Talk:Eli Siegel/Archive 1

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Revert

Need to revert to 17:50, 28 Apr 2005 -- to avert editing war. And I suggest mediation. The "Criticisms" are NPOV.

Thanks to those of you who did some detailed work to make the phraseology better. But a number of things were added that did not convey who the person in this biography was. These things were entirely off topic. Hopefully, through good mediation, an accurate portrait of Eli Siegel will be provided which will be entirely POV.

NPOV disputed

It seems to me that as it stands the article is unnecessarily laudatory of Mr. Siegel. As I am otherwise unfamiliar with the man, his works and his teachings, I am not able to correct this.

I had clicked the random page link and landed here. When I saw the Neutrality Disputed message i decided to read on. I was amazed at how obviously biased to Siegel the author is. This article really needs some changes but i, unfortunately, do not know enough to make them. Any help would be appreciated.

I believe I am fairly unbiased. I have been searching for accounts as to the purposes of education and found the Aesthetic realism site, which in terms of education seems to offer at least an alternative way forward. On a different search I also came across a series of articles discrediting Siegel, and a counter argument. From this, I do not think that the Wikipedia entry is at all biased.

To my mind the article is quite accurate as each statement praising Siegel's work is from an authoritative source that can be researched, which I have done. It happens that some individuals deserve the praise that they have gotten--like Newton or Kant.

I notice that Levi-Strauss's Tristes Tropiques are described this way: "But Lévi-Strauss combined exquisitely beautiful prose, dazzling philosophical meditation, and ethnographic analysis of Amazonian peoples to produce a masterpiece." Claude Lévi-Strauss-- this is not called unnecessary laudation. See Kenneth Rexroth in the New York Times Book Review on Eli Siegel's poetry.

Individuals like Newton and Kant no doubt deserve praise, but my understanding is that an encyclopedic entry of either would reflect the work of the man, not unabashed applause. I have, alas, managed to get myself dragged into a silly debate with an Aesthetic Realist. While Mr. Siegel's ideas have some value, the group's resistance to critical analysis of his principles diminishes his work.

Always glad to be called silly. --Aperey 19:23, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Apparently Michael Bluejay is afraid to debate. And, what is your critical analysis? --Aperey 17:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I flagged this "Criticisms" section as flagrantly NOT neutral. The reasons are in the section below which, due to the nature of the "Criticisms" section, could not be neutral either. I hope someone will be able to correct it so no answer is necessary. I am obviously not, at this point the person.

By the way, the anonymous writer of "Criticisms" has paraphrased a piece that is on the "michaelbluejay.com" website and it is hardly objective. --Aperey 19:23, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I have been bold enough to remove the "NPOV disputed" tag

It seems evident to me that the above "back-and-forth" about NPOV has concluded favorably. The text has been rewritten from top to bottom.

  • 1) The "unnecessarily laudatory" objection was not agreed with by everyone. In fact it was opposed by other editors and was never defended. The upshot looks like the article is not "unnecessarily laudatory." If anyone think it is, they should give details so the infraction can be changed.
  • 2) The Idaho Senior News is no longer the primary source of biographical information (other authoritative sources, including a Contemporary Authors biography have been consulted).
  • 3) There are quotes about Siegel from experts who evaluate his work, and the upshot is favorable--very much so. It has been for many years. There are quite a number of writers who deserve a favorable evaluation, and if Siegel is one of them we should acknowledge that. It is within wiki guidelines to allow experts to speak for themselves, I believe, as they do here.

--Aperey 17:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Editing note

I deleted some redundancies, made some minor changes in awkward sentences, and restructured the opening paragraph to reflect Siegel's major accomplishments.

Update: I again edited the article, for the same reasons listed. The continuous insertion of inappropriate superlatives into the article dilutes the objectivity of an encyclopedic entry.

Udate May 20, 2005: Dr. Apery continues to revert to an older version of the article that uses inappropriate superlatives and mediocre sentence construction; the article he contines to repost also exhibits poor organization. In addition, Mr. Siegel's suicide is pertinent to his life.

What is true here?

I am reverting back to an earlier state: 17:50, 28 Apr 2005

A note to the anonymous 141.150.36.175. You are most likely a "sockpuppet" logging in with a newly registered IP to avoid honoring Mediator ClockworkSoul's request to stop activity on the article about Aesthetic Realism.

Nevertheless, you are now editing the article about Eli Siegel. I will politely ask you to state precisely which "superlatives" are inappropriate.

An independent Wikipedian wrote on this discussion page:

I believe I am fairly unbiased. I have been searching for accounts as to the purposes of education and found the Aesthetic realism site, which in terms of education seems to offer at least an alternative way forward. On a different search I also came across a series of articles discrediting Siegel, and a counter argument. From this, I do not think that the Wikipedia entry is at all biased.

I agree with that assessment.

The article on Eli Siegel is virtually word for word the way it appeared in the Idaho Senior News. It was reproduced with permission of its author. It is authoritative, and it is completely NPOV to quote at length a published authority in Wikipedia, as long as copyright matters are taken care of.

Eli Siegel died in 1978, and his dates are given in the article. That is enough for Bertrand Russell's article and there should be no double standards in Wikipedia.

It is perfectly permissible to quote high--even superlative-- opinions in a Wikipedia article. In every statement made in this biographical sketch, either an authoritative source is given or one is available but not spelled out. In the Bertrand Russell biography, which is parallel, the editor states: “Russell was without peer in his contributions to mathematical logic.” The editor has stated what is agreed on by a significant number of experts. So too the editor's statement that Eli Siegel's poetic lines--some of which are quoted in the article--are "passionate, logical, musical" is the opinion of such critics as William Carlos Williams, William Packard, Kenneth Rexroth, and Selden Rodman. The documents exist to show this and can be quoted at even greater length if need be.

Why the anon whose IP is 141.150.36.175 wanted to edit my sentence about "many" teachers and change it so "some" teachers--I think should have been noted by him and an explanation given.

The attempt was to weaken the sentence by changing the facts--not acceptable for an factual encyclopedia. I do not mind if the sentence had no quantitative adjective at all: "--the teaching method described by educators as having historic success, for over 25 years, in classrooms from elementary school through college." This would be accurate too.

The documentation for the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method is rather voluminous. Some of it is online. It includes publications in peer-reviewed journals (including a publication of my own in the Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 1976--almost 30 years ago.). So you see--whoever may be reading this--this Wikipedia article is completely NPOV in presenting this fact.

I am aware that whatever I write, the person whose IP is 141.150.36.175 has a history of not listening.

However, I ask him again: Will you please check your Wikipedia rules and follow them?


Regarding sources

The article as it stands is essentially a verbatim cut and paste from the Aesthetic Realism site, credited to the Idaho Senior News without citing the author.

  • The article in the Idaho Senior News was written by Irene Reiss.

I consistently use the same IP--I am hardly anonymous.

  • An IP does not identify the user unambiguously. There is such a thing as an internet sockpuppet in which the same person appears to be more than one individual by using multiple IPs or usernames. Are you doing this?

As far as editing the number of teachers who credit AR with "historic success," the online documentation crediting AR with this kind of success rests with teachers associated with Aesthetic Realism. [*Not true: see below*] In the face of the No Child Left Behind Act, making claims of "historic" success deserves better documentation.

  • Perhaps we can get more documentation online. There is more than 10 times the amount that is online. However, what you see online is representative of the whole and if you look carefully, I think you will see that it is scientific, well observed, and the truth. It is also very moving to see how students learn.
  • Further, the articles don't only represent teachers who use the method , but journal editors, administrators, and colleagues in their schools who have seen it work in thee school or district--including those who have seen the astonishing results on Regents exams, etc., for years.
  • The findings of the earliest teachers were replicated again and again over a period of thirty years, by new teachers who tried the method without having known it before. What's online is intended to be sufficient to see the literally historic success of the method. This success can be spelled out in detail, but the article is short. Look again online. I think if you read carefully and have good will you will see what I'm saying. If not, I don't mind explaining point by point in some other discussion if I am asked to. There is no mystery here. The method works.
  • I hope you take it right but the way this question is put reminds me of the biography of Walter Reed, which I once studied. When Reed first reported his big success--his experiments in Cuba that revealed that the A. aegypti mosquito was the cause of yellow fever--the press and the medical establishment were not pleased. There were those who (testily) called "the mosquito hypothesis" unproved. As I see it, some important medical folk didn't like a mere army doctor (Reed) discovering what they couldn't. And major reporters preferred to sneer rather than respect.
  • Today we see that the "critics" of Reed weren't true critics at all but people whose self-interest stopped them from seeing, and saying, the value of Reed's discovery. I am sure people died unnecessarily of yellow fever across America before Reed's honesty and accomplishment were given their full due.
  • A similar situation exists with some individuals who call themself "critics" of Aesthetic Realism. I have not seen one yet who was a real critic--that is, who did not falsify the facts, including by insinuations. (I am not saying that you, reading this, are necessarily one of them). They are really not "criticising" but smearing because their remarks have a false basis in which they do not believe themselves. The malice of this can be felt by a reader in the way they use words. Some of their way of using words is described in the NPOV tutorial in Wikipedia. See, for example, Weasel Words.
  • We certainly should not, today, repeat history and try to hold back discoveries that benefit humanity. We have a right to our opinion, but we also have a right to look at evidence and change our opinion if the evidence warrants changing it.

The mere existence of an article found in the Idaho Senior News written by an unnamed author does not protect the article here from being edited for clarity, nor should it preclude the Wiki community from appending further information.

  • Perhaps not. Meanwhile, any information ought to be agreed on and be honest. Which information are you referring to? Are you are referring to the person who claimed to be editing for clarity but in fact wanted to insert highly charged material without saying a word about it? That person did edit a few words here and there--but not for "clarity"; it was in order to insert a false insinuation about the Teaching Method. (See Weasel Words)-- Examples provided on request.
  • I'm sure we all agree in principle that any editing should really be for clarity. Why shouldn't the details be discussed rather than inserted autocratically. Aren't we all intelligent people?

The section on Siegel's death was taken verbatim from the Wiki article on Aesthetic Realism.

  • That may be so, but I happen to know that it was protested in that article too. If a slanted paragraph is quoted verbatim it is just as bad the second time as the first. Maybe it's even worse, because that shows intent.
  • I think the Wiki community can see, from the history of that insertion, that it was . I tried to mitigate some of that noxious effect by editing it, but I didn't succeed. I was re-edited every time I attempted it. And to insistently try to discredit, belittle, cause pain is not Wikilove but something very different--and has to be questioned. This is a matter of ethics and good will, and the Wiki community was formed to embody ethics, as I understand it. What is mediation for, if not to bring out good will in all parties?
  • Meanwhile I am glad that there is new dialogue on this page, because we may get somewhere.

Editing notes

A few words, and just a few; life is too short for gratuitous conflict.

I find Dr. Perey's contempt a bit puzzling. Eli Siegel has been recognized as a fine poet. His philosophy, Aesthetic Realism, never gained the traction his poetry did. The source Dr. Perey cites is an article written by an AR consultant, Ms. Irene Reiss. Her view reflects her bias, which of itself is not a problem. The resistance, however, to editing by people not directly involved with AR is disconcerting.

I use the same IP address. I have no reason to do otherwise.

As far as Mr. Siegel's death, the wording used to describe his actions did not judge his actions. You do not know my position on this issue, and from your comments, you would likely be surprised by my position. I would be glad to share these thoughts privately with you if you care to know them. Judging any comment on Mr. Siegel's suicide as "intended from the first to cause pain, and to insinuate a good person was not that" causes harm to those who choose to die dignified deaths under similar circumstances. "Suicide" is not a "weasel" word.

I would appreciate it if you would not undermine my comments with interspersed comments--you may do so in a separate section, but to do so in the original commentary makes my words less readable.

NPOV

The current article reflects, almost verbatim, a newspaper piece written by an Aesthetic Realism consultant. While this of itself is not necessarily a problem, the author's reluctance to allow editing limits the effectiveness of the current entry.

Update May 28, 2005: I again added the tag. Allowing contrary opinions in the external links is a step in the right direction, but the article continues to reflect a biased account of Eli Siegel's life; a more balanced account would prove more interesting and honest than the sanitized version.

The truth cannot come from a knowledgeable source?

There is editing and there is a hatchet job. What editing to you propose? Be aboveboard and maybe someone will take you seriously. An anoynymous designation of "NPOV violation" without a convincing reason can't be taken seriously, can it?

  • I added an article from another source to balance Ms. Irene Reiss' account given in the Wiki article. Both Ms. Reiss and Dr. Perey serve as faculty for Aesthetic Realism; while this clearly makes them both experts on Aesthetic Realism, neither can claim impartiality.
I suggest accuracy and not a hatchet job is the solution.
  • The NPOV designation was placed for the reason stated above, prior to the protest above. I am not sure what you mean by "hatchet job", but I have not followed every editorial change. If someone is maliciously editing the piece, that's an issue that needs to be discussed, but that does not change the reason for citing the NPOV violation.
  • I removed the link to the website about the allegory on motives. The article should stand by itself.
  • Thanslation: This means the article is of such poor quality that it suffers by comparision--so even an allegorical refuation must be censored.
  • When I said "article," I meant the Wiki article--the "allegorical refutation" cited did not add any information about Eli Siegel.
So add other sources that refute it. Add evidence rather than deleting. Do not censor the critical sources and have a puff piece based on only one source. CDThieme 22:29, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Our anonymous friend has once again removed the Jewish Times source, breaking the WP:3RR

  • That deletion was an accident. It's back now. Along with other evidence. I'm still awkward with the editing. I have an idea we need mediation, because we do not seem to be listening to one another well enough. My attempt to preserve a minimum of accuracy isn't going to please everyone--but I'm trying.
Don't worry, we were all new once. Listening and conversing with others is made easier if you have an account and sign your comments. Why not log in? Jonathunder 23:12, 2005 May 27 (UTC)

Book awards

Is it correct that "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" won the Nation Poetry Prize in 1925 and was nominated for the National Book Award in 1958? This seems odd - why would it be nominated 33 years after it was first published? Cheers, -Willmcw 21:54, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, it's correct. The poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" won the Nation poetry prize in 1925 and the book Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems was nominated for the National Book Award much later. The book is titled for the poem, which is in it, but has many more poems as well. Some are in Poetry by Eli Siegel --66.114.86.135 23:00, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, that clarifies it. We might be able to reword it in the text so that it is clearer for readers. Also, regarding the external links, I cut out a whole bunch which went to the same websites. If there is a particualr reason for needing a certin link, like a rebuttal, then it is justifiable. If the dispute is that significant, we should mention it in the text. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:25, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

What, specifically, needs to change, in order to remove the "violation of neutrality" label?

Regardless of who wrote this article the facts are stated clearly. They are no more "sanitized" than the facts in the Wikipedia article on Bertrand Russell. Russell is praised, yes; so why not Siegel--who also deserved it?

In the Russell article, those who objected to Russell's antiwar activities, etc., are placed in a historical context without diminishing respect for Russell or them. There is dignity in the text.

I should like to see the same dignity maintained in this article on Eli Siegel. The history of editing on this article will show off-topic and disrespectful writing that had to be questioned--it was unfit for an encyclopedia with any pretension to objectivity.

As to me, I don't see the need to demonize me as a "censor," or say I am having contempt, or am biased. Nor is there an attempt to "close" this article to any truthful editing. There are even links to very questionable materials in the list of links--material that someone eupemistically calls "contrary opinions."

I am of the opinion that Siegel was a remarkable, steadily kind man. I was there, I saw it. And I don't see the unsavory language and misrepresentations in these "contrary opinions" as having any credibility to a careful reader. People know that anyone can lie about anyone. In the Michael Bluejay and Melissa Goldman links there is that lying. To "sanitize" this kind of "yellow" journalism by calling it an "alternative view" is quite transparent to anyone in possession of the facts.

My purpose is, in a responsible way, to get the whole truth--the verfied facts--about a philosophy, its founder, its teachers and students, to readers of Wikipedia. That this philosophy is presently being maligned makes that purpose even more imperative. I have enough confidence in the good taste of Wikipedia readers to hope they would prefer the truth. Having seen what the facts are (I am, after all, what is called a trained observer and a social scientist) I am in a good position to know that the truth is more exciting to an honest reader than fictitious "belittling" and cooked up controversy see James H. Bready in the Baltimore Evening Sun, 28 July 1982 on the subject of belitters. --Aperey 19:21, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


This article is one of several related articles. This article is a biography, there's no need for it to delve deeply into the philosophy or the movement. The "contrary opinions" about Siegel should be summarized in this article along with the "agreeable opinions". All edits, whether by advocates, opponents, or the disinterested, should seek to improve the neutral POV of the article. Yes, people can lie but we are not here to decide what is a lie and what is the truth. We're here to summarize, in an NPOV manner, the verifiable sources covering Siegel. Regarding the NPOV tag, the editor who added it made some general remarks above. Thanks for your participation. Cheers, -Willmcw 01:27, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

As Siegal's suicide was removed from the Aesthetic Realism article, I've placed it here, where it quite properly belongs. - Outerlimits 16:28, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes. I removed all mention of it from the AR article, as it is irrelevant to the philosophy. The full treatment of his life and death should be in this article. Thanks, -Willmcw 19:03, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
The death of Eli Siegel deserves to be written about with respect, just as the deaths of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was, and George Harrison's, and others who died with dignity. Certainly whatever is written ought to have a verifiable source. I understand that only one person was present when Mr. Siegel died, and that was his wife, Martha Baird Siegel. The source I see as most complete is the writing of Ellen Reiss, who has described of Mr. Siegel's death in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. I refer you to a recent issue titled"Always: Love of Reality". This is a source that can be trusted. I know people writing in Wikipedia want to be fair. There has been some pretty brutal writing lately and I hope we don't see it here.
She wrote, in part:
"I have written every year at this time about the operation Mr. Siegel underwent in May of 1978, which was the cause of his dying 5½ months later. It was a supposedly simple operation for a benign prostatic condition. And it was performed at St. Vincent 's Hospital by a surgeon, Joseph De Filippi, who later admitted he had been angry at his own large respect for Mr. Siegel....
"I was a witness to Mr. Siegel's suffering and also integrity and grandeur in the summer and fall of 1978. Day after day, he felt his physical relation to the world worsen. Yet up to the middle of October he taught classes, lecturing, for example, on American literature, on drama, on literary criticism; and these classes had, unabated, his depth, style, humor. He wrote many poems, then dictated poems when he was no longer able to write them with his own hands....Mr. Siegel, as he lived, and also in dying, was true to the philosophy he founded..."
I will be altering the phraseology in the article in keeping with the above. --Aperey 22:22, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

Among the many issues that must be rectified before anyone removes the NPOV label on this article is the articles gross overestimation of Siegel's importance as poet and critic. It will also need to continue to discuss his suicide in a straightforward, factual manner. - Outerlimits 20:45, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Siegel's death at age 76, five months after a disastrous operation performed by Joseph Di Filippi at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City

  • In 1978, months after surgery for a benign prostatic condition—supposedly simple surgery after which his life was ruined--Eli Siegel took his own life. His suicide was described by Ellen Reiss in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. See "Always: Love of Reality" in which she writes, in part, "Mr. Siegel, as he lived, and also in dying, was true to the philosophy he founded: his purpose was to be fair to the world."

Can we work this out here? Everybody? Is suicide a POV term? It seems to be the most neutral term possible. The dictionary definition is:

  • The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself. [1]

While it is traditional to show deference to the mourners in these references shortly after a death, it is now 27 years later. There is no reason to be ashamed of it. It is what happened. There is nothing otherwise lurid in the description above. If anyone has a problem with it, let's talk about it here first, please. -Willmcw 06:37, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

I believe Eli Siegel had the right to die with dignity. I don't object strongly to the current phrasing which at least presents his death as consistent with his life (and not a refutation of it as the attackers of Aesthetic Realism would like people to believe.) Their twisting of the simple facts into something sinister and ugly (and also blatently false) never ceases to amaze me. But to use Eli Siegel's death that way goes beyond the limits of decency. He has been in his grave for 27 years and they still don't want to stop beating up on him.
As to overestimating Eli Siegel's importance as a poet, I believe it is, if anything, underestimated in this entry. Siegel's body of work, taken as a whole, is really impressive and it is widely known. (My college English professor knew of Siegel's work immediately and told me: "He was one of the finest poets of his century.") Siegel has been credited with writing the shortest poem in the English language: I. Why? And he has translations of poems from the French that are definitive and quoted widely. He also has translated the Hebrew Kaddish in a fashion that every Rabbi I have ever shared it with loved, praised and wanted to use (along with Siegel's written explanation of the meaning of the Kaddish). William Carlos Williams so respected Eli Siegel as poet that he attended two lectures given by Eli Siegel on Williams own poetry, and said to Siegel afterwards: "It is as if everything I've ever written was done for you." (Williams-Siegel Documentary, published by Definition Press, New York). Then, of course, there is Hot Afternoons (the poem) itself--which took America by storm. There were parodies of it published, even years later, and signs on city buses all over the country paraphrasing it: "Windy Afternoons Have Been in Chicago," "Sunny Afternoons Have Been in Los Angeles" and so forth. Eli Siegel had his biography placed in Who's Who in America as the result of his poetic work. I don't think this article overstates his importance as poet no matter how many people writing here want to belittle his contributions to American poetry. And this doesn't even begin to touch upon the significance of his metaphysics! Or his literary criticism--for instance, of Henry James' Turn of the Screw and Shakespeare's Hamlet. I've had the privilege to read these works and before Outerlimits or anybody else degrades the value and importance of Eli Siegel's scholarship he should do some reading of Eli Siegel's work himself. His lack of knowledge reflects more on him than it does on Eli Siegel.
Getting back to the issue at hand, I hope you are not saying that calling Siegel's death a suicide is a sinister ugly lie. There doesn't seem to be any dispute over the mechanism of his death - an intentional overdose of medication. I'm sure it was a dignified suicide. After 27 years there's no need for euphemisms. The simple truth has its own beauty and dignity.
I think it is clear from my comments above that I am NOT saying that mentioning Eli Siegel's suicide is an ugly, sinister lie. In fact, I say I don't object to the current phrasing which presents his death as consistent with his life and not a refutation of it. But I am saying that the persons who have an axe to grind against Aesthetic Realism are dishonest in the way they use the manner of Eli Siegel's death--and I do believe THEIR purpose to be ugly and sinister. I'm glad the wiki entry isn't allowing it to stand and thank you for your efforts on this.
Regarding Siegel's stature as a poet there are two aspects. One is as a poet. Receiving both an award and high praise from Williams confirms that Siegel has standing as a poet. The other issue is Siegel's role as the founder of a school of philosophy. In that matter I don't see how a book award for poetry or even critical acclaim for that poetry relate back to the significance of the philosophy. Finally, I don't see the Kaddish translation listed among his works in this article. It would be good to have a comprehensive list of his works. Cheers, -Willmcw 03:27, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC) (PS, please sign your talk page contributions).
Eli Siegel's translation of the Kaddish in free verse appeared in Commentary Magazine in 1953 and is also included in his book Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems. His essay "The Meaning of the Hebrew Kaddish" was later published by Definition Press. To gather a comprehensive list of Eli Siegel's works would be a huge job. He was prolific! But you might also want to see Siegel's poem "The Dark That Was Is Here," included by Selden Rodman in his 100 American Poems anthology published by Mentor Books. It shows in a wonderfully imaginative way that a girl in ancient Greece had feelings just like ours. It is one of my favorite poems.
PS, if you're the same editor who has been engaged in a revert war over at Aesthetic Realism would you mind discussing your edits on the talk page of that article? We've had to put a block on the page to prevent anyone from editing. Whatever issues are involved I'm sure we can work them out if we discuss them. Thanks, -Willmcw 08:37, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)
Will do. Sorry. I'm still learning the ropes.

Please look at my comment in the Eli Siegel article. I don't want to "override" anyone in an arrogant way. I feel that we should all be interested in posthumous justice to a person who deserved it during his lifetime.

The purpose of NPOV is to be accurate, which is in the long run the same as being kind. Whoever insists on being crude about Eli Siegel's death, is hurting himself or herself. I see no necessity to be unkind to a person after that person has died, and no longer can defend himself. Whoever has the obsession with "suicide" ought to think of how he or she would like to be thought of when they are gone. You are playing with ethical fire.

There was only one person who knew exactly how Eli Siegel died, his wife Martha Baird Siegel. And she is no longer alive. The rest is hearsay.

Mr. Siegel's dying cannot in all justice be treated with any less respect than Jerry Orbach's or Jacqueline K. Onassis' or George Harrison's--who, as you might put it, "committed suicide" when life was no longer supportable. It is generally believed that they each died with dignity.

See Jerry Orbach:

"In early December 2004, it was announced that Orbach had been receiving treatment for prostate cancer since Spring 2004; he died at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York on December 28. His agent, Robert Malcolm, announced at the time of his death that Orbach had been diagnosed with prostate cancer more than ten years before."

See J. Onassis:

"In 1994, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of cancer, and died from it at her Fifth Avenue apartment in her sleep on May 19 that year."

See George Harrison:

"George died at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, California on Thursday, November 29, 2001, at the age of only 58. His death was ascribed to lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain. (It has been suggested that this "friend" was actually Paul McCartney)." -- Arnold Perey username Aperey

Please note that the person who initiated this obsession with the term suicide was Michael Bluejay on his web pages, which are some of the ugliest I have seen. --66.114.86.135 01:11, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm a neutral person on this article. I've never heard of, read any, talked to, seen or otherwise associated with Eli Siegel or the organization and beliefs of "Aesthetic Realism", until I found this article. With that in mind...
At the very top of NPOV it says: "According to Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales, NPOV is 'absolute and non-negotiable'. [2]"
None of the above mentioned quotes of articles mentions either "Dignity" or "Suicide".
Suicide n. – The act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself. Websters
Dignity adj. – The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect. Websters
These two sentences below are written without the leeway to argue what each outwardly and specifically state.
"A person killing theirself is worthy of respect." – This is so POV. It can be disputed.
Example: "The terrorists aboard the planes during the events of September 11, 2001 died with dignity and respect." (Depends on who you are and how you look at it – Note I didn't say that either side is correct, it's a matter of POV [for the record, I'm a Native American])
"The term that defines a person killing himself is Suicide." – Fact. This cannot be disputed, no matter the reason.
Example: "The terrorists aboard the planes during the events of September 11, 2001 committed suicide." (Can't argue this, no matter how upsetting it is. I can't say they didn't commit suicide, well I could, but I'd only make a fool of myself.)
None of the above mentioned articles say s/he died with "Dignity". They have facts, they say s/he died, lacking the term suicide (not sure any/all died from suicide.
How about this as a compromise:
From: His suicide was described by Ellen Reiss …
To: His untimely passing was described by Ellen Reiss …
is that an equitable compromise?
…Guy M… (soapbox) 00:15, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
No, using a euphemism for suicide is not appropriate in an encyclopedia article. As you yourself point out, "suicide" is the appropriate word: it is a shame that Siegel's followers have such difficulty speaking plainly about his death, but that doesn't alter our obligation to do so. - Outerlimits 02:10, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There are no lack of examples of good (and bad) famous people who took their own life.
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Hemingway attempted suicide in the spring of 1961, and received ECT treatment again, but this was unable to prevent his suicide on July 2, 1961—at 5:00 P.M., he died as a result of a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head. Prior to his suicide, Hemingway is known to have blamed his loss of self on ECT.
  • Margaux Hemingway
  • In 1996, on the anniversary of her grandfather's suicide, Hemingway committed suicide in Santa Monica, California at age 41 by taking an overdose of sedatives. She was interred in the Ketchum Cemetery.
  • Robert M. La Follette, Jr. (a very short biography)
  • He was a foreign aid advisor to the Truman administration; La Follette died in Washington, D.C. of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
  • Kurt Cobain
  • His death is treated at great length. in the article
  • Dennis Crosby (Bing Crosby's son)
  • On December 26, 1989, Crosby's younger brother Lindsay committed suicide by a shotgun blast to the head. Deeply distraught by his brother's passing and his recent divorce and grappling with alcoholism, Dennis Crosby committed suicide on May 7, 1991 in Novato, California, also with a shotgun.
  • Hart Crane
  • Crane still felt himself a failure, though, in part because he recommenced homosexual activity despite his relationship with Cowley. Just before noon on April 26, 1932, on a steamship passage back to New York from Mexico—right after he was beat up for hitting on a male crewmember, which may have appeared to confirm his idea that one could not be happy as a homosexual —he jumped into the Gulf of Mexico, committing suicide.
And so on. I don't see many "assisted suicides" of elderly folks listed among suicides, but I didn't check every biography. I think that the proposed language in italics below (which may or may not be in the article at any moment) is clear, honest, and NPOV. It avoids lurid details and only sugarcoats a little bit.
Why does it matter? Siegel was not just any famous person - he was a philosopher. His philosphy, if I understand this correctly, says that (some) suicide is caused by having contempt for the world and failing to see the oneness of opposites. (ditto for unhappiness, illness, and homosexuality). To skeptics of Siegel, therefore, his suicide seems to call his philosophy into question. It would be POV to suppress that information by cloaking it in a euphemism, one which may not be understood by all encyclopedia readers.
While this article must not "beat up" on its subject, nor can it evade uncomfortable truths. Siegel did win a poetry award and he did commit suicide. These are the facts of his life and each need to be included. Let's be honest about his life and death and let the readers make up their own minds. -Willmcw 10:53, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)


We're discussing the text in italics above, which does not mention prescription drugs. Is there any question that Siegel took his own life? -Willmcw 01:12, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
If we're casting about for examples, read this one:
Two Women By Eli Siegel
Elizabeth Barrett Browning is not seen truly. I haven’t talked of her at length, and shan’t do it now. But there is a relation between Mrs. Browning and another woman, quite famous, who killed herself in 1941, Virginia Woolf.[3]
If Siegel felt it was appropriate to use direct language in referring to another suicide, I see no reason why we should not use the same plain, true language for him. Euphemisms are not the way to truth or beauty. Cheers, -Willmcw 03:43, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
  • While in principle I agree with you as to plain, true language, there is a matter which I believe you could be more aware of. The use of the word "suicide" in Wiki is part of the years-long campaign to defame Eli Siegel. In fact Bluejay recently put Mr. Siegel's name into the Wikipedia list of notables who committed suicide--while Onassis, Harrison, Orbach are not there. There is something he is after.
I am concerned that we will be unwitting "pawns" in the Mali agenda. You can see how, in his web pages, Bluejay tries to have people believe the following: The founder of the philosophy that says the deepest desire of a person is to like the world didn't believe it himself and committed suicide.
As you can see in Ellen Reiss's honest writing this is completely untrue--and Mr. Siegel's final months of life prove it.
Bluejay really knows nothing directly of how Eli Siegel died--his mom left for Texas, taking him with her, when he was in short pants, long before all this occurred. Ellen or Adam Mali told him something within the last year, I'd guess--and he has presented it, as they hoped, in the most lurid light possible. There is an air of triumph in his writing. (By the way Bluejay may not know that when he was very young, Eli Siegel saved his life. The notes for the class discussions in which this took place are surely available somewhere, but the details are of course confidential. I wonder whether he would be so intent on ruining the man if he knew that.)
Perhaps this is hard to believe, but as we try to practice collegial good will, and let everyone express themselves, we have to be aware that Wikipedia can be slyly taken advantage of. Trying to get in everyone's point of view will, in order to be NPOV, can be manipulated to make the word "suicide" which has an alarming ring seem to be quite all right. But just look at who is insisting on it, and and think about why. Why, for example, do the same people who demean the change from homosexuality insist that "suicide" or even "killed himself" must be used in this article? (I refer not only to Bluejay but to Outerlimits, CDThieme, and a couple of others.) It's two "thrusts" of the same attack. If you look up Eli Siegel in Google, and see Bluejay's web page (on p. 2), you see the defamatory effect that Mali and Bluejay intended.
What another editor wrote, above, is true: "Their twisting of the simple facts into something sinister and ugly (and also blatently false) never ceases to amaze me. But to use Eli Siegel's death that way goes beyond the limits of decency. He has been in his grave for 27 years and they still don't want to stop beating up on him."
So now I have expressed some of my concerns. If I get intense here and there, I imagine it's only to be expected considering the circumstances, but I'll try to restrain myself. -- --Aperey 18:05, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing your concerns. I understand that there is a difference of view among different editors. However, let's try to leave the outside issues outside and stick to writing an article that summarizes verifiable information in an NPOV manner.
Here is the proposed text:
In 1978, months after surgery for a benign prostatic condition—supposedly simple surgery after which his life was ruined--Eli Siegel took his own life. His suicide was described by Ellen Reiss in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. See "Always: Love of Reality" in which she writes, in part, "Mr. Siegel, as he lived, and also in dying, was true to the philosophy he founded: his purpose was to be fair to the world."
I don't see how the word "suicide" can be defamation if we aren't arguing about the actual fact. We aren't saying anything lurid. We explain the reasons he did so, and we end it with a laudatory quote. Finally, you don't have to keep bringing up the example of Onassis. I can provide plenty of counter-examples of articles which treat the suicides of their subjects plainly. wikipedia:Stay cool. Thanks, -Willmcw 18:19, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

I essentially like the proposed wording of WiIlmcw. I think it treats the matter in a straightforward manner while not playing into the misuse and twisting of Eli Siegel's death by Mali and her webmaster Bluejay. [TS 21 June 2005]

As Willmcw implies, the voluntary death of an elderly person who is infirm or dying and has no hope of recovery is NEVER referred to in an unkind and brutal way as "he committed suicide." None of the examples that our distinguished colleague brings up are of that kind. And just because Bluejay and his kind of person want to use pejorative language and make less of a great man, it is imperative that Wikipedia NOT use such language. I think my reworking of the paragraph (a paragraph with which I vigorously disagreed) is a good, no-frills and straightforward and TRUTHFUL account of what happened. --Aperey 21:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
The word "suicide", applied to a suicide, is not pejorative. - Outerlimits 22:07, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
What is the source for the statement that Eli Siegel took his own life?
In fact there is no source--something I pointed out long ago (but was ignored). It shouldn't be treated in Wikipedia as a fact.
And further, in current English the term "suicide" is not applied to people--especially people of very advanced age--who wish to die because they have an untreatable, agnonizing, terminal condition and there is no hope of recovery. "Death with dignity" is the proper term and is understood by the general public to mean that a person may very well have taken his or her own life. The term "suicide"--(may I suggest that you look at the people you cite)--is generally used for something quite different. For example, Wllmcw quotes this: "Crosby's younger brother Lindsay committed suicide by a shotgun blast to the head." So the use of the term "suicide" by whoever wrote this piece--while omitting the fact that Siegel was 76 and the medical situation--gives an false impression to the reader in two ways. First, it is falsely sensational and second it is beyond what anybody actually knows.
I doubt that anyone with good sense and good will would insist on it.
I must tell you also that in fact you did not "understand correctly" the following--I quote from above: "His philosphy, if I understand this correctly, says that (some) suicide is caused by having contempt for the world and failing to see the oneness of opposites. (ditto for unhappiness, illness, and homosexuality)." We could straighten it out another time. But, in brief, part of your sentence is a overly stripped down version of a complex explanation and other parts are not at all what Aesthetic Realism has found to be true. --Aperey 16:34, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Independent sources

I have scoured all 360 references that Google finds for "Eli Siegel". With two exceptions all of the substantial references come either from AR consultants or from Michael Bluejay. The two exceptions are here:

Even though neither of these sources purports to be comprehensive they are nonetheless valuable. They give us the only neutral views, outside of a few old poetry reviews, of Siegel. If anyone can add to the list I'd appreciate it. Thanks, -Willmcw 05:36, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

About the Max Gordon article. Max Gordon was a person who hated respecting anybody. It is hard to find anything he wrote in his book that engenders respect for the people he writes about--including Eli Siegel. He always comes out smelling like roses and everyone else comes out smelling like, well, booze! This should be taken into account when reading his internet piece. In it, Eli Siegel is presented distastefully along with everybody else Gordon writes about. I think Max Gordon was not a very good judge of character and his interest in understanding what was going on in Eli Siegel's thought was dim at best. He also enjoys making fun of people. Unfortunately, Eli Siegel gets included. It is interesting that when people want to bash Eli Siegel they love quoting Max Gordon while leaving out people like Williams or Cairns--who, by the way, are far more esteemed.
Please sign your talk page contributions. As I said, the reaosn I included Gordon on that list is that it was one of only two references to Siegel that wasn't on an AR-related site. Williams made his comments 50 years ago. (Gordon's recollection is also quite old). There is very little information available from independent sources. If you can add any, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, -Willmcw 21:06, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Getting back to sources:, the archives of the New York Times apparently have some articles on Siegel, including their obit, and some letters to the editors from students, presumably commenting on the articles.[4] I haven't read any of them (maybe next time I gdt to a library with a microfilm copy). Does anyone have an opinion about the NYT as a source for Siegel and AR? What is the current view of that and other NY newspaper coverage of AR? (beyond the general lack of it). Thanks, -Willmcw 04:40, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC) PS (Regarding an earlier comment - Read the NPOV policy - it'd be wrong to leave out either Williams or Gordon.)

Copyedit

I spent a a good amount of time on this article for appearence sake! I personally have never heard of Eli Siegel, so I added no new content, nor did I knowingly remove any. I did reorganise it a bit, added a few headers, used <blockquote> instead of bullet lists or indents. Block quotes are different in that both sides of the quote are indented. Wikified Dates.

The only thing left to do (other thatn comprise on the npov dispute) is to organise your sources and references. When MediaWiki is fixed (Bugzilla) (It is, just needs a release update now), try: Since there are many (Good Lord!) might I suggest use of the

  • {{ref | refname}} (in article) and {{note | refname}} (in ==References==)

feature. See Ref and Note for usage. …Guy M… (soapbox) 12:20, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Your efforts are much appreciated. Without undoing your fine copyediting, I'm going to try to mold this towards a more conventional biographical form. Cheers, -Willmcw 17:11, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Where was Siegel born?

Wasn't Siegel born in Baltimore? If not, where? Thanks, -Willmcw 00:49, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Eli Siegel grew up in Baltimore. That's what was deleted in one of the edits. --66.114.86.135 01:12, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Where was he born?-Willmcw 01:14, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
Where did he go to school? College? Married? Children?
The Baltimore proclamation needs to go in (it may have been here before and lost in the constant editing). Any other similar honors? or major events? Even poets and philosophers get married, divorced, etc. This is a biography, first and foremost. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:24, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Siegel was born in Latvia. He came to the United States with his parents when he was three years old and grew up in Baltimore, where his father was a tailor. He graduated from Baltimore City College (which was a high school) He never went to college. His wife was Martha Baird, one of his early students and a pretty good poet in her own right. There were no children. In addition to the monument erected by the city of Baltimore in Durid Hill Park on Eli Siegel's 100th birthday there is also a congressional tribute by Congressman Elijah Cummings, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, to Eli Siegel. It was delivered on the floor of the House of Representatives and printed in the Congressional Journal. I believe it is online and a link could be established to it. TS 16 June 2005

Violent opposition

  • The other side of the picture is the extreme resentment that a fixed, sclerotic mind feels confronting this new. It shows itself by the violent opposition Siegel received from the "authorities" whom I shall not dignify by naming and after that by neglect, an inevitable neglect due not to resentment but by the sheer inability of the general mind to grasp what has taken place. A Letter by William Carlos Williams, November 3, 1951. [5]

If there was "violent opposition" to Siegel from "authorities" then we should mention that. The only opposition that I've heard about came much later. Does anyone have any idea what Williams was talking about? -Willmcw 23:24, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

This may be what he was talking about: In 1925 the Nation awarded its Poetry Prize to Eli Siegel. The head of the award commitee was the leading poetry anthologist in America, Mark Van Doren. He and the committee wrote a statement of sustained praise of this poem, published at the same time the poem was, in the Nation. Then some well-known literary figures wrote angry letters to the Nation--one even said his own poem should have got the prize. Others praised it very much and some criticized the angry writers. Van Doren never defended the choice of the Nation committee, and the cautious academicians drew back in fear.

Contemporary Authors describes it this way: "Siegel immediately became the focus of a literary controversy. His innovative technique and unorthodox approach to his material tended to polarize reviewers' reactions to the poem; as [Michael] Kernan remarked [in the Washington Post], 'some critics loved it, others were outraged. . . . [`Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana'] was reprinted, anthologized, translated. Then silence.'"

The conspiracy of silence had begun. And in this way, "cut [was] the branch that might have grown full straight" (Marlowe, Dr. Faustus).

And so 25 years after "Hot Afternoons" won the Nation prize, William Carlos Williams had to write that Siegel's work had been "so monumentally neglected"--and wrote to Martha Baird, "He belongs in the very first rank of our living artists. That he has not been placed there by our critics (what good are they?) is the inevitable result of their colonialism, their failure to understand...."

And almost 20 years after that, in 1969, Kenneth Rexroth was still writing, "I think it's about time Eli Siegel was moved up into the ranks of our acknowledged Leading Poets..." (NY Times Book Review).

The "violent opposition" was for decades an opposition of silence--to keep Siegel from being noticed by the world. The critics and literary world remained silent about Siegel, no matter who supported him or what the facts were. Privately, the kinds of conversations they had about him can be inferred by things Williams says in his letter to Martha Baird. Baird and Ellen Reiss write about this silent opposition in The Williams-Siegel Documentary, [6]. They write, for example, "A good many facts are negative. They consist of absences and silences. There is no way of documenting them except by mentioning them," which they proceed to do. One evidence is that Baird and Reiss were "denied permission to quote any of William Carlos Williams' poems in their entirety" either in the 1964 publication Williams' Poetry Talked about by Eli Siegel, and William Carlos Williams Present and Talking: 1951 or in The Williams-Siegel Documentary of 1970 [see page v]. This denial of permission was not from Williams, who was no longer alive, but by his publisher, New Directions, and Mrs. Williams (see pp. 197-9). Much earlier Williams gave permission to publish his 1951 letter to Baird. And Ellen Reiss writes in her "Afterword" about this opposition--and the anger at having greater respect than one is comfortable with, which is its cause (pp. 175-195).

This is what I think Williams was referring to. If someone else has different information, I hope they will give it to you. --Aperey 5 July 2005 20:03 (UTC)

Thanks for this info, it's very helpful. We should find a way of adding some of this to relevant articles. -Willmcw 22:38, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding death

I not only removed the NPOV heading from the article because there is no written justification for it, and we are not here to play games but to be truthful, but I rewrote the passage about Eli Siegel's death to conform to the standards used in describing the deaths of Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis and George Harrison. If Michael Bluejay and Outerlimits continue to object, I suggest that they (or he) first write to the editors of the Onassis and Harrison articles and have them change those descriptions to conform to the standards that Bluejay and Outerlimits want to impose on this article.

You, dear reader, will see that "died" is the correct term. "Suicide" is POV. It is the incorrect term because it is misleading. Bluejay and Outerlimits want to use that term only because it does mislead. It has shocking connotations. And that is precisely why Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is not described as having committed suicide. And it is precisely why George Harrison is not described as having committed suicide. Their deaths had dignity and so does the way they are described. The editors of THOSE articles do not try to rob that dignity from people who can no longer defend themselves.

Wikipedia on Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis: "In 1994, she was diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of cancer, and died from it at her Fifth Avenue apartment in her sleep on May 19 that year."
Wikipedia on George Harrison: "George died at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, California on Thursday, November 29, 2001, at the age of only 58. His death was ascribed to lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain. (It has been suggested that this "friend" was actually Paul McCartney)."

Bluejay and Outerlimits should use these descriptions as a model.

Thousands of courageous people have felt that death was more dignified than life when their bodies had been compromised by terminal ailment or hopeless injury. It is wrong for Bluejay and Outerlimits (evidently the same person) to make Eli Siegel's death sound DIFFERENT from everyone else's who, yes, died with dignity.

Bluejay and Outerlimits are impelled by overt and conscious malice. This will be obvious to anyone who makes a simple visit to michaelblujay.com/x.

I ask, if Bluejay and Outerlimits are interested in accuracy, why aren't they as zealous and dogged to change George Harrison's article to read "Harrison committed suicide..." ??? The same for J.K. Onassis? Their arguments hold as good for Onassis and Harrison as for Siegel.

The reason is, they don't believe in their own arguments. And neither do I. These arguments may be clever but they can never change malicious intent into a Neutral Point of View. --Aperey 16:20, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Why do you keep coming back to this? We discussed it previously. No one disputes that Siegel died by suicide. We are not writing the article about Onassis. See above for numerous examples of suicides handled in a straightforward, no-BS manner. Please discuss your changes to this disputed text before changing it again. And please do not make personal commetns about the motives of other editors. It's bad form. Thanks, -Willmcw 19:22, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

"One Question"

Isn't "One Question" copyrighted? -Willmcw 19:23, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Definition Press, the holder of the copyright, has given permission to reproduce the poem on Wikipedia. If Wikipedia requires, I'll be glad to ask them to send an official permission document once I know the correct email address. --Aperey 22:23, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll send a letter asking for confirmation. Like all material in Wikipedia, permission must be granted for future commercial and non-commercial use by other parties, as specified in the GFDL. Thanks, -Willmcw 23:02, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
None of the Definition Press email addresses work. Is it still in business? Who is in charge so I can email them? Thanks. -Willmcw 16:53, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
Editors at Definition Press told me they received an email regarding permission for "One Question." I believe they will be discussing what the idea of the GFDL in Wikipedia is. It's a bit different from permissions in other contexts. -Aperey
I can't imagine who they received the email from. I sent it to bookorders@d..org, dk..@d..org, and orders@d..org. All three came back as invalid accounts. In any case, let's remove it until they give definitive permission. -Willmcw 02:35, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
PS: Are you having trouble logging-in? I hadn't realized at first that user:Ethiopianrunner and user:Aperey are the same person, not to mention user:66.114.86.135. -Willmcw 07:57, August 4, 2005 (UTC)
I have received a confirmation from D.K. at Definition Press granting GFDL use. Accordingly I have placed the poem in Wikisource, our sister-project which is a repository of original source material, and included a link at the end of the text. It's here [7] Cheers, -Willmcw 23:55, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

A note about consensus.

As to consensus: It is possible for people to reconsider a way of writing something and find it inaccurate. That too is consensus. I suggest the people who wanted this paragraph look at it again. Consider what I just wrote about it. I wasn't part of the decision to use it at all, by the way.

Although for a while I said nothing, feeling this paragraph was too much wanted by too many editors to challenge it, I didn't object but gave up. I was wrong to give up.

You cannot just declare by consensus that a person died by his or her own hand. There is no reliable source for this conjecture as to Eli Siegel.

And further, you cannot just "decide by consensus" how the English language is used: you look at how it really is used and stick to that. "Suicide" is just plain the wrong word for a person of 76 who is very ill, even if he did decide to take his own life (which I certainly do not know to be the case).

I'll certainly be consulting with the Wikipedia higher-ups on this and some outside sources, including the Death With Dignity National Center. --66.114.86.135 17:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

While you are consulting, please consult the three revert rule. Logging out and continuing a pattern of reverts still violates the rule. Jonathunder 17:35, 2005 July 29 (UTC)
I know the rule. I have reverted twice today only. Soon I am going to revert for the third time today, if necessary. --Arnold Perey --Aperey 22:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

In fact I just added the age of Mr. Siegel when this happened, 76 years of age, and took out the false terminology, using, instead, words used about Kennedy and Harrison in similar situations. I still do not see any source to justify anything else.

On this Talk page, on 4 Jun 2005, I wrote:

"The death of Eli Siegel deserves to be written about with respect, just as the deaths of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was, and George Harrison's, and others who died with dignity. Certainly whatever is written ought to have a verifiable source. I understand that only one person was present when Mr. Siegel died, and that was his wife, Martha Baird Siegel."

Unfortunately, this information was crucially disregarded when the paragraph that Outerlimits and some others wrote became part of this article. Meanwhile, I am glad that Ellen Reiss was quoted, and what I wrote about her was not deleted as the paragraph was worked on. I regard that as very fair. But there is another and more important matter. None of us know how Eli Siegel died. Heresay is not enough on which to base a matter as important as this. The only witness was Martha Baird, who is no longer alive. What I did witness in the classes he continued to teach (after the operation until Fall, 1978) was his enormous physical pain and distress, which increased month after month, his steady kindness to people and his desire to educate and to leave people better off, and the growing awareness of himself and his students that his pain would only become increasingly unbearable to the very end, which was near. As I said, when he died, Martha Baird was the only person present. Whether it was by his own hand or by the hand of the Almighty, no one will ever know. It would be false to assert one or the other. So I say, I do hope this unfortunate and unnecessary dispute can be put to rest amicably. --Aperey 22:58, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

How disingenuous can you be? You're pretending that "death with dignity" is something other than a euphemism for suicide, while you've written and posted to the Internet an extended implicit comparison of Siegel's suicide with that of Socrates. Does AR make it impossible to speak truth plainly? - Outerlimits 23:58, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I guess you missed the point. There is no "implicit comparison of Siegel's suicide with that of Socrates." You are reading into the tale something that is not there. As I'm sure you must be aware, the way Socrates died was not the way Eli Siegel died. Socrates was executed. An Athenian court decreed, vengefully and unjustly, that he drink the cup of hemlock. The point of the story of course is that "Milos" the fictional character in the story, lied about the death of the great philosopher, calling it suicide, in an attempt to ruin his posthumous reputation--just as he had tried to hurt Socrates and his school when the philosopher was alive. What was the motive? The same as today: both the unjust Athenian court and the puny Milos were furious that they respected a contemporary more than it was commonly expected they'd have to respect anyone. Milos is a composite of real people living today, and the foul and unjust court of Athens represents intellectual "giants" living today, who show hate in their own way for anything that surpasses them in ethics or knowledge. --Aperey 18:55, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Outerlimits, you're very clever but the plain truth scares you. It doesn't fit your plans. (unsigned)

That's an interesting belief. But it doesn't seem to answer the question. - Outerlimits 06:11, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I will answer your question.

In generally accepted usage, "death with dignity" is not a euphemism but the way one refers to the death of a person who, because of extremity of age or bodily failure, takes their own life. Sometimes I have seen that the same phrase is used where there is some doubt as to the cause--but the person did indeed die with dignity rather than attached to a machine (e.g. a respirator) under conditions that would have been abhorrent and undignified.

The fact that you desire to injure Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism is shown by the fact that you will not even permit his age of 76 to be added to Eli Siegel's death!

Apparently you want to make it appear that this great and kind philosopher was like Curt Cobain who shot himself.

Now there is a question you have never answered: What is your source?

Until you cite a source I am sure I am justified in making your text NPOV by using the term "died" and adding the true age of Siegel. --Aperey 19:10, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

"Takes their own life" = suicide. It's fine to add his age. It's not fine to keep hiding the facts of his death. It shows contempt for Siegel and for the truth. -Willmcw 21:18, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
To respond: Yes, thank you, adding his age helps. Meanwhile I do not think that the remnants of harshness in the style of the writing of this paragraph ought to remain. They are, indeed contempt. Contempt for something is the difference between what it deserves and what you give it. Describing Mr. Siegel's death with a calculated slant is certainly not giving either him or the truth what they deserve. For example, a sensitive reader will be aware of the slant in the cursory phrase, "he considered his life ruined." Looking at it carefully, one is encouraged to think an objective observer might not have considered it ruined, but Siegel did; and that is precisely what Bluejay says is the case on his web pages. So this phrase should be changed to give a true picture without a slant.
We need to give the facts the fullness they deserve, if only to add another sentence or two. I think what Eli Siegel said about himself ought to be quoted. Ellen Reiss has quoted his writing--in which he called that surgery "the operation so disastrous to me." And she quoted his sentence, "I have lost the use of my feet." She has described the way he was suffering increasingly--(I remember hearing him say he felt the end was nearer, in a class he was teaching)--but he was still seeing meaning in the world and people in a large and deep way; still teaching tremendously scholarly and moving classes and writing poetry.
What troubles me is twofold. One is that no one has given a source for "the facts of his death" as you are calling them. In all honesty, we don't know the facts for sure. We can make suppositions with varying degress of reliability.
Now it is clear that having no source is a violation of Wikipedia's policy ALWAYS to cite a reliable source for your facts. It's not enough to say "I just know" as apparently the Wikipedia editors are doing. I did my best, based on what I knew, in "Countering the Lies," but I am not a definitive source either. Michael Bluejay is not a definitive source, because (1)his tabloid approach to the facts is obvious; (2)he was in Texas in 1978 and was barely a teen; (3)he did no research; and (4) the anonymous statements on his web pages have doubtful origins. So then, what is left? What is the source for the "facts" of Eli Siegel's death as presented in this article in Wikipedia? Please note that this question has been dodged every time I asked it. The only source mentioned (by "Outerlimits") is my tale about Socrates who in fact died differently from the way Siegel did. And since this question "What is the source?" hasn't been answered, what in all honestly should be done? Should one say, perhaps, "It is believed that Eli Siegel took his own life, at an advanced age and in a situation of terminal suffering"?
The second thing that troubles me is the remnant of ill will I still see in this entry, although, and thank you, adding Mr. Siegel's age is a definite improvement. You may remember one of the harsher editors said "took his own life" wasn't clear enough. The word "suicide" HAD to be used. But you show, in what you wrote above, that everyone knows they are equivalent. Meanwhile some of the harsh language used by that editor has remained, although his reason for using it was false. (Being harsh and being truthful are not the same! The truth is kind.) I hope everyone is following this because it is a documentation of ill will in editing an important matter; this ill will can go on elsewhere in Wikipedia; and it should be detected as sensitively and remedied as forthrightly as we can. --66.114.86.135 16:10, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
I've added some text to try to address your concerns. -Willmcw 17:10, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I find this entry pretty good. Eli Siegel was a far greater person than this article conveys but I guess we can't have everything. At least the entry is fairly straightforward, although I regret the use of the word "suicide" because it is so emotionally loaded. But I think what is there around it lessens some of that so I won't object. By the way, I've tried signing up for a username as Willmcw asked but I keep getting a message that somebody else already has my name "TS." I hope somebody isn't pretending to be me. Should I use another username to sign up? [TS 3 August 2005]

"TS" is a common set of initials. Try registering a longer user name. Jonathunder 16:43, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

Who's afraid to debate?

I just saw this post by APerey on July 12:

Apparently Michael Bluejay is afraid to debate.

I have no idea what that is in reference to but geez, can we get any more hypocritical here? I had an open offer on my website for *nearly two months* to have a public debate with any AR people prior to and during my trip to NYC in June, which not even one AR supporter took me up on, including APerey. Each time I called the foundation to invite them to debate they even pretended to not know who I was, even though they created a whole website to try to debunk what I've been saying (and to insult me personally, of course). APerey et al had to have seen my invitation too even without my calling them because the AR people are quick to react on their website to new stuff I post on mine -- except the debate invitation. And once I returned to Austin I've continued to make it clear on my site that I'm 100% ready to make a special trip back to NYC once the AR people decide to accept my debate offer.

So again: Which side is actually afraid to debate here?

I'm sorry to use this Talk page for something unrelated to the article but when the AR people use it as a forum for slandering me then I want to set the matter straight. And on that note, Arnold Perey, where the HELL do you get off saying that I'm afraid to debate when I'M THE ONE WHO MADE THE DEBATE OFFER! Hello? When you're ready to put your money where your mouth is I will *gladly* make a trip to NYC to debate you and/or any other AR devotees. Put up or shut up.

And when you're ready, contact me OFF WIKIPEDIA. Michaelbluejay 06:53, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I guess the reference is to this statement by Bluejay on this talk page: "Individuals like Newton and Kant no doubt deserve praise, but my understanding is that an encyclopedic entry of either would reflect the work of the man, not unabashed applause. I have, alas, managed to get myself dragged into a silly debate with an Aesthetic Realist...."

Excuse me, I did NOT make that statement, and have no idea who did. *MY* offer to publicly debate APerey and/or any of the other Aesthetic Realists still stands. Michaelbluejay 18:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Suicide

I added Siegel's suicide back to the intro, although Aesthetic Realism supporters will no doubt attempt to censor it again. I confirmed that it's common in Wikipedia to list a suicide in the intro, such as with Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Antony, and Adolf Hitler. (This entry by Michael Bluejay 04:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC) )

Malice

Michael Bluejay, along with other detractors, is attempting to sensationalize and disparage Aesthetic Realism. The above is no exception. Whatever name he may choose to call me--e.g. "censor"--one look at his web pages on Aesthetic Realism will show his malice. The website http://www.counteringthelies exposes both his purpose and lies. Eli Siegel died at a very advanced age and after disastrous surgery. Death with dignity would be an appropriate way of expressing this--not "suicide." However the same cannot be said of the comparisions Mr. Bluejay cites as evidence for his own use of language: Plath, Hemingway, Mark Antony--and the very fact that Mr. Bluejay includes Adolf Hitler in his list of comparisions (when so many other names are available) shows the malice behind his campaign. The reader should Google the term "death with dignity" and see which use of language is really more appropriate. --samivel 18:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The term "death with dignity" is far more truthful and in keeping with the wikipedia entries of George Harrison and Jackie Kennedy. Eli Siegel is a scholar of the first rank and should be written about with the respect accorded to all important people who have benefitted humanity. One can see just a sample of his vital contributions to world culture on the Aesthetic Realism website where a sample of his essays, lectures, and poetry are located.


I suggest the following:


1) If his death is to be described--and I don't see why it needs to be since in the George Harrison entry it is not--it should be at the end, not the beginning. This way it is chronologically accurate. One can see an example of this as well as what "dying with dignity" means in the Jackie Kennedy entry where the following is said later in the article, "In announcing her death, Onassis' son stated, "My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that."

2) I suggest using the description of Eli Siegel's death from the Aesthetic Realism website. The man was in excruciating pain as result of the negligence of a doctor, who later admitted wrongdoing. To honorable and decent people, this fact alone would inform how one writes. Here is the description: On November 8, 1978, Eli Siegel died, as a result of an operation performed on him in May of that year. Keravnos (talk) 21:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this Aperey? We discussed this extensively in the past. I agree that the death doesn't need to be in the lead. However I disagree with other changes to the description of it.   Will Beback  talk  21:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
The Aesthetic Realists complain all over Countering the Lies that I'm a liar for saying that they've been trying to hide the fact that Siegel killed himself, yet here they are doing that very thing...again. What hypocrites. MichaelBluejay (talk) 15:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
No, I’m not Arnold Perey. I’m a person concerned about the way Eli Siegel is written about. I suggest that the following section go into the category “Life” and replace the shorter section already there.
Eli Siegel’s death—a death with dignity and by his own hand--was a half-year after a disastrous operation for a benign prostatic condition. He did not want this operation but was persuaded to undergo it by urgent doctors who said he would die without it and his own students, who feared for his life. It was done by a doctor who later admitted he was angry at the respect Eli Siegel caused in him. After this failed surgery, Mr. Siegel was in unrelieved agony and grew increasingly weak as the months went on. There was no possibility for any amelioration or recovery. He taught classes and gave Aesthetic Realism lessons all this time, until he was no longer able to meet the world in the way he wanted to. Ellen Reiss described it, and this is some of what she wrote: "Mr. Siegel, as he lived, and also in dying, was true to the philosophy he founded: his purpose was to be fair to the world. He could not bear to be in it in that increasingly and agonizingly broken way. And so, in the glowing autumn of 1978, he died. His love of reality, even as death neared, is told of in the words he chose for his headstone: 'Continued by the world.'" [1]

Keravnos (talk) 23:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Your suggested edit is so ridiculous it doesn't deserve comment. MichaelBluejay (talk) 10:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

There is tremendous precedent for mentioning the suicide of a subject in the opening, e.g., Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Marshall Applewhite, Spalding Gray, Vincent van Gogh, Phil Ochs, and Alan Turing. No compelling reason for removing the suicide mention from the opening has been offered. Hence, I'm restoring it. MichaelBluejay (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no comparison between those individuals and this subject. They are all far more prominent, and in most cases their deaths were widely reported (van Gogh being an obvious exception). Is there any biography of Siegel in a reliable 3rd-party source that mentions the death as one of his main accomplishments? I'm not aware of any. In fact, I'm not quite sure what our source is for this. I've tagged the statement and will remove it if a reliable source can't be found.   Will Beback  talk  21:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
Of course the other individuals were more promient. Your point? Since when is prominence the criteria of whether one's suicide is identified in the intro to an article about them? The New York Times *tried* to report on why he died in his obituary, but, as they put it, "The Aesthetic Realism Foundation...refused yesterday to give the clinical cause of his death. But it said in a news release that he had 'died of a broken heart, having suffered for over 50 years from injustices of the press and literary world.'" I have an entire article on Siegel's suicide, quoting current and former members, including current AR faculty member Devorah Tarrow, who says, in part:
"That a person chooses to die with dignity when he or she has been fatally injured or is fatally ill is something that is now respected and accepted worldwide. This choice has been made by persons whose names many are familiar with, including very recently, the fine actor Jerry Ohrbach, following a long illness. A newspaper reported his agent as saying, "When he was ready to leave, he left-with dignity." There is the popular and much respected film Million Dollar Baby, whose main character, Maggie Fitzgerald (played beautifully by Hillary Swank), asks the character Frankie Dunn (played by Clint Eastwood), who is her manager, to help her to die after she is paralyzed in a boxing match. He does assist her, and she is grateful; she wanted to live with dignity and she wants to die with dignity...."
You also might recall that Arnold Perey said, ""Eli Siegel died with dignity.... What death with dignity means to people today, thanks to the Hemlock Society and other Death with Dignity organizations, is that one has died by his own hand." Now, since his suicide wasn't reported by the press (because the ARists made sure that it couldn't be), if you wanted to qualify the statement by saying something like, "Followers of his philosophy of Aesthetic Realism say that he took his life....", that would be agreeable. MichaelBluejay (talk) 18:09, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
Fine, just don't add it to the intro. That's far too much weight for something which has only barely been mentioned by his followers and appears in no other reliable source.   Will Beback  talk  21:46, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, I'd contrast Siegel's death with those of Jeremiah Duggan and Kenneth Kronberg, just to give two examples. One case is a disputed suicide, the other undisputed, and both involve a group that's been called a "cult" by some. But in both of those cases the individuals are notable primarily because of their deaths. By contrast the manner, and even the fact, of Siegel's death was little noticed outside his immediate circle. Nobody but a handful of people care one way or the other. Yes, the manner of his death is ironic considering his teachings concerning suicide prevention, IIRC. Irony is better when it's understated. Let's leave this to the minor point that it is.   Will Beback  talk  10:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

No deal. First of all, the suicide doesn't have to be the most notable thing about the subject in order for it to be in the intro. I've already provided several examples of this (.g., Adolf Hitler, Eva Braun, Spalding Gray, Vincent van Gogh, Phil Ochs, and Alan Turing). It's just not plausible to suggest that, for example, Adolph Hitler and Alan Turing are notable because of the way the died. Second, Siegel's suicide is notable anyway, if for no other reason that his followers have tried to hide the cause of his death (going so far as to say that he *didn't* kill himself), and have put up a 91-page website calling me a liar for making such assertions that Siegel took his life. When a number of people have worked very hard (including on Wikipedia) to censor the truth and to change history, it's especially important for an encyclopedia to be clear about this controversial point. MichaelBluejay (talk) 16:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

There is already a consensus, which takes into account these sentiments of MichaelBluejay. Why repeat them? B.K.S.J. (talk) 22:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
No. There is no consensus. The only credible users here are me and WillBeback, which makes it 1 vs. 1. Everyone else (including you) is an Aesthetic Realist who registered on Wikipedia specifically to censor the Aesthetic Realism-related articles and who edits little to nothing else. We don't even know that all three pro-AR users aren't actually all Arnold Perey, since he's known to use sock puppets. (Most of you never identify yourselves either, which is intensely hypocritical given your screed all over your "Countering the Lies" website about ex-AR members who criticize AR anonymously.) Finally, the imaginary "consensus" you referred to, if it existed, doesn't come close to addressing my point. Siegel's suicide should be in the intro for the multiple reasons already stated. No convincing argument has been made otherwise. MichaelBluejay (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
WillBeback, is the issue that you're uncomfortable with the suicide being asserted as fact when the only sources are statements of AR members (both former and current?). I thought those sources would be sufficient given that there are exactly *zero* sources, self-published or otherwise, that say clearly and unambiguously that Siegel did *not* kill himself. In any event, perhaps this can be resolved by attributing the suicide as a claim rather than fact, which is what I'll do now. MichaelBluejay (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't belong in the lead. I don't see any argument that this is important to his notability.   Will Beback  talk  19:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm adding it back. You say there is no consensus for it, but I can certainly say there is no consensus to censor it from the intro, as you prefer. And I've already provided justification for including it in the intro, including giving examples of several other subjects whose suicides are mentioned in the intro's of their articles, even though their suicides were not what primarily made them notable. On the other hand, the removal of the suicide from the intro has never been justified. MichaelBluejay (talk) 01:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
Consensus is required to have material in an article. No offense, but your website is not a reliable source. There's no problem with having the suicide in the text of ther article so long as it is properly sourced. Please remember that Wikipedia is not a battleground.   Will Beback  talk  03:49, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

"One Question" 2

Small edit: The poem by Eli Siegel "I -- / Why?" is described as a three-word poem. Isn't it a two-word poem? Should we correct this? B.K.S.J. (talk) 04:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

It used to say "two", then an anon with an attitude changed it.[8] I've changed it back.   Will Beback  talk  06:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Ah, re-reading the editor's note I think I get it. He probably saw the "I" as a typographic symbol, like a "pipe" |. In that case the poem appeared to be, more or less, "On Question: | — Why?" Just a guess, but I think it was well intentioned even if incorrect. I blame it on sans serif fonts.   Will Beback  talk  06:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Harold Norse

Norse's Memoirs of a Bastard Angel, coincidentally another poet of Baltic Jewish ancestry, include a couple of paragraphs on Siegel and the poem.   Will Beback  talk  03:52, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.aestheticrealism.net/tro/tro1626.html
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