The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known

Current Issues of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known
To subscribe click here

Husbands, Wives, & the World
April 30, 2008
Issue no. 1717

In this issue we publish two short poems by Eli Siegel. And with them is an article by award-winning filmmaker and Aesthetic Realism consultant Ken Kimmelman, from a paper he presented last month at an Aesthetic Realism public seminar, “What Does It Mean to Be a Good Husband?”...

     I'm glad to comment a little on something Mr. Kimmelman speaks of, something Aesthetic Realism is the philosophy to explain: Every person has an attitude to the world itself, and we will see a man or woman we hope to care for no better than we see the outside world. Further, there is a fight that goes on within everyone, and our ability to love depends on how that fight in us fares. It is between the desire to respect the world and the desire to have contempt for it. Click here for more

To Own or to Know: The Biggest Fight We Have
April 16, 2008
Issue no. 1716

Here are two poems by Eli Siegel; and with them—“A Good Husband: What Does That Mean?” by Aesthetic Realism consultant Jeffrey Carduner, from a public seminar of last month.

     In order to understand the tumult, hopes, disappointments in love and marriage—in order for love fully to succeed—we need to understand what Aesthetic Realism shows to be the biggest fight we have: between the desire to know and the desire to own. That is another way of putting what Mr. Siegel described as “the greatest fight man is concerned with,...the fight between respect for reality and contempt for reality” (TRO 151) Click here for more

Love, Politics, & What Drives a Person
April 2, 2008
Issue no. 1715

We're honored to publish here two poems by Eli Siegel. And with them is an article by Ernest DeFilippis: “What Does It Mean to Be a Good Husband?” ...

     The fact that men and women are confused about sex and can be foolish about it, is something everyone is aware of. But the trouble made front-page news recently, through the revelation that the now-former governor of New York was (in the words of the New York Times) “linked to a sex ring as a client.” I'm going to comment a little on the turmoil of Eliot Spitzer, as a means of commenting on the fact that Aesthetic Realism explains the human self, the self that is our own. Click here for more

The Need to Know a Person
March 19, 2008
Issue no. 1714

With this issue we conclude our serialization of the 1952 lecture Some Women Looked At, by Eli Siegel. In it, discussing literary and historical passages about women, he shows that every woman stands for the world itself. Every person does, and not in some mystical, high-flown way—because the opposites that make up reality are in everyone. Women throughout the years and now have been mixed up, sometimes tormented, by such opposites in us as yielding and assertion, depth and surface, gentleness and strength. This great lecture is an illustration of the central principle of Aesthetic Realism: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

     We also print part of a paper that Aesthetic Realism consultant Carol Driscoll presented at a recent public seminar. The subject was “Mistakes Women Make in Love—What Are They, & Is There an Answer?” Click here for more

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known online
	Current Issues: The most recent issues in which Aesthetic Realism explains the news, happenings in people's lives, events in history, and some of the most moving works in literature.	National Ethics: What honest criteria can we use to be good critics of ethics on the national and international levels? Aesthetic Realism looks at ethics as to loyalty, international affairs, & more.
	Literature / Poetry: Discussing many great works of poetry and prose. Criticism, wrote Eli Siegel compactly, is showing "a good thing as good, a bad thing as bad, and a middling thing as middling."	Love:  How Aesthetic Realism describes the purpose of love—"to like the world honestly through another person." Discussion of what interferes with having real love—today and in history.
	Racism—the Cause & Solution: The Aesthetic Realism understanding of contempt as the cause of racism, and the place of aesthetics in respecting, pleasurably, people different from oneself.	The Economy: Why our economic system has failed to meet the needs of the American people, and the Aesthetic Realism understanding of good will as the basis for successful and fair economics
	Education: The success of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method in having students learn to read and write—learn science, social studies, art, every subject—and be kinder, less angry, less prejudiced.	Eli Siegel Day in Baltimore: Talks given on August 16, 2002, Eli Siegel's Centenary, placing Mr. Siegel and Aesthetic Realism, his work, in terms of world culture and history.
	Art: "Aesthetic Realism sees the purpose of art as, from the beginning, the liking of the world more..."	Archives: The rich education provided by Aesthetic Realism in issues of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known which are online.

Aesthetic Realism Foundation online

Selected Resources online

The most comprehensive source of information about Aesthetic Realism is the website of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation—and the sites connected to it, including this one. You can start, for instance, at the Foundation's home page. Then, go on to biographical information about Eli Siegel, who founded Aesthetic Realism in 1941. You will see how the education he began teaching in those years continues now in Aesthetic Realism consultations and in public dramatic presentations and seminars at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation—as well as in the Foundation's Outreach Programs for seniors, young people, libraries, teachers. Meanwhile in the schools of New York, the dramatically effective Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method has enabled students to learn, to love learning, and to pass standardized examinations for three decades. And artists since 1955 have exhibited at the Terrain Gallery for which many have written commentaries (including on their own works), based on the philosophic principles of Aesthetic Realism. You can read about Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism online, as well as about every person on the faculty of the Foundation. And In the Aesthetic Realism Online Library, you'll find the largest single repositary of reviews, articles in the press, lectures, poetry; and The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. In 2002, Eli Siegel' s centenary, the Governor of Maryland and the Mayor of Baltimore, the city where he grew up, wrote on the meaning to America of Aesthetic Realism and its founder. So did the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, in the U.S. Congressional Record. • Subscribe to TRO • Contact Us

People in America's diverse professions—the humanities, the arts, education, the social sciences, medicine, labor—have written on the value of Aesthetic Realism. They describe the way Aesthetic Realism teaches people how to understand themselves more accurately; how the ability to be just to other people is enhanced; how one's professional attainments are augmented. Language arts teacher Leila Rosen, for example, writes on the Aesthetic Realism teaching method. Anthropologist Arnold Perey writes on the way Aesthetic Realism opposes prejudice and improves international understanding. And there are many others. Historically, new knowledge has often been met unjustly. This was true about the new, innovative thought of Louis Pasteur and John Keats, Beethoven and William Lloyd Garrison, Jonas Salk and Isaac Newton. And it has been true about Aesthetic Realism. Documenting and opposing this, the website "Friends of Aesthetic Realism — Countering the Lies," written by more than 60 individuals, refutes the falsehoods of the few persons who have attacked Aesthetic Realism and lets the facts speak for themselves. People who want to express their opinion of Aesthetic Realism, and have the knowledge to back it up, have created blogs and websites and have written numerous articles. See, for example, composer and educator Edward Green; essayist Lynette Abel; photographer Len Bernstein; teachers Anne Richards, Christopher Balchin, and Alan Shapiro. Others are listed in "What People Are Saying.". The education of Aesthetic Realism enables a person to understand oneself more exactly than has been possible before, and to like the world honestly, authentically.