Persons of the press have resented Aesthetic Realism for the same reason that, all through history, individuals with cheap, selfish minds individuals desiring to own a particular field, to own information, and to look down on other people have resented thought that is new, great, kind, democratic, and true. And press persons have resented the fact that so much necessary knowledge came from one man, Eli Siegel. He showed that this feeling that we are more if we can make something else insignificant is the cause both of mental difficulty and of cruelty, including the cruelty that is prejudice. To have contempt for the world is to feel a triumph in disliking it. It has always been dislike of the world that has made people unable to learn facts about mathematics, history, spelling.
Every fact is an ambassador of reality.
And we can be disinclined to welcome an ambassador of what we see as an enemy, into that home which is our mind. There are many ways of coming to dislike the world. For centuries, children have used the fact that the world is confusing to dislike it. They have used the hypocrisy of adults to have an encompassing contempt. The night before Thanksgiving, ABC television reported that 26 million Americans rely on food pantries in order to eat.