Steven Weiner, computer specialist and Aesthetic Realism associate, writes:

How can a much cared-for custom, and a loved novel that has seemed to represent deeply this time of year, be a means of understanding ourselves and all people? The new issue of TRO magnificently answers that question. Also: What does it really mean to have good wishes? What does it mean to put together criticism and love? And what does Charles Dickens, as artist, do that’s important for us to learn from? To feel honestly hopeful in these days, read “Dickens, Scrooge, & a World to Be Liked,” the powerful current number of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical!

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is the second half of Instinct Makes for Praise and Good Wishes, an immensely important (also playful) lecture that Eli Siegel gave in February of 1965. Its first half was published here last month.

Good will, Mr. Siegel shows in this talk, is an instinct, insisting within us. And he uses a surprising source to illustrate that fact: the book Toasts and Anecdotes, by Paul Kearney, published in 1923. Aesthetic Realism defines good will as “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.” Good will, good wishes, can certainly be put forth insincerely, when someone toasts someone at a party, say. Yet, as Mr. Siegel explains in this talk: the fact that good wishes may be given disingenuously by people is still a tribute to the power of good will. Pretending to have it, while dishonorable, still shows that persons feel good will is important—so important that they want to seem to have it.

In this issue I’ll comment a little on the aspect of the lecture’s title which is Praise. The deepest desire of a person, Aesthetic Realism shows, is to like the world on an honest basis—and that means our deepest desire is to be able to praise reality authentically, sincerely.

Now, in honor of the season we’re in, I’ll use as a means of comment one of the most loved of books: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It first appeared, to a delighted public, in 1843….Read more