Aesthetic Realism in the Press

As the holidays approach, people everywhere are worried about money — despite what so-called "experts" call a robust economy — and are in turmoil about how to show kindness. I'm glad to describe here what I've learned from Aesthetic Realism. It shows what real kindness is and enables a person to learn how to have it! This knowledge is the greatest gift anyone can get. 

Aesthetic Realism is based on these principles: 1) "The deepest desire of every person, is to like the world on an honest basis"–all kindness arises from this desire; and 2) "There is a disposition in every person to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world"–this is contempt, the source of all unkindness and cruelty. 

I hoped to be kind, but was ashamed about how I was with people. I could act as though I were interested in a person, look attentive as someone spoke, be "considerate," but I felt that people were fools and I was a fake. Then at age 28, when I began to study Aesthetic Realism, I learned about my desire for contempt, my thinking that the way I’d please myself was by managing people, beating them out. I felt what I thought I'd never feel — "I can really be kind, have sincere feeling and be proud of my effect on people!" 

In Definitions and Comment, Mr. Siegel defines kindness as "that in a self which wants other things to be rightly pleased." This means encouraging that person to like the world. 

As a teenager, I wanted to please people. If grandma had to be driven to church or picked up, just call me! If my uncle needed help painting his apartment, I'd be there. Yet in the comment to his definition Mr. Siegel explains: 

To be kind is honestly to think of what another person, or other persons, truly desire. If we do not take the trouble to find this out, or do not want to take the trouble, our 'kindness,' is so much not kindness.

As a child, I saw my mother go back and forth between liveliness and sadness. She enjoyed being in the midst of bustling activity at her job, but at home she often looked sad. That is, until she saw me and my sad, "understanding" look. Then she would brighten up and seem happier. Who my mother was, what she felt and hoped for, that she had an inner life at all, was not real to me. In my conceit, I wanted to think the thing she needed to be happy was ME. 

This, I learned, is how I wanted to see all people, particularly women, and that this way of seeing people made it impossible for me to be kind. 

I saw that what I thought was kindness and love was really hate for who a woman was: it was wanting her to be weak so she would need me. Inevitably, every relationship I had ended in anger and disappointment, with my feeling harder and more bitter inside. Mr. Siegel explained: 

If there is a bad effect what would it be? Do you think you excessively want to console a woman? The desire to console is in the world of good and evil. In the human being there is a tremendous desire to save another person.

As Mr. Siegel spoke to me in Aesthetic Realism lessons, I had the joy, new to humanity, of feeling at last someone saw through my facade and understood what tormented me. He said: 

To put on a show of kindness and usefulness and not respect the person when you are successful, is very dangerous. It is the thing that you like least about yourself.

For example, in one consultation John Parker told us he was tremendously affected that his parents were separating after many years of marriage. He said self-critically, "I should be more understanding. I shouldn't be so quick to make judgments and get angry." "What do you think stops you?" his consultants asked. "I don't like thinking about people enough," he answered. 

Our purpose was to have Mr. Parker respect himself by thinking deeply about their feelings and also about the feelings of his 10-year-old brother George. He told us about an incident which troubled him. He and his wife had taken George to an amusement park and though Mr. Parker felt they had a "wonderful time," George complained a lot. While he was very critical of George, he wasn't sure that he was kind. 

We asked: "Did you feel you could have been more understanding?" "Yes," he answered. 

Consultants. Did he feel the amusement park was in the same world as his confusion about his mother and father, or was it some respite, some escape? 

Mr. Parker. I think it might have been some respite. I see what you're saying. 

Consultants. Did you have in mind, How can we use this trip to understand our parents more? 

Mr. Parker. No, I didn't. I see. 

Consultants. Most people don't think understanding another is a real good time and is the same as taking care of themselves. Didn't you feel George was supposed to smile, like every minute, and praise you for taking him? 

Mr. Parker laughed and said "Right!" 

The big thing that stops men from being kind is contempt. A form it can take is thinking we are smart and strong in being displeased with the world. In a class I learned from Miss Reiss how this was in me. My wife mentioned my tendency to be irritated if I didn't understand something right away, for example, if I couldn't figure out how to record music on our new CD player, or if Maureen asked me a question which I saw as interrupting my line of thought. 

Miss Reiss encouraged me to be deeper, to see good nature as strong, intellectual, practical. She said, "You should have a certain sweet quality of, 'There's more for me to see, and I'm going to see it!'" Through this discussion, I decided to study good nature and kindness in literature, which led me to a great 19th century English novelist.