Part
2
of Aesthetic Realism Seminar:
True
Strength in a Man
with a discussion about Muhammad
Ali
As
a boxer, Muhammad Ali affected people greatly,
and I feel that Eli Siegel
explains why in his 1949 lecture, "Poetry and
Strength." Speaking
of another great fighter whom Ali admired, Joe
Louis, Mr. Siegel says:
Strength is
an aesthetic term, really .... One of the
things that made Joe Louis strong
was the fact that not only did he have a
punch, but he had a style with
that punch. It was the way he
whirled, not only the way he hit.
Ali
had style with punch. His noted
self-description, "I float like
a butterfly and sting like a bee," moved
people. He was refreshingly
new to a sport known primarily for its
grimness and brutality. He
said:
When I first
came into boxing ... fighters were not
supposed to be human and
intelligent.
Just brutes that exist to entertain and
satisfy a crowd's thirst for blood.
Ali,
as a fighter, was human and intelligent,
but, just as I described in myself
last week, he had another notion of what
would make him strong which was
based on contempt — "the lessening of what
is different from oneself as
a means of self-increase as one sees it." He
felt, at times, that he had
a right to punish his opponents in the
ring. He was criticized for
how he was brutal with both Floyd Patterson
and Ernie Terrell, extending
their fights, punishing them because he felt
that as blacks they had been
meek about the race issue and were being
used by white people. He
was right to be critical, but he made these
fighters' feelings unreal in
his mind. Ali felt bad about this and tried
to apologize to Patterson.
This showed how deeply ethics was working in
him, and comments on the importance
of the question Mr. Siegel asked me in the
earlier discussion, "Do you
think you would feel bad if you felt you had
a bad effect on anyone?"
I
have seen that boxing as a sport can appeal
to contempt in a person.
Mr. Siegel writes in Self and World, an
Explanation of Aesthetic
Realism, about the fake strength people can
go for. He says:
When a human
being rebels against anything, there is
anger in him; but he would like
very much to change the anger into
contempt. It is like a prizefighter
summoning up his combative strength to
defeat an opponent; but should he
find the opponent lying on the floor with
the referee counting over him,
the prizefighter's purpose has been
successful: he can now have the repose
of contempt. Anger has pain in it, but
contempt is inward bliss; repose;
some quietude.
This,
I feel, is why Ali, with all the glory and
success he had, was not at peace
with himself about fighting. He said
at one point: "True, fighting
was all that I had ever done, but there was
something in me that rebelled
against it." He was troubled that he didn't
have friendships with opponents,
especially with Joe Frazier. He hoped
that together they could use
their popularity to work for justice to
black people, but he said their
rivalry prevented this. He once
said:
I always try
to build up immunity to my opponent's
personality, at least until I defeat
him. I create a special personality for
him and invent, if I have to, motives
for my attacks.
Ali
would give his opponents nicknames, say they
represented evil, but the
best thing in him — and I admire it very
much — objected. Prior to
his first fight with Jerry Quarry, he met
Quarry's young son and tells
movingly of his thoughts:
Can I pretend
hatred for a father whose little boy takes
my hand in his, holds the fist
that may smash his father's face or limit
his father's future or ruin his
reputation? ... Then, I dream of Quarry
and his son that night, and I wake
up in a sweat.
The
press hurt Ali's life. They were vicious and
cruel, tried to make fun of
him, and said his religious feeling was
fake, which was untrue. Later,
seeing his power, they praised him for his
victories, his jokes, but not
for his true feeling for people, his desire
to be self-critical.
As
a member of the sports press in the late
60's, I regret being a part of
news conferences in which press people were
thirsty for what we could get
from Ali — a funny or demeaning quote about
an opponent. We wanted to be
superior to him and tried to mock his
thoughtfulness, his feeling about
justice. And Ali — for all his charm,
his humor and seeming braggadocio
— was weakened by the press; he did not know
how to protect himself from
them as he did in the ring.
True
Strength
Is the Same as Justice
In
1960, at the age of
18, Ali — still known as Cassius Clay — won
the Heavyweight title for the
U.S. at the Olympics in Rome. But
returning to Louisville, he was
refused service in a restaurant because he
was black. Disillusioned, he
threw his Olympic medal in a river. He
didn't know why he did it, saying
about the medal: "I worshipped it .... It
was proof of performance, status
... a symbol of being part of a team, a
country and a world." But he said,
"I wanted something that meant a lot more
than that."
 Turning
professional and calling himself "the
greatest" and exciting fans by predicting
in what round his opponents would lose, Ali
moved to a title shot against
champion Sonny Liston in 1964. But shortly
before the fight, he was introduced
to the Islamic religion. In
Definitions and Comment: Being a Description
of the World, Eli Siegel defines religion as
"the attitude one has towards
what one sees as the biggest or most
powerful thing in the world." While
I am not commenting on the Islamic faith,
from what I have read, Islam
is for the submitting of oneself with
humility to the power of God.
Ali, I feel, wanted to care for something
large and good outside of himself.
And I also think he may have been afraid of
what winning the championship
might do to his ego — how it might weaken
him — and he wanted opposition
to it.
But
when it became known by the promoters of the
fight with Liston that Clay
had converted to Islam, they threatened to
cancel the fight if he did not
renounce his religion. There was intense
pressure. Even some of his
closest associates advised him to give in.
But he refused, saying with
strength and conviction that his care for
the teachings of Islam was more
important than the title. The promoters, who
had heavily invested in the
fight, were furious, but finally had to back
off. The fight went on, and
he won the heavyweight title in one of the
biggest upsets in boxing history.
For
Part 3, conclusion, click here
©
2014 Michael Palmer
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