In Self and World Eli Siegel explains:
Power is not just the ability to affect or change others; it is likewise the ability to be affected or changed by others. If a person’s power is only of the first kind, his unconscious will be in distress…He must see that his own well-being depends on a simultaneous giving of himself to things and acting on things.
This is so different from what I once thought. I felt I would be powerful if I was superior to people: was smarter, had more style and money, and could—while appearing like a friendly guy—get people to do what I wanted. My life began to change when I learned that “the ability to be affected” by things is power, is what makes a man’s mind stronger. And this ability arises from what Aesthetic Realism explains is the deepest desire in every person—honestly to like the world.
The big mistake I made was to think I would be powerful by having contempt, which Mr. Siegel defined as the “disposition in every person to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world.” Aesthetic Realism showed me that going after power on this basis undermined my life terribly, made me feel small and furtive—ashamed.
These two utterly opposed kinds of power, liking the world and having contempt, battle in men’s lives every day—in business, in love, at the gym—and I am everlastingly grateful to Eli Siegel and to Chairman of Education Ellen Reiss for teaching me to distinguish between them, and to go for power in my life that makes me both happy and proud.
I Was in a Fight about Power as a Boy
Growing up in suburban Miami, there were many things I was honestly affected by. I remember vividly the thrill I felt when my father first took the training wheels off my bike, ran beside me for a while as I pedaled, and then let go! It was exhilarating to feel I could actually balance and stay up on two wheels, that I and this wonderful piece of machinery could work together and go along so fast. Though I didn’t know it then, I was being truly affected by my father’s kindness and also reality—its laws of physics and gravity, the relation of rest and motion—and this gave me a new kind of power.
Also, from an early age I had a serious care for acting, and this, I later learned from Aesthetic Realism, comes from the desire to be affected—by the feelings of a character, a person different from you, and to see what his life has been, how he might speak, walk, express himself. In fact, the more affected an actor is by the character he is portraying, the more power he has. What happens in art, Aesthetic Realism taught me, stands for the kind of power men want to have in their lives.
But I was in a tremendous fight between that kind of power and what Eli Siegel asks about in his critical work James and the Children, a Consideration of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw:
Do children go after power?…Do they have a feeling of victory over others? Do they get a pleasure in thinking other people are in an inferior position?
Yes—and I went for that pleasure intensely, using my family’s financial good fortune to be a snob. Early I looked at people in terms of how much money they had, what kind of business their father was in, how big their house was. Anyone not a Cooperman wasn’t good enough for me, and I was mean.
I also have tremendous regret for how mean I was to my father, Monroe Cooperman, who went through a lot about finances. I saw him essentially as there to provide me with a comfortable life, and never gave a thought to what he went through providing for our family of five.
My father had grown up poor during the depression, and worry about money was always with him, as it is with most people today. But I could have cared less. I pushed him to buy me the latest style of clothes, a new car, or whatever else I wanted, and I had the nerve to call him to his face—”the money tree.” When the family went to a restaurant, we teased him about ordering a less expensive item on the menu as we nonchalantly ordered our lobsters.
Once, I wanted a new bicycle with metal-flake paint and my father said no—the one I had was in good working order. Some weeks later I threw the bike into a nearby canal, and said it had been stolen. I got my new bike, but this ugly desire to have my way, to have power regardless of the effect on other people, accumulated over years, made me loathe myself and feel I was a selfish faker who pretended to be a friendly guy.
The way I saw things as existing to serve me also got me into trouble as to money—because I thought I had the right to spend a lot, whether I had it or not, I got into debt. Years later when I spoke about this in an Aesthetic Realism class, and a friend told how I had power making people chase me for the money I owed them, Ms. Reiss asked me a question which is all about a notion of power:
Ellen Reiss. Is this a world that should only come to you or should justice to it come from you? [And she asked] Do you use money to have contempt for people?
I said I did, and Ellen Reiss explained:
Ellen Reiss. Money can be a sign of justice; money stands for value. Do you want to honor the value of things through money? The question is whether you like money for that purpose—the purpose of showing respect, or for making you important. Do you think money should be used to make you lordly?
Bennett Cooperman. Yes, I do.
Ellen Reiss. Does this mean that you have a preference, as such, to make yourself important rather than give value?
I had that preference, and I am very grateful to Ellen Reiss for teaching me what interfered with my life, and for teaching me how to have a purpose I can be proud of—as an actor, a husband, an Aesthetic Realism consultant.
Power and the Profit System
I learned from Aesthetic Realism, and I see the truth of this every day in my other job in a New York bank, that our economic system, the profit system, comes from and encourages the worst kind of power because its very basis is contempt. In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known Ellen Reiss writes:
The profit system is, Get as much from another human being as you can while giving him as little as possible…The profit motive is fundamentally the hope that other people are weak so you can be “strong.”
Eli Siegel explained in 1970 that the profit system in America had failed and would never recover. He gave wide-ranging historical, economic and cultural evidence for this in a series of lectures titled Goodbye Profit System, saying in one, “Industry has been conducted on the basis of warfare and ill will. Men live with more difficulty and incompleteness, and the world is saying ‘We don’t want ill will to hurt and poison our lives any more.'”
A play which criticizes the mistaken notion men have had about money and the power associated with it is Holiday by Philip Barry, which opened on Broadway in 1928 and was later made into a movie starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Mr. Siegel explained that the play represents “an attitude to money that is different,” and he said:
It has been a long time in the making. Philip Barry in Holiday questioned money; almost all dramatists have…The satire of business has been persistent.
Holiday, set in a 1920s Fifth Avenue mansion, takes place in a milieu so different from the intense fear about jobs and money people are enduring today—where men who have jobs hang onto them for dear life, even if they hate them. I see some of that in people I work with every day. Yet I believe Philip Barry, through the character Johnny Case, is getting at a fundamental choice about power that men can learn from now—he wants to know the world, not run it.
We see the playwright’s satire right at the opening of Holiday when we meet Julia Seton, an attractive young woman, seated at a desk in her father’s huge Fifth Avenue home. Soon, Johnny Case enters and, “In an instant…she is in his arms, being kissed.” Johnny and Julia met just ten days ago while on holiday at Lake Placid, and they are going to be married. But Johnny, whose family, we learn, has struggled terribly about money, had no idea that Julia is one of the Setons—that is, her father is a wealthy New York banker. Seeing the many servants she is surrounded by, he says to her, “It’s the Grand Central. How can you stand it?”
Later, Johnny speaks with Julia’s sister Linda, who is intensely critical of the snobbishness and worship of money in her father’s home:
Linda. I suppose you realize you’re a rather strange bird in these parts….You don’t know the kind of men we see as a rule.—Where have you been?
Johnny. Oh—working hard…since I was ten.
Linda. Ten. At what?
Johnny. —Anything I could get. Law, the last few years.
Linda. Must be ambitious.
Johnny. [expels his breath]. I am. Not for that, though.
Linda. For what, then?
Johnny. Oh—to live…
Linda. What is it you’ve been doing?
Johnny. I don’t call what I’ve been doing, living…A while ago you asked me if I knew any living people. I know damn few…Well, I mean to be one of them some day. Johnny’s dream…
That dream, I believe, stands for something that is affecting people now all over America. In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known titled “Jobs—and the Purpose of Our Lives,” Ellen Reiss writes about this in some of the most beautifully compassionate sentences I know. She describes the power the profit system has “stunted” in people—in the millions of men and women who are forced to live in poverty, and also in those “who have seemed to benefit from it.” The profit system has, she says:
…brought out states of mind in people that make impossible the thought and feelings for which their lives are meant. To see persons in terms of whether we can beat them out, and how much we can get from them while giving them as little as we can, makes impossible deep feeling about another person. It makes impossible the ability to comprehend another and to see that person’s depths, knowledge, feeling as adding thrillingly and composingly to oneself. If the activity of our thought is about maneuvering, beating, outsmarting, grabbing, we cannot use our thought to comprehend widely, powerfully, tenderly.
To “comprehend widely…tenderly” stands for a desperate hope in Johnny Case; it’s the power he is after. And that hope comes smack up against Edward Seton, Julia’s father, who stands for the power of ruthlessly owning the world and running it. At first Edward is against Julia’s marrying Johnny—he thinks Johnny isn’t a fit husband for his daughter because he isn’t rich or well-connected. Later Edward learns that Johnny has had some success as a businessman, he says they can marry, and tells Johnny:
Edward: Of course, I could put you in the bank tomorrow…You’re in a fair way to be a man of means at forty-five. I’m proud of you.
Johnny: But…I’m afraid I’m not as anxious as I might be for the things most people work toward. I don’t want too much money.
Edward: Too much money? Johnny: Well, more than I need to live by…You see, it’s always been my plan to make a few thousands early in the game, if I could, and then quit for as long as they last, and try to find out who I am and what I am and what goes on and what about it…I’m sure Julia understands…don’t you, Julia?
Julia: [laughs, uncertainly]. I’m not sure I do, Johnny…
Edward: You have some objection…to our manner of living?
Johnny. Not for you, sir…But for me—well, you see I don’t want to live in what they call “a certain way.” In the first place I’d be no good at it and besides that I don’t want to be identified with any one class of people. I want to live every which way, among all kinds—and know them—and understand them—and love them—that’s what I want!
This play, Mr. Siegel once said, is a very serious instance of the direction that economics and people’s feelings about work have been taking in this country. Johnny says:
Johnny. I’m after—all that’s in me, all I am. I want to get it out—where I can look at it, know it.
Johnny wants to know himself and the world. He doesn’t want a life of smug superiority to people. He wants to “understand them—and love them.” He wants the power of respect, not of contempt.
The Kind Power Men Really Want
It is an honor to teach men in Aesthetic Realism consultations. In a consultation we encourage a man to go for power that will have him like himself, asking questions such as:
- Are you trying to prove you’re better than your father—would you like yourself more if you wanted to know him?
- When are you tougher—being grateful to things or when you’re fighting them?
- Do you want to learn from your girlfriend, or show her you’re the boss?
Jim Kaiser, a seven-year old boy, told us in his consultations that he was concerned because he was getting into fights with people. We asked, “So who’s the person you fight with the most?”:
Jim Kaiser. My sister, Emily. Sometimes I get on her nerves.
Consultants. Really—what do you do?
Jim Kaiser. I tease her. Let’s say I’m going to a movie and she can’t go because she has to do something. I tease her and say “You can’t go.”
Consultants. So you give her a little needling. Why does that feel good?
Jim Kaiser. I don’t know—cause you’re hurting somebody’s feelings?
Consultants. Do you think at that moment you are better than she is?
Jim Kaiser. Yeah.
Consultants. Is it true though? Are you really better?
Jim Kaiser. No.
Consultants. So why do people do it—because you’re not the only one, right?
Jim Kaiser. Right…Because they’re mean.
Consultants. But people don’t wake up and say, “Hey—I’m going to be mean today!” It doesn’t work that way. [chanting] “Ha ha ha ha ha—I’m going to the movies—you’re staying home—too bad for you-ou!” What happens when you say that to someone—where do they go?
Jim Kaiser. Down.
Consultants. Where do you go?
Jim Kaiser. Up.
Consultants. That’s right.
We explained that this is contempt, and while it may seem to make us feel powerful for a while, no person can respect himself on that basis.
Consultants. One of the things Aesthetic Realism taught all of us and can teach you is how to really feel good about yourself in a way that stays. Is it strong to fight with people and push them around? Or is it stronger to learn how to know a person and be fair to them?
Jim Kaiser. It’s strong to learn to know them.
A Big Mistake about Power in Love, and at the Computer
Aesthetic Realism states unequivocally that love is good will, which Mr. Siegel defined as “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.” But, like many men, I mistakenly thought I would be powerful in love if I could get a woman to show me unconditional approval, dote on me, defer to me, and let me have my way—all of which are aspects of contempt, and there is nothing uglier in a man.
I am very grateful to Ellen Reiss for what she has taught me about this, and a big, beautiful result of my education is my happy marriage of 1 year and 9 months to Meryl Nietsch, who is studying to teach Aesthetic Realism. I respect so much the important seminar papers Miss Nietsch has given here, and the letters she has written which have been published in newspapers about what she has learned from Aesthetic Realism about eating disorders and how they can end permanently in a woman’s life.
In a tremendously important class in which Ellen Reiss spoke about the crucial need for every person to have good will, I told of a quarrel my wife and I had had—about a situation that is probably becoming a classic: who knows more about the computer. As I was showing Meryl something technical about a document she was working on, she didn’t seem to want to learn with the proper humility from what I saw as my superior abilities. I was still obviously riled and Ms. Reiss asked, “How much time should she do in prison for this?”
Bennett Cooperman. It was a stiff sentence. I got mad.
Ellen Reiss. You’re still a little mad. Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning never argued about the computer.
“Do you think,” Ms. Reiss asked, “you have used this computer to base your self esteem on in some fashion?” and I said, “Yes—I love it.” Then, Ms. Reiss asked these surprising questions which made me see the seriousness of what I was playing around with and which I think could make men kinder all over this country, heading to boot up their IBMs or Macs:
Ellen Reiss. Do you think in some way you have a second marriage to this computer?….You can manage it better than your spouse? Do you think this computer knows how to love and be made love to?
Bennett Cooperman. Wow! Yes, I do.
Ellen Reiss. A computer is easier [to know] than a woman, isn’t it?
Bennett Cooperman. Yes, it is.
Ellen Reiss. Do you feel that by now you should understand Meryl Nietsch and have her behave to suit you?
Bennett Cooperman. Yes.
Ellen Reiss. Do you think this is going on all over America? People have felt a computer is complex, but once you catch onto it, it’s easier to have it bend to your will and do your bidding.
This was so true. I could spend hours during the day at the keyboard feeling “I can make this thing sing—I know its ins and outs and can zip around on it fast.” But with Meryl I couldn’t do that. I love what Ms. Reiss asked next:
Ellen Reiss. Are you more important managing Meryl Nietsch—or feeling she’s more complex than any computer, she doesn’t understand herself, but she has the whole world in her more richly than a computer does, and you will spend your life trying to understand her?
That really put into words the two kinds of power that were fighting in me—trying to manage my wife or trying to know her. I want to spend my life trying to understand Meryl, who is my friend and critic, whose perceptions of the world and of me, and whose liveliness and thoughtfulness I need to be all I can be. This is a power men have ached to be able to have, and Aesthetic Realism can make it a kind, happy reality in our lives.