proud.
The fee for the class is $10. For more information, call 212.777.4490.