I once thought kindness and strength had nothing to do with each other. I wanted to be kind when, in high school, I joined a program to teach poor children in Ft. Lauderdale to read. But I felt to be strong you had to look out for yourself, beat out other people, get what you could from them. To a large degree, that was my motive with people, and it made me selfish and unhappy.
In his Definitions and Comment: Being a Description of the World, Eli Siegel defines kindness as “that in a self which wants other things to be rightly pleased.”
To please a person rightly, I learned, doesn’t mean doing “nice” things—it means using our keen, critical mind to have that person be in the best relation to the world. Aesthetic Realism shows with solid logic that true kindness is strength because it is equivalent to a human being’s deepest desire: honestly to like the world. Learning this changed my life.
Relation Makes Us Kind and Strong
In his lecture “Mind and Kindness,” Mr. Siegel explains:
Deep in the meaning of the word kind is a feeling that through being born there is a relation to everything which is also born or existing. That is where kind in the sense of generous has something to do with kind in the sense of class…I mean by kind, a proper awareness of all things that are in any way like you.
Growing up, there were times I felt happy to be in relation to things. For instance, when I was eight I won a glass bowl with two guppies in it at a carnival. I took care of the guppies, read about how to feed them, what temperature their water should be.
Then, I was thrilled when one of the guppies was going to have babies. I learned that the babies had to be separated from the parents as soon as they were born, to protect them. Every day when I came home from school I checked on them to see how they were doing. I had some of what Mr. Siegel describes, an “awareness of…things” other than myself, thinking about how these beings could be strong, and I was proud as many baby guppies were born.
And though as a child I usually felt separate from people, a memory that stands out because I felt related to people in an exciting way is of sixth grade when we learned square dancing. I didn’t know then that we were affected by aesthetics, the opposites.
Square dancing has strict rules—and as you obey them, you feel free. When you do-si-do, you go towards your partner and then away, both for a good purpose. Swinging your partner, you are anchored as you link at the elbows, and also abandoned as you go around. Strength and kindness are in the very technique: you have to be strong as you swing your partner—a weak swing is no good—but you also have to be considerate. The opposites are why in square dancing I felt proud of myself: both strong and kind.
But like every child, I was in a terrific fight between kindness and contempt—the desire to make less of people and things so we can feel superior. People think contempt makes them tough; but it makes us weak, because it undermines our relation to the world. It makes us unable to have big feelings and large thought.
As a boy, I used my family’s good fortune economically to be unkind to other people. I remember when I was seven walking every day with my mother to the construction site as our new house was being built—and feeling as we passed the other homes that we were going to have the most beautiful house in Miami Shores. I felt that the electricians, carpenters and construction workers were all there to serve us. Never did I think about who they were, what their lives were like, nor was I interested at all in the actual work they were doing. In the process of falsely aggrandizing myself, I made myself narrow and small.
I often felt agitated and lonely. And the reason was in this question Ellen Reiss asked me years later in an Aesthetic Realism class: “Will a person ever feel he cares for himself if he doesn’t have good will?” The answer is no. Mr. Siegel defined good will as “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.” I have seen that having good will is the only thing that will make a man sure of himself.
A Young Man Learns To See Kindly
Nine-year-old Tony DeMarco, who studies Aesthetic Realism in consultations, had a debate about what would make him strong: kindness or being a tough guy. He had told us he was upset about his fights with his older brother; and in one consultation, we studied these sentences by Eli Siegel from his lecture “Mind and Kindness”:
Is there anything that is in no way like ourselves?…Any person who thinks he has nothing in common with a grain of dust, or a bat, or a leaf, or a pen, let alone a person or a dog, is a person who doesn’t know himself or herself.
Mr. DeMarco told us he likes to study rocks. And we told him that Aesthetic Realism shows, what we have in common with any specific thing is the opposites. We asked, “How are you like a rock?”
Tony DeMarco. Yes.
Consultants. You think you have that too?—how tall are you now?
Tony DeMarco. 4’4″
Consultants. You have a shape of 4’4″ in height, and then you also have weight. When you are looking at a rock, you also see what—the outside, right? What’s that called usually? Surface?
Tony DeMarco. Yes, surface.
Consultants. What’s the opposite of surface?
Tony DeMarco. Underneath.
Consultants. That’s right. Depth.
Tony DeMarco was very interested in these opposites, and told us:
Yesterday on my front porch I took some rocks and a hammer and I broke ’em up to see what’s inside, and I found this white one, and it has a black oval line through the middle of it inside.
Then we asked a question that surprised him very much:
How is your brother like a rock—does he have surface and depth? Is there a lot of inside which is covered by the surface? Sometimes you see a rock that’s smooth on the outside; then when you break it up you see it has all this roughness on the inside—did you ever see that? Tony DeMarco. Yeah!
Consultants. Could your brother be that way?
Tony DeMarco. Maybe he is!
Tony DeMarco is learning to see a person as representing the structure of the world—not as an enemy to beat.
Kindness and Strength in “One of the Great Characters of the World”
In James Fenimore Cooper’s powerful 1840 novel The Pathfinder, there is the character Pathfinder who appears, with different names, in the other novels in Cooper’s Leatherstocking series.
Eli Siegel said he is “One of the great characters of the world.” And part of his greatness, I feel, is that he has a beautiful, intense oneness of kindness and strength, from which every man can learn. Cooper writes of Pathfinder’s “unerring sense of justice” and says “his fidelity was like the immovable rock.” Crucial in Pathfinder’s strength is his desire to criticize himself, to see where he could do better.
Eli Siegel saw the tremendous value of James Fenimore Cooper’s work as no literary critic has. In a 1931 review for Scribner’s magazine he said that Cooper was one of the “thirty or so great writers of the world of all time.” He said Cooper was a “force” who “had America in his blood corpuscles,” and that “One of the words for Cooper in the history of the art of literature, is indispensable. He most utterly belongs to the history of creation.”
This book is set in the lush frontier of upstate New York near Lake Ontario in the 1750s, during the French and Indian War. “Cooper is a great writer,” Mr. Siegel explained in a class of 1963, “because he felt two aspects of the world as alive…water and land.”
Pathfinder, a rugged American guide whose keenness and bravery are legendary, assists Mabel Dunham, a young woman, and her uncle through the forest to the garrison where Mabel’s father is stationed. As the book opens Mabel and her party come suddenly upon a precipice with an expansive view, and Cooper writes:
Truly, the scene was of a nature deeply to impress the imagination of the beholder. Toward the west…the eye ranged over an ocean of leaves, glorious and rich…and shaded by the luxuriant tints that belong to the forty-second degree of latitude. The elm, with its graceful and weeping top, the rich varieties of the maple, most of the noble oaks of the American forest…mingled their uppermost branches, forming one broad and seemingly interminable carpet of foliage that stretched away toward the setting sun…. It was the vastness of the view…that contained the principle of grandeur.
Cooper has us see and feel the richness of the world, its massiveness and delicacy, its broad sweep and many details, and it is magnificent. As a writer he is kind and so strong because he shows us the world as it truly is.
In the comment to his definition of kindness, Mr. Siegel says “kindness is accuracy,” and that is what Pathfinder is going for. He wants to be fair to the world and people, to be accurate about what is good and what is bad in himself and those around him, including the Indians—Mingos, Delawares, Tuscaroras. Pathfinder illustrates what Mr. Siegel writes:
To be kind, we must have the imagination arising from the knowledge of feelings had by others. This knowledge comes from the seeing of ourselves as like other people, while humbly recognizing that there is otherness, too.
One of Pathfinder’s dearest friends is the Indian Chingachgook, who Eli Siegel said “represents the virtue of the world.” He assists Pathfinder in his work as a guide, and Pathfinder affectionately calls him “The Big Sarpent.”
At one point, Pathfinder, Mabel, and Jasper Western, a young man of their party, are in danger. It is dark and they are stranded on the shore of a river; Chingachgook is presumed lost, and enemy Indians—the Mingos—are all around. Suddenly, Jasper sees what seems to be a deer swimming across the river. But as this being gets closer, Cooper writes:
“The Big Sarpent, as I live!” exclaimed Pathfinder looking at his companion and laughing until the tears came into his eyes…”He has tied bushes to his head so as to hide it…and has come over to join his friends.”
“‘Chingachgook—my brother!’ said the guide,” writes Cooper, “…a tremor shaking his voice that betrayed the strength of his feelings—’Chief of the Mohicans! my heart is very glad.'” Pathfinder feels a sense of kinship with a person very different from himself. He sees that Chingachgook is trying to make sense of himself as powerful and kind, and says to Jasper:
Now, you see [his] eye, lad, and it is the eye of a chief. But…fierce as it is in battle…I have seen it shed tears like rain. There is a soul and a heart under the redskin, rely on it.
Pathfinder’s seeing of strength and gentleness, hardness and softness in his friend is beautiful. The ability to see another person deeply as both the same and different from ourselves is crucial in being kind and also strong.
In his consultation, Tony DeMarco insisted that his own brother is only different from him. For example, he liked to dance and his brother didn’t. We asked, “Do you think that means you’re better than he is?” And we asked: “Do you think people can wrongly think they are better than someone else simply because they look different—their skin is a different color?” “Yes,” he answered. We explained: “That kind of contempt is not so different from the everyday contempt that can go on between two brothers: ‘Because my style is different from his, it means I’m better than he is and also I don’t have to see what he feels inside.’ Do you see that?” Tony DeMarco, much affected, said “Yes.”
True and False Kindness in Love
Aesthetic Realism explains what true kindness is in love, and I’m learning. In “Mind and Kindness” Mr. Siegel says:
The only kindness, as Aesthetic Realism sees it, that exists, is the desire for the other person to be more complete, more organized, stronger…All other kindness is a fake.
In The Pathfinder there is a character who has that fake “kindness.” Davy Muir, the Scottish quartermaster described by Cooper as always smiling and having “a tongue that is out of measure smooth,” thinks what a woman wants is flattery and compliments. He is like many men, including myself of once, and shows that this purpose makes a man both mean and also inept.
Muir has been married three times, and he wants Mabel, who, Cooper says, is “modest but spirited,” for his next wife. Seeing her alone on a hilltop admiring the view, he seizes the opportunity to ply his charms, unprepared for what he will meet:
“You’re a beautiful fixture, in a beautiful spot, Mistress Mabel,” said David Muir, suddenly appearing at her elbow, “and I’ll no engage you’re not just the handsomest of the two.
“I will not say, Mr. Muir, that compliments on my person are altogether unwelcome,” answered Mabel…”but I will say that if you will condescend to address to me some remarks of a different nature, I may be led to believe you think I have sufficient faculties to understand them.”
“Hoot! Your mind, beautiful Mabel, is polished just like the barrel of a soldier’s musket…Were you the fourth [Mrs. Muir], all the others would be forgotten, and your wonderful beauty and merit would at once elevate you to the first. No fear of your being the fourth in anything.”
“There is consolation in that assurance, Mr. Muir,” said Mabel, laughing…so saying, she tripped away, leaving the quartermaster to meditate on his want of success.
Davy Muir’s greasy “kindness” is really the hope that a woman be weak about him, a purpose which Cooper shows is utterly inefficient.
Like Davy Muir, I hoped a woman would be silly about me, and this made me neither kind, strong nor successful in love. In Aesthetic Realism classes, I learned the purpose I needed to have to be proud of myself. In one class Ms. Reiss said I needed to ask about a woman I knew: “Am I interested in this person in order to have her life strong? What does that mean? As I think about this person do I feel deep and sweet and strong?”
I am so happy that is my purpose now with my wife of ten years, Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, whose important letters about how, through study of Aesthetic Realism, the eating disorders anorexia and bulimia ended permanently in her life, have been published in the mid-West and in New York State. I cherish the opportunity to know Meryl, to learn from her about music, Long Island, myself, the relation of depth and radiance, strength and delicacy in a woman. Meryl’s perceptions of the world, her criticism, her humor make me stronger, and I want to do the same for her. We are so lucky to study Aesthetic Realism. It is new civilization on the subject of love, and I’m so glad I know it!
One of the moving things in Cooper’s novel is the relation between Pathfinder and Mabel. Mabel’s father has told Pathfinder he would like him to be his son-in-law. When Pathfinder meets Mabel, who is twenty years younger, her loveliness, intelligence, and kindness affect him very much; she, too, comes to respect and admire him greatly. Yet all the way through Pathfinder questions himself. He is not sure that he, a rugged woodsman, would be the best husband for Mabel, whose life has been so different.
Pathfinder puts kindness first—he wants Mabel to be happy rather than tohave her, and says to her father:
Sergeant…she is young and light of heart, and God forbid that any wish of mine should lay the weight of a feather on [her] mind…or take one note of happiness from her laughter.
He confides to Jasper:
Ah’s me…I can follow a forest path with as true an eye, or read the stars when others do not understand them. No doubt, no doubt, [with me] Mabel will have venison enough, and fish enough, and pigeons enough, but will she have knowledge enough, and will she have ideas enough, and pleasant conversation enough, when life comes to drag a little and each of us begins to pass for our true value?
Through her father’s persistence Mabel consents to marry Pathfinder, though in her heart she cares for Jasper Western, and he for her. In a tremendously moving scene near the end, Pathfinder learns of Jasper’s interest in Mabel and he has good will. He sits the two of them down on a log and insists they all be honest with one another. “Pathfinder!” says Mabel, “You forget that we are to be married, [this is] improper as well as painful.” In his reply, Pathfinder is strong and kind:
Everything is proper that is right, Mabel, and everything is right that leads to justice and fair dealing…I ask you again, Mabel, if you had known that Jasper Western loves you as well as I do, or better perhaps…would you then have consented to marry me?”… I do believe…the boy loves you, heart and soul, and he has a good right to be heard. The sergeant left me your protector, and not your tyrant…Stand up, Mabel therefore, and speak…freely.
Mabel does so, and tells of her love for Jasper.
Pathfinder’s honesty is beautiful; he shows that kindness, wanting to be fair to the world and other people makes a man strong—gives him integrity and power.
That is what Aesthetic Realism makes possible in a person’s everyday life.