Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism

by Eli Siegel

In good condition

427 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Nancy Huntting · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books ever written. I have read it again and again, and quoted many passages from it in talks and seminar papers. Its chapters include "The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict"; "The World, Guilt and Self-Conflict"; and "Love and Reality." To give a sense of its kind profundity, here are sentences I love from the chapter "The Child":
"Children are really desperate to see the world as pleasing; and their desperateness is part of a wise hope. The meaning of learning is intensely strong in childhood. The desire for order is intensely strong. The desire to see the world as good and beautiful, is intensely strong. But of course children, like all beings, are changeable by what they meet. They have possibilities which find mighty pervasive opposition. The character of this pervasive opposition it is our job to know." -http://www.aestheticrealism.net/books...
And this is from "Love and Reality": "Jim Haskins marries Edith Ritchie. The object Edith Ritchie now becomes, as far as human law permits, the object Jim Haskins. There is still, however, a third partner to the relation of Edith and Jim. That partner is the world as a whole. If Jim, through his love for Edith, hates this third partner he will become sulky, even though apparently dependent more and more on Edith. The same goes for Miss Ritchie. Too often, however, two people come together in the marriage bond, or otherwise, and use their high estimate of each other to depreciate, and even hate, the world in general. Here it must be insisted on that hate for the world in general is failure in life—no matter what else happens. The purpose of love is to feel closely one with things as a whole." http://www.aestheticrealism.net/books...