Quotes about Levels

Association with one's fellows is essential to the renewal of the zest for life and is indispensable to the maintenance of the courage to fight those battles consequent upon the ascent to the higher levels of human living

For viewers, the notion of levels and lines can help explain that sometimes jarring experience of encountering a fabulous artist who is also a miserable human being: How could Leni Riefenstahl revolutionize cinema yet glamorize the Nazis? Understanding levels and lines can help a viewer “free” an artist by limiting them. In other words, you become a better critic when you can acknowledge any failures an artist might have as a human being without trashing their achievements as an artist.

I am not saying in this conception of adult behavior that one style of being, one form of human existence is inevitably and in all circumstances superior to or better than another form of human existence, another style of being. What I am saying is that when one form of being is more congruent with the realities of existence, then it is the better form of living for those realities. And what I am saying is that when one form of existence ceases to be functional for the realities of existence then some other form, either higher or lower in the hierarchy, is the better form of living. I do suggest, however, and this I deeply believe is so, that for the overall welfare of total man's existence in this world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of any society's governing figures should be to promote human movement up the levels of human existence.