“Every person is troubled by being for and against in a way that doesn’t make sense,” writes Ellen Reiss,

Aesthetic Realism is the study of how to put for and against truly together: to oppose what is unjust in a person out of respect for that person; to be terrifically against what is ugly in the world out of love for that world.  [The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #1128] 

These sentences represent good will, the thing most necessary for us to make sense of for and against in any aspect of our lives. Good will is “the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful [The Right Of # 121].” 

I.  Do Girls Have Motives?

My life began to make sense when I saw that I had motives—two principal ones: A desire to see meaning in the world, and a desire to look down on things, have contempt, feeling in this way I’d be for myself.

      When I came to New York from Ohio after college, I felt daring as I signed the lease on an apartment and got a job with a news magazine.  And the minute I met Jim Parkson, six-foot-four, funny, full of life and seemingly confident, I thought here was someone I could really go for. Our first meeting was an explosive mingling of for and against: I was lounging on the couch in my current boyfriend’s apartment, and Jim said something teasingly critical of my laziness.  I jumped up and punched him in the stomach.  Thus began a relation that was to last four years with “the man of my dreams.”

I thought the right man would give me “unconditional love”—which I would later see actually doesn’t exist, because every person is a work-in-progress and needs criticism. I didn’t know that what I really wanted was a friend who would be against the things I despised in myself, such as my indolence.

      After my initial reaction against him, I essentially acted as if I was for Jim’s every wish, making it clear he was the decision-maker, which made my life easier anyway. Years later, in an Aesthetic Realism class, Mr. Siegel accurately described my motive with Jim as: "I give myself entirely to you, so later I can manage you entirely."  When a woman yields to a man, seemingly uncritically—it is his weakness she is really for, not his strength.

      I yearned to be wider, to grow: I had thought of being a journalist and considered studying architecture, but I sat idly in the antique store Jim helped me open, waiting for when he would come.  I couldn't seem to make myself do anything worthwhile, and out of desperation I went to a psychological counselor and told her my growing fear: "I'm too dependent on a man."  She listened, but said very little, and I was as confused as ever.

      That same Spring I met a young woman who told me about Aesthetic Realism, and I began having consultations. When I told my consultants I felt I was too dependent on Jim, they asked: 

Consultants.  Is the dependence honest? Do you think Mr. Parkson feels there's some need in you that doesn't have too much to do with him? Is he suspicious?

Nancy Huntting.  Yes.

Consultants.  Is there some justification?  Do you think Mr. Parkson represents...a safe harbor for you in this world? Is the world you are in good enough for you?

NH.  No.

That day I began to learn that how I was with a man arose from how I saw reality itself.  The logic thrilled me.  I thought a man would be my ally against a world I saw as against me.  But instead of feeling secure, I felt more locked in myself and less deserving of love. My and Jim Parkson’s largest hope, I saw, was to like this world we were both in, and love has to be for that purpose. 

Can you put it another way?: "My complete self wants to like the world, and if I know a person who can help me in my desire and is interested in my desire, I certainly hope to rejoice in his existence.  But if I have to choose between liking him in an isolated way or liking the world, I should see that my whole self wants to like the world."

To know what to be for in myself and in a man and what to be against freed me. I began to read again, to care for poetry and history, to be interested, with new respect, in people—my parents, and men and women everywhere. 

2. For and Against in an American Actress

Jane Fonda has done important work as an actress in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” and "Klute,” and films she both produced and acted in, such as “The China Syndrome,” and "Coming Home.”  In her acting there's a sweetness that’s not superficial, and a strength that has warmth with it. You see her keen mind; and there's a fresh, uncovered quality, an almost raw showing of depth.

When Fonda was 31, in 1968, she came to feel that the one way to be for her country and for herself was to do everything she could against the Vietnam War.  She herself was surprised by what she felt.  She left France and an unhappy marriage, used her celebrity, most of her time and money, withstood vilification and continued to work with her second husband, Tom Hayden, to end that war. I respect how she writes about Vietnam and her trip to Hanoi in 1972 in the central section of her 2005 memoir, My Life So Far--it's valuable and needed. She has publicly apologized for allowing photographs to be taken of her on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, photos used to say she was against American GIs. But she also has said she's proud of going there to try to stop the bombing, and is asserting that pride now.

      Ms. Fonda has also suffered, and in her preface she says that at 59 she realized she was raising the curtain on her third act.  She writes:

I respect this very much. While a lot could be said about her, I deal here with the drama in her of for and against as to men, and love.