May 17 Event at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation

"Ethics -- the Answer to Our Troubled Economy," will take place Saturday, May 17 at 8 PM at 141 Greene Street in SoHo. It will include a lecture "How Do People Want to See People, Or, It Has to Be Aesthetics!" by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism. In it he discusses, among other things, a moving, compassionate story by James Stephens, The Wolf at the Door, about how a man feels who loses his job while he has a family to support. It's the kind of story that you never forget. This lecture affects the way you think about the people you see every day and those we read about in the news as we hear about job cuts, foreclosures, extended hours, downsizing. It can make every one of us kinder and it helps us make sense of the turmoil in America today.

In this presentation there are songs from the musical "Goodbye, Profit System," and there is an excerpt from an Aesthetic Realism lesson in which Eli Siegel asked a man, "Which is more important to you -- to be all you can be, or to beat out other people?"

There is also an important commentary that editor Ellen Reiss wrote in the journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known in which she takes up the ethical meaning underlying our economic problems today, which are afflicting so manyh people, including as to banks and mortgages.

The profit way of seeing people is really equivalent to racism, since in both cases you take the life out of a person and see them as existing simply in order to make you important. Both are contempt. Come and learn about the way of seeing that can end racism and have people of all racial and cultural backgrounds truly kinder to one another as we undergo these difficult economic times.

Eli Siegel, Aesthetic Realism, Barack Obama, Arnold Perey

I am very glad for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, and for the speech he gave recently on the subject of race in America. I think he was trying to be honest on one of the most difficult and controversial of subjects. I admire him.

What does racism come from?
See Aesthetic Realism: The Solution to Racism, the article in The Black World Today, by anthropologist and Aesthetic Realism consultant Arnold Perey. He quotes one of the greatest passages against racism I've ever read -- it's by Eli Siegel. This is it, in part:

"The reluctance to give meaning to the possible thoughts of others is one of the great victories of contempt and therefore one of the great disasters of man .... Contempt is present wherever some people know other people who are different from themselves. Contempt is in the race question, is in the nationality question, ... is in the youth and age question, is in the parents and children question."

Eli Siegel shows that the subject of racism is part of a larger, even more prevalent and very ordinary evil. Dr. Perey's article brings wide knowledge of human society and culture to Aesthetic Realism's explanation of racism. It is a must-read for anyone interested in ending racism.

New Anti-Racism Resource

NEW PUBLICATION FROM THIRD WORLD PRESS:

The People of Clarendon County -- a play by Ossie Davis

"with Photographs and Historical Documents, and Essays on the Education that can End Racism." Edited by Alice Bernstein.

• This short play by Ossie Davis is being published for the first time
• It was performed just once, in 1955, with a cast that included Ossie Davis himself, Ruby Dee, and Sidney Poitier
• Read about the courageous men and women of South Carolina whose work, along with that of others, led to the Supreme Court decision that overturned school segregation: Brown v. Board of Education
• Edited by renowned writer and Aesthetic Realism associate Alice Bernstein

I believe the publication of The People of Clarendon County is a great step forward in the fight to end racism in America.

Education, America, & Lois Mason

That is the title of the September 19, 2007 issue of the international periodical "The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known."

It is about the eminently successful teaching method which some of my postings here describe. This method -- the Aesthetic Realism teaching method -- has been tested over more than twenty-five years at all levels from K through college & adult education; in every subject from mathematics to printmaking, from reading and history to physical education, science, technology, and more. Ladies and Gentlemen, IT WORKS! It has children remember facts, pass tests, and moreover it has them kinder to each other, more considerate of people close to to them as well as those of another ethnic group and whose language and religion is different.

This issue of "The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known" includes an important article by Lois Mason.

The Aesthetic Realism Foundation website tells this about my teacher, colleague, and friend:

"Tragically, Lois Mason died this summer. She was one of America's most respected and beloved educators, and this issue of TRO is both an honoring of her and a presentation of that vibrant, practical, kind approach to education which she loved and which teachers on all levels are learning now...."

Education, America, & Lois Mason • September 19, 2007

Ellen Reiss writes on "Nature, Romanticism, and Harry Potter"

Having just seen the latest Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which I liked very much, and being on page 217 (at 3 PM, Friday, July 27, 2007!) of the seventh and last book of the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," I want to tell you about what Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, wrote about J. K. Rowling's first book.

She asked, "What does its enormous popularity say about people and what they are looking for?" And then she explained:

" First of all, the importance of this novel, its goodness, and the enthusiasm about it are explained by the following principle, the basis 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." And the chief opposites that Ms. Rowling has made inseparable are the opposites that are central to romanticism, that new way of feeling and showing the world which began in Europe at the end of the 18th century: the opposites of the strange and the ordinary."

Later she writes,
"Harry Potter is about as unmysterious, non-tingling, ordinary a name as one could think of. Sorcerer's Stone is something else. And this boy with the dull name, who is hardly striking, and wears eyeglasses held together with Scotch tape, is a wizard; in fact, a very special wizard."

Her thrilling commentary continues as she speaks about the Dursleys, Harry's herbology class, Hagrid, and Harry's beloved snowy owl, Hedwig.

To read more, go to Nature, Romanticism, & Harry Potter, an issue of the periodical, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

As to the general subject of this blog: I have learned that any time a person likes the world more honestly, the contempt which is at the root of racism is that much opposed. This happens whenever you see opposites such as the strange and the ordinary making sense in a fine work of art.

More links to the writing of Ellen Reiss:

Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism
The Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry
Jobs, Discontent, and Beauty -- on the poetry of Robert Burns and the ethical meaning of work
Some biographical and literary information
How Should a Child Be Seen? -- report by teachers and parents Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips of an Aesthetic Realism class taught by Ellen Reiss, in which she discusses "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" and shows it's related to the question of giving attention that everyone, young, old, and in-between, has.
Excerts from and links to many critics and other authorities speaking about Eli Siegel, Aesthetic Realism, poetry, ethics, aesthetics at the website Countering the Lies
Leila Rosen, Aesthetic Realism associate and teacher of English: "Aesthetic Realism taught me to ask this great question: How is aesthetics present in the ordinary moments of our lives--not only when we're at a museum or gallery, but also when we're on the subway, cooking a meal, choosing what to wear, thinking about God or love? This is what the present blog is about."
More on Aesthetic Realism and Robert Burns

Aesthetic Realism and Rock 'n' Roll!

Eli Siegel stated that in the technique of all art, including music, is the answer to our questions as individuals. Racism begins with how we see difference as such. Racism is a diminishing of the value of a person we see as different from us. It is contempt, and all art arises from respect for the world. In every good instance of rock 'n' roll, whether by the Fab Four of Liverpool or by the Drifters or the Supremes, an artist felt that he or she would be added to by notes, melody, rhythm, other people's voices and instruments, sound as such -- every one of which is different from what that person began with as just themselves.

And I'm not even talking about the multi-ethnic history of rock 'n' roll about which so much could be said.

So come and hear the explanation of why rock 'n' roll has been loved for over 50 years, together with some of the greatest hits of all time, sung by people who've studied and love the meaning of those golden oldies! (And some are from our own current century)

This will be one of those events you'll be sorry to have missed in years to come. This will be historic, showing the real lollapalooza ethics of rock. You will have one of the greatest times of your life. I know, because I'm lucky enough to be in it, and the rehearsals are alive!

Here is a link for more information about Rock 'n' Roll, the Opposites, & Our Greatest Hopes -- A Celebration! -- Sunday August 12 at 2:30 PM.

THAT WAS SOLD OUT!

SPECIAL REPEAT PERFORMANCE!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7 at 2:30 PM
The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company presents:
Rock ‘n’ Roll, The Opposites,& Our Greatest Hopes—A Celebration!
Why has rock ‘n’ roll affected people so much? Singing & commenting on songs from the ‘50s and ‘60s to the present, we illustrate these sentences from an Aesthetic Realism lesson Eli Siegel gave to a rock musician:
“Rock ‘n’ roll has the answer to people’s problem of, on the one hand, wanting to be very private and sad, and on the other, wanting to have something like sunlight and public force. Every person has to make a one of the most secret thing in him and the most public thing. Rock ‘n’ roll shows it can be done.”


Call 212 777 4490 to make reservations


See also:

--an article by artist Marcia Rackow about a beloved author and illustrator of children's books: 'Wonder and Matter-of-Fact Meet--the Imagination of Beatrix Potter.'


Web Bloggers Directory

Aesthetic Realism Dramatic Presentation of "Gwe, Young Man of New Guinea"

This matinee features a dramatic reading of passages from the moving anti-racism novel by Arnold Perey. Dr. Perey, noted anthropologist and educator, writes with power and lyricism of life in New Guinea.

About the value of Aesthetic Realism to his life and work, he writes:

"Thanks to this education, I began to understand the people of New Guinea more exactly by far than when I was living amongst them. I began to realize how alive the people were, how their flesh, like mine, contains a heart that can beat slower or faster with emotion; that I had the same feelings they did."

That's Gwe, Young Man of New Guinea, on Sunday, June 10 at 2:30 PM.
Aesthetic Realism Foundation
141 Greene Street, SoHo, New York, NY 10012.
Download the flyer here.
Call 212 777 4490 for reservations.
Do not miss this stirring event, which has the true answer to racism.

For works by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, visit the Online Library here.