Self and world: An explanation of aesthetic realism

By Eli Siegel

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0910492271
• ISBN13: 9780910492270
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Definition Press
• Length: 427 Pages
• Weight: 0.04 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Self and World: Recommended For Everyone!

I love this book and recommend it to everyone! In Self and World Eli Siegel looks at the turbulence of every person about-for example-guilt, love, parents, children, money and jobs, and through these and more he shows that within aesthetics is the understanding of the human mind. And with what style-and often humor-he explains us to ourselves! Reading this book, I recognized myself again and again in the descriptions throughout of persons who are fictional, but who nonetheless live. For example, there is Harold Jamison. As his personal turmoil is told of, I felt that I too was being understood. Take this passage from the chapter, The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict. Eli Siegel writes: [p. 95-96] "Aesthetics is related to every particular conflict; to everyday conflict. Aesthetics is related to the problems of the ordinary man, the tough guy, the people we meet in our homes, in theatres, in streets, in stores. ... Look at Jamison. He is shy and he is arrogant; in fact, he is like most people. Sometimes, Jamison looks at himself and finds a person who is timid, wants to evade people, thinks people don't like him; is unassertive and inferior. At other times, Jamison is raring to go, feels like an excited regiment, and like a dozen energetic lions up to something. In other words, Jamison of Wilkes-Barre feels both inferior and superior; and when he feels superior, it's hard for him to realize he ever felt inferior. ... So the inferiority and superiority feelings of Harold Jamison are in conflict. ... Aesthetics makes the essential superiority and inferiority feelings in man a working team, a team of oneness. We can't kick out either Jamison's arrogance or his shyness. They are both part of him. They are to be made one, and they can be." Here, what many people feel ashamed of-vacillating between looking down on everybody and feeling wretchedly inferior-is seen in relation to the questions of all people. Reading this for the first time gave me, surprisingly, a feeling of release and pride. "When people know themselves," Eli Siegel writes, "they truly can approve of themselves because they know what they are. No self can truly know itself and be ashamed." [p. 98] This book has new, urgently needed knowledge. The practical applications of the philosophy explained in Self and World, Aesthetic Realism, which Eli Siegel founded in 1941, are vast. The book is a thrilling and deep good time. Get it!

A major step in the understanding of mind--and a joy to read

When I began studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brasenose College, Oxford, in the late 1970's, I was hoping to understand the world, other people, myself. There I studied the works of John Locke, David Hume, Rene Descartes, Bertrand Russell and many other great philosophers, and I was amazed by their ideas. But even when I graduated three years later I still didn't feel the philosophy I read and cared for had anything to do with my own personal thoughts and feelings. It was not until I read Eli Siegel's "Self and World" that I met a fully coherent, intellectually-satisfying explanation of reality and the purpose of our lives. Eli Siegel explains the human self, what has interfered with -- ruined -- lives over the years; and he has enabled things that have tormented people--the hitherto intractable, incomprehensible things--to change, bringing sunlight where there was darkness. As he does, he brings together subjects that have been seen as essentially unrelated, such as individual psychology and economics, mental health and beauty, and shows how aesthetics relates and explains them all--that this is one coherent world, and that it is the other half of ourselves. As well as explaining in detail some of the biggest things such as insanity, happiness, what will make for truly successful economics, the meaning of beauty for our lives, guilt, how a child comes to have an attitude to the world and what interferes, love, dreams, and more--he also explains in a few paragraphs, sometimes less, such things as bed-wetting, the heredity-environment debate, trauma, and so much more, All this in words that are beautiful, with the most clear, accessible logic, kindness, passionate good will, and with tremendous humour. I'm giving a swift description of some of the matters addressed in this book, but what I write here comes from careful study and much thought. I suggest you read it for yourself, and see what you think. This book is a major step in the understanding of mind, and it also happens to be a joy to read.

Self and World is a grand book

Self and World by Eli Siegel is a grand book, from beginning to end. In particular, the chapter, "Psychiatry, Economics, Aesthetics," is a must for every person interested in the study of politics and government as I was, majoring in political science and international affairs in college, and now, as I work as an urban planner for New York City. Studying, for example, George F. Kennan's American Diplomacy 1900-1950, and Theories of the Political System, Classics of Political Thought and Modern Political Analysis by William T. Bluhm, I was learning why and how man has wanted to organize into a fair and just state of government. And I worked for candidates I felt could further this. Then I could feel, I just want to be by myself. Could sense be made of these two different and strong feelings? Yes. Eli Siegel explains as he writes about a young woman he called Stella Winn: "The profound trouble with Stella Winn is that she has become altruistic, collective, not as a completion of egoism or narrow individualism, but as a set-off to these, an atonement for these. Collectivism and altruism are not atonements for individuality, they are completions of it." This is one example of the comprehension that fills this book, that has one say to oneself, over and over, yes, now I understand. Every chapter of Mr. Siegel's prose delights and educates in so many fields, including love, the family, the understanding of dreams, children and what they're hoping for from themselves and their parents, anger, and so much more.

A book to understand oneself with--at last

This is a book, as other reviewers have stated, that is unique and great. The author states on the first page of his Preface: "The large difference between Aesthetic Realism and other ways of seeing an individual is that Aesthetic Realism makes the attitude of an individual to the whole world the most critical thing in his life." And to learn how this is true is to understand oneself better--to an exponential degree. As an anthropologist who has studied many cultures, the explanation given in this book of the many ways an individual can see the world falsely or accurately, egoistically or with respect, illuminates--as no other explanation has done--the inner lives of men and women from southern Africa to the Arctic, from New York City to Beijing, Sydney, Bagdhad. You see, in Self and World, for example, such sentences as: "The basic conflict in the human mind--present, I believe, in all particular conflicts--is that between a person warmly existing to his fingertips, and that person as related to indefinite outsideness....In every person there is a drive towards the caring for and pleasing of self; in every person there is a drive towards other things, a desire to meet and know these. Often this drive towards self as an exclusive thing collides painfully with the drive to widen the self" (p. 93). Here is the beginning point for the particular conflicts we all have, in every culture. It is the conflict present in the particular conflicts documented by Ruth Benedict in her always-important Patterns of Culture; by David Friend Aberle in his analysis of a Hopi life history (the life of Don Talayesva, titled Sun Chief); by Margaret Mead in her large anthology, Cooperation and Competition; and many more worldwide. Eli Siegel, in Self and World, explains the cause of these conflicts. He gets to a deep and universal, indeed multicultural, explanation. When he writes, "Look at Jamison. He is shy and he is arrogant; in fact, he is like most people," he is talking about people worldwide. And we don't necessarily know a person's race in Self and World: Is Joe Johnson white, or black, or brown? What color is Jamison? or Robinson? or Stella Winn? The people whose lives are described in Self and World--each in his or her own particular, rich way--are Everyman. They are you and me. And as we learn that Jamison "looks at himself and finds a person who is timid, wants to evade people..." and who "at other times...is raring to go, feels like an excited regiment, and like a dozen energetic lions" (p. 95), we see not only the duality or polarity that we have ourselves, but soon we will learn the reason why we bound back and forth between inferiority and superiority--and learn the solution in aesthetics. It is aesthetics seen in a way that adds to what was seen by earlier philosphers and critics--adding to Aristotle (in the Poetics) and Plotinus and Saintsbury and Matthew Arnold. For, writes Martha Baird Siegel in her Introductory Note, "He saw beauty in a new wa

A Great Book!

I have never read a book that was so clear and so kind about so many subjects--love, children, economics, and just plain life! I can't imagine a person reading this book and not having dust cleared out of their brain--Eli Siegel makes so much sense. When he describes how art has the answers for life, he describes it in a way that is so down-to-earth, and practical. After reading dozens of other books on psychology, this one stands out as plainly the best. It is profound, but never murky; and it is hopeful, but always solid--nothing "trendy" or "new age"--just good, surprising, plain insight. Now that I've written this review, I'm going to sit down and read the book again--I got so much pleasure the first time through!