Jeffrey Carduner, Aesthetic Realism Consultant, writes:
Read a thrilling, deep, groundbreaking discussion of a subject that’s a five-alarm matter for men and women everywhere. It’s from an Aesthetic Realism lesson in which Eli Siegel asked and answered questions about the real criterion for being proud as to love. “Yes—Love, Pleasure, & Self-Respect!” is the great new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.
The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:
Dear Unknown Friends:
We are proud to publish a section of an Aesthetic Realism lesson conducted by Eli Siegel in 1970. The consultations that take place now at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and by Skype and telephone, arise from the lessons Mr. Siegel gave. The basis was always this landmark principle: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” And always, Mr. Siegel saw the very particular person having the lesson as related to art, science, history, the world itself.
In those lessons, which Mr. Siegel gave between 1941 and 1978, something happened that was new in human history: people felt truly understood, to their depths and in all their subtlety, and were learning, on a logical basis, how to understand themselves. As a result, one’s life changed grandly, richly, accurately for the better. That is an objective statement, but it also has my own living gratitude in it—because I am one of the people who, within that short period of history, had Aesthetic Realism lessons. I met the immense kindness and knowledge of Eli Siegel in relation to my own questions, hopes, life.
When We Are Close to Someone
The lesson represented here was about the huge subject of love and sex. The ethics of the matter is explained clearly by Mr. Siegel, and it is quite different from the ethics or morality people associate with the subject. The big fight within a person in relation to being close to another is, Aesthetic Realism explains, the fight that goes on in us all the time in every aspect of our lives. The fight is about those largest of opposites, self and world. And it is between contempt—the feeling we’ll be important through making less of the outside world—and good will, “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.”
Aesthetic Realism is thrillingly clear: the goodness of our love depends on our purpose. Do we want to have good will for the particular person we’re close to: through every conversation, look, touch, encourage him or her and ourselves to see the whole world more justly? Or do we want to have contempt, have a victory lessening in some way the person and the outside world? The first purpose enables us to respect ourselves. The second inevitably makes us ashamed, and furious at the “loved one” who collaborated in that contempt….Read more.