Flattery or Criticism: Which Do Men Truly Want?
First presented in a public seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, New York City.

Though men have been in a fight about it, I've seen through my own life and the men my colleagues and I teach that what a man truly wants from the people he knows is honest criticism, not flattery. Men haven't known this consciously, and also have been terrifically misled by the false way criticism has been presented in these years by some therapists and the media: as something harsh you should avoid at all costs, something definitely to keep out of romance, something that will hurt you.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The thirst for authentic criticism of ourselves can be seen in the lives of men throughout history, and it is comprehended magnificently by Aesthetic Realism. Because of this my life today is happy and strong. In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, titled "Looking For Criticism," Mr. Siegel wrote:

Every person who has ever lived has wanted to know what the voice of the world might tell him. Man needed a critic of himself that stood for everything.

Aesthetic Realism sees criticism in a completely new way. It is not, as I once thought, laying someone out with your most scathing observations, telling him everything you don't like about him. It is an aesthetic, intellectual procedure, impelled by the hope that someone's life be better. Writes Class Chairman Ellen Reiss in The Right Of:

While men and women maneuver for flattery and lap it up, they also despise the person who gives it. That is because a friend is someone who cares enough for our life so that he doesn't butter us or collaborate with us, but really wants what is hurtful in us to be less. When we see someone not care about that...we feel he is our enemy. We may not say so; we may flatter him while he flatters us; but our suspicion, emptiness, and sense of pretense will go on. And so will the ache for honesty.

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