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Aesthetic Realism & Our Lives

Ann Richards & Christopher Balchin

 

 

Clarkson Integrator

 

Letters to the Editor

 
To the Editor,

I was affected to read Paul Mazzilli's words against racism and revenge, and I agree wholeheartedly. ("My Thoughts") I graduated from SUNY Binghamton and now live in New York. When the wind blows north, the smoke from downtown Manhattan still chokes the air. A block from my home Union Square Park has become a massive vigil for the victims of the World Trade Center. Hourly, people of all nationalities and ages are gathering. There is mourning, shock, and a fervent hope for peace. This horrific crime has occurred and thousands of innocent people have died. Instead of asking why, our government prepares for war, assisted intently by the media. We need to STOP them!

The knowledge we most need is what American historian Eli Siegel, who founded the education Aesthetic Realism explained about contempt, the "lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it." Ellen Reiss, class chairman of Aesthetic Realism writes, "Contempt can be a child's seeing a puppy as something not to understand but to manage. Contempt is ordinary. But it is, Mr. Siegel wrote, 'the vile, unfeeling presence in the nature of man'.Contempt is what impelled the persons who arranged for human beings to be killed and buried under 110 stories of rubble near the Hudson on a beautiful September morning."

Those who assisted in this crime must be brought to justice, but America must not be led down the road to revenge. We are greater than that. Sending out troops and bombers and issuing ultimatums from on high is reacting to contempt with contempt of our own which can only lead to, as Ellen Reiss says, an "endless cycle of contempt." . Instead, we have to ask and honestly try to see why people around the world object to our government's policies. In a lecture on discontent in 1952 Eli Siegel said, "I think the American people.in an effort to save themselves in the most literal way, will say, 'Unless we can have contented, not sour people, we- that is, ourselves and our families- will be in danger.'" It is a plain fact that for decades successive US governments and corporations have used the peoples and land of this world without respect, imposing economic misery on millions, bullying and bombing when we didn't get our way.

We need to be critics of our own contempt, personal and international. We need to see that our dear American way of life is not isolated from or superior to others' - an elderly woman in Baghdad, or a little Palestinian girl. We need to see what other people in this world are hoping for. That is the only thing that can make America safe and strong, and it can do what no amount of military might ever could. Ellen Reiss writes, "There is (a) kind of seeing which must be now.It begins with our trying to think about people this way: Here is a person. He or she is as real as I am. What does this person feel? What, as Mr. Siegel put it, does he or she 'deserve by being a person'?" To read the full text of Ellen Reiss' commentary, go to www.AestheticRealism.org

Ann Richards

New York

 

Here are further links about how Aesthetic Realism sees the arts & sciences, urgent cultural and economic matters, ethics, and the life questions of every person:

Anthropologist and author Dr. Arnold Perey tells of his field research in New Guinea and the classes he teaches today--and much more--at Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology

For teachers, parents, and others, here are links that will tell you more about the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method:

What makes a photograph beautiful? How can a photographer improve his or her work? What does the art of photography have to do with justice to people? Find out at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel

Some of Eli Siegel's books, essays, lectures, and poems can be read at The Aesthetic Realism Online Library  Also, see what critics have said about Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel. 

Aesthetic Realism Associate Lynette Abel tells here about classes she attended taught by Eli Siegel, reports on classes conducted by Ellen Reiss, and reprints some of the newspaper articles she has written: Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life

What interferes with our expression? Find out at Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression the website of Miriam Mondlin

Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of our favourite poets). She shows how relevant what Burns was writing about 200 years ago is to what is going on today. His poetry has the terrifically just way of seeing people that is needed by government leaders and every one of us.

Aesthetic Realism explains that in order to really respect any person, whether someone of another culture or your own husband or wife, is to see that person as representing nothing less than the world itself. How can we see a person that way? Look at Eli Siegel's Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites? Ask yourself, does this person have opposites? Do they have every one of these fifteen pairs? (And more besides?) Is he/she trying to make sense of how they have these opposites?

Injustice can certainly be based on race, but it can also be based simply on seeing another person's way of meeting the world as different from one's own, and therefore less valuable. And about this, a person can be monumentally wrong. A classic instance of this in literary history is taken up by Ellen Reiss in relation to the great poet John Keats. And she shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.

One of our favourite links is to syndicated columnist Alice Bernstein. Her writing against racism has Aesthetic Realism as its basis.

To see what Aesthetic Realism is--and what it is not--see the website devoted to accuracy, honesty, justice--the plain truth!: Countering the Lies.

 

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