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--On the 1919 Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, in Amritsar: Part Two

I remember looking at a world globe in my parent’s home in Kent, and seeing how much of it was coloured red, the colour of the British Empire. I marvelled at all the lands Britain had controlled. I was thrilled seeing those big red areas: they gave me the feeling I was part of something big and powerful. Not once did I think about the millions of individual people living there as real, with hopes and fears, feelings as real as my own. I took it for granted that this situation was right, and I never asked what the motives of my country had been in taking over these lands and people. Later, when I attended university, I did begin to question some of the things England had done, but if anyone who wasn’t English had the nerve — as I saw it — to question England, I would get furious and defend my country, right or wrong.

Aesthetic Realism teaches that every person has an attitude to the world. Deeply we either see the world as something to be just to, or as existing for our pleasure and domination. You can see this in a child and also in the ruler of a nation. Every government leader, every general is an individual person who has an attitude to the world, and it is crucial for everyone to learn about the unconscious debate that goes on in us. In my first Aesthetic Realism consultation when I was 23 years old, my consultants saw that though I smiled and acted polite that was not all I felt. They kindly asked me: Do you have a very deep conviction that you’ll fight whatever comes your way? Is it a desire to beat out difference? To show up what is different from yourself?

That described how I felt. I was learning for the first time in my life that in spite of how I appeared, I saw the world itself as unfriendly — a place where I had to beat out other people. Seeing this clearly enabled me to really question myself. Later, my consultants described the way of seeing I needed and that people and nations need today. They said: "To be really interested and give thought to what other people deserve is the one way to really respect yourself."

This was the beginning of a tremendous change in my life. I studied the battle in myself between contempt and respect. I had assignments arising from my consultations such as: "Does having respect for other people make me more important? Instances..."; "Ten men I respect, and why." "Does good will for other people make me more or less sure of myself?"; "Why is it good for a man to value the mind of woman?" And based on a historic assignments Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism Ellen Reiss suggested for persons nations on opposite sides of a conflict: "Write a 500-word monologue of a person you are angry with." This changes profoundly and permanently the way you think about another person. As you think more about their thoughts to themselves, you become kinder — it’s inevitable.

The most important argument I know on behalf of kindness and good will for other people is that if you don’t have it, that much you hate yourself, no matter how much importance, praise, or power you seem to have. I have learned that my contempt, which I had thought was my armour, my protection, and my glory, was the very thing hurting my life; it had made me feel small, insecure, and was the reason why I hurt other people in my family and beyond.

Eli Siegel saw, and I love him for it, that contempt, is against the very nature of man: "The deepest desire of every person," he stated, "is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis." To honestly like the world, I have learned, is to have good will. In the international journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, # 1264, Ellen Reiss describes in words that are beautiful the good will that is the only solution to racism:

Aesthetic Realism shows...that...racism won’t be effectively done away with unless it is replaced with something that has terrific power. What needs to replace it is not the feeling that the difference of another person is somehow tolerable. What is necessary is the seeing and feeling that the relation of sameness and difference between ourselves and that other person is beautiful. People need to feel, with feeling both intimately personal and large, that difference of race is like the difference to be found in music: two notes are different, but they are in behalf of the same melody; they complete each other; each needs the other to be expressed richly, to be fully itself. It is possible for millions of men, women, and children to have an emotion about race that is like an art emotion. And it is necessary.

I know with my own life that it is possible. It is practical; it works, and is what makes a person happy and proud. When I see people from India, I, who once so wrongly felt scorn, see people I want to know and respect. I am so sorry for what my country did do theirs, and I want them to know what I have learned about the cause and the solution to racism. I am so grateful to Aesthetic Realism for the warm feeling that is in my heart.

As a teacher in New York City using the Aesthetic Realism teaching method I am grateful that in my work with teenagers, who themselves represent many different cultures, I have seen racism change to the pleasure of respect. This includes very much seeing with respect the relation of sameness and difference between ourselves and other people. Studying India we have learned about the great Ashoka who lived over two thousand years ago. His armies conquered Kalinga-present-day Orissa-a region previously outside his empire, leaving thousands dead. But, H.G. Wells writes:

The expedition was successful, but he was disgusted by what he saw of the cruelties and horrors of war. He declared... that he would no longer seek conquest by war, but by religion ... He organised a great digging of wells in India, and the planting of trees for shade. He appointed officers for the supervision of charitable works. He founded hospitals and public gardens. He had gardens made for hte growing of medicinal herbs...He created a ministry for the care of the aborigines and subject races. He made provision for the education of women. He made, he was the first monarch to make, an attempt to educate his people into a common view of the ends and way of life. For eight and twenty years Ashoka worked sanely for the real needs of men. (The Outline of History, Macmillan." New York, 1920, p. 431-43)

Ashoka's emblem, which is now the national emblem of India, is inscribed in Sanskrit with the words "Truth alone triumphs"

My students and I have been deeply affected by the change in Ashoka. He went from a conqueror to someone who saw those who seemed different from himself, those of a different race, the people who had been conquered, and the woman of India — at a time of limited freedom for women — as having meaning. The great change in him, for which he has been loved for centuries, stands for something every person is hoping for. Personally, I feel my life has been added to tremendously by what I have learned about him, and by the wealth of culture, languages, land and peoples of India. I need them to be fully myself.

Studying Aesthetic Realism, every person can learn to see a person of a different race or background, whose skin colour may be different, with respect and be grateful for the fact he exists. Eli Siegel asked "What does a person deserve by being a person?" When this great question and the ethics it embodies is studied, the way of seeing that led to Jallianwala Bagh eighty years ago will itself be a thing of the past, and the world will be safe and kind.

 

Here are further links about how Aesthetic Realism sees the arts & sciences, urgent cultural and economic matters, ethics, and the life questions of every person: Anthropologist and author Dr. Arnold Perey tells of his field research in New Guinea and the classes he teaches today--and much more--at Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology For teachers, parents, and others, here are links that will tell you more about the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: Find out about lesson plans, articles about the Aesthetic Realism method and more Eli Siegel on equality The website of the late, great, history educator and consultant Lois Mason Rosemary Plumstead, science teacher par excellence Faculty descriptions of All For Education, who teach the biweekly workshop: Barbara Allen, Patricia Martone, Lois Mason, Arnold Perey, and Rosemary Plumstead Ellen Reiss on education and economic justice Donita Ellison, art teacher and Aesthetic Realism associate Elementary school teacher Lori Colavito on how prejudice was opposed in young children as they learned mathematics Science teacher Sally Ross describes in this article how prejudice in young people was opposed, so surprisingly, through a lesson on viruses Leila Rosen, expert teacher of English Article by science teacher and textile artist Benedicte Caneill about geology Teaching the Miracle Worker by Ann Richards , published in The English Record, of the New York State English Council Aesthetic Realism Can End Racism by Christopher Balchin Alan Shapiro, Music Educator & Jazz Musician Article by Barbara McClung about teaching the subject of topography to junior high school students in New York City Helena Simon, elementary school teacher, writing about an object lesson for third-graders on the sunflower UK education blog dedicated to Lois Mason Education for Children's MInds! -- Not for Profit! by writer Alice Bernstein Thrilling article on grammar by teacher and writer Avi Gvili Learning Can Succeed -- and Racism Can End! (Includes a tribute to Eli Siegel by Congressman Elijah E Cummings) Elementary school teacher and Aesthetic Realism associate Lauren Phillips on beloved children's story Charlotte's Web, by E. B. White Article by award-winning educator and union official Jeffrey Williams on the opposites of freedom and order in softball, baseball star Sammy Sosa -- and how this method benefited and literally changed the special education students he taught Strictly speaking, not on the teaching method itself, but it's so charming and deep on a children's book that's been loved for decades, that we had to include it -- artist and consultant Marcia Rackow on Wonder and Matter of Fact 'Meet' -- the Imagination of Beatrix Potter Filmmaker Ken Kimmelman, whose work is invaluable to classroom educators Class for young people at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation -- Learning to Like the World Blogs: Aesthetic Realism Is True and Eli Siegel, American Poet and Educator What makes a photograph beautiful? How can a photographer improve his or her work? What does the art of photography have to do with justice to people? Find out at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel Some of Eli Siegel's books, essays, lectures, and poems can be read at The Aesthetic Realism Online Library  Also, see what critics have said about Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel.  Aesthetic Realism Associate Lynette Abel tells here about classes she attended taught by Eli Siegel, reports on classes conducted by Ellen Reiss, and reprints some of the newspaper articles she has written: Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life What interferes with our expression? Find out at Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression the website of Miriam Mondlin Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of our favourite poets). She shows how relevant what Burns was writing about 200 years ago is to what is going on today. His poetry has the terrifically just way of seeing people that is needed by government leaders and every one of us. Aesthetic Realism explains that in order to really respect any person, whether someone of another culture or your own husband or wife, is to see that person as representing nothing less than the world itself. How can we see a person that way? Look at Eli Siegel's Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? Ask yourself, does this person have opposites? Do they have every one of these fifteen pairs? (And more besides?) Is he/she trying to make sense of how they have these opposites? Injustice can certainly be based on race, but it can also be based simply on seeing another person's way of meeting the world as different from one's own, and therefore less valuable. And about this, a person can be monumentally wrong. A classic instance of this in literary history is taken up by Ellen Reiss in relation to the great poet John Keats. And she shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time. One of our favourite links is to syndicated columnist Alice Bernstein. Her writing against racism has Aesthetic Realism as its basis. To see what Aesthetic Realism is--and what it is not--see the website devoted to accuracy, honesty, justice--the plain truth!: Countering the Lies.