Education How Long the Inward War? - Part Two - Everyman is saved by his honest contrition. “If you’ve had a beautiful attitude to the world,” Mr. Siegel said with tremendous conviction and deep charm, “if you’ve had good will, wanted the world to be as good as it could, heaven will put you on its register.” No one epitomised this like Eli Siegel. He had the most beautiful, constant purpose with the world. He wanted it to be as good as it could be, and you can see it in all his poems, his writings, in the lessons he gave. Now, having the privilege of hearing his lectures as an Aesthetic Realism associate, I cherish hearing the voice and the words of a man who had utter good will, all the time. After reading from the play, Mr. Siegel quoted E. Talbot Donaldson in the Norton anthology:
Mr. Siegel said this was important writing, and the class was very moved when he did something unprecedented: he gave a definition of hell that has immediate, tangible meaning for a person’s moment-to-moment life, and the knowledge of how not to be in it. He said, “Hell is the depriving by the self of the meaning of all other things, also, the unwillingness to see what other things mean.” Before I met Aesthetic Realism I cared for literature and music, and I studied moral philosophy seriously. But my thoughts about people were cruel and I had a constant sense of guilt. Because of the press boycott of Aesthetic Realism, like millions of people right now, I didn’t know about the inward war and I was in a hell of my own making, which I thought I was doomed to exist in forever. I thank God I met Aesthetic Realism. In my first consultation I learned why I felt so bad, as my consultants asked if I was “Guilty, of insufficient interest in other people’s feelings, and emotions elsewhere than in himself, and disproportionate interest in feelings within his own skin.” And they said: “To be really interested and give thought to what other people deserve is the one way to really respect yourself.” They taught me that there is, as Mr. Siegel is showing in this lecture, “a whole world and all time” saying “We are in you too!” Another play Mr. Siegel took up, using Manley’s “Specimens of the pre-Shakespearian Drama” was the Second Shepherd’s Play. In the first section three shepherds talk, complaining about the weather, and go to sleep. When they wake they find that one of their sheep is missing. They suspect Mac and visit his home, where Mac’s wife pretends that the sheep, which is in bed with her, is their new baby. The shepherds are almost fooled, then find out the truth, and Mac is punished, though not severely. In the second part of this play, the shepherds visit the manger where the baby Jesus is resting. “With all this,” said Mr. Siegel, “Christ comes. The trivial and the eternal are here. The changing of these things into the arrival of Christ with the presence of the men of the East,” is very dramatic. Some of the last lines are:
After we heard the lecture Class Chairman Ellen Reiss asked me “Do you think the persons who went to these plays wanted to care for something other than themselves in a big way? Was there a desire to have one’s snug self take in more?” Yes! I am so grateful to have had the chance to report on this grand lecture, to feel closer to my ancestors of 500 years ago, and to all people. I love Eli Siegel for seeing that good will is the great force in reality and in the life of every person that is the solution to the inward war, and I close this report with passionate, resounding words of his from this lecture: “I’ll say again Good Will, is the deepest, the strongest, the most brilliant, the most avant garde, the most chemical, the most physical, the most intelligent, most powerful, the keenest, most delightful, most electrical thing in the world, and every adjective is meant.” |
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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:
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. |