Aesthetic Realism Can End Racism

Aesthetic Realism Seminar Today, April 1 2010

2010-04-01T09:57:00.003-04:00

Come and learn about "Everyone's Big, Dramatic Question: How Much Should People Mean to Us?"

TODAY at 6:30 pm, 141 Greene Street, NYC, 212 777 4490

"There's no question more important for an individual or a nation to answer. With clarity, depth, and humor, Aesthetic Realism Consultant Marcia Rackow and Associates Ann Richards and Steven Weiner will answer it—using examples from art, history, literature, Aesthetic Realism consultations, & their own lives."

The speakers will discuss the way of seeing that is needed in order for there to be good feeling and peace between people under the same roof, and all over the world.

Thomas Comma

2010-03-31T13:18:00.002-04:00

This new, animated film by Emmy-award winner Ken Kimmelman is about a lonely comma who doesn't belong anywhere. His adventures, his odyssey, as he tries to fit in, tries to find a place in this world, is told of lovingly, movingly, charmingly by narrator Anne Fielding, and "Thomas" himself, Timothy Lynch. Writer and critic Martha Baird was inspired to compose the short story which the film brings to the big screen by these words by Eli Siegel, the poet, critic, and founder of Aesthetic Realism: "As lonely as a comma without a sentence."

As my friend and colleague in the study of Aesthetic Realism, Sally Ross, said, Thomas Comma is of every race, every background. His question is our question. We are all Thomas Comma, looking for the right sentence!

This film is a must for educators, children, and grown-ups too.

See the lovely, mischievous stills from the film!

Aesthetic Realism podcast

2009-11-21T15:49:00.005-05:00

I've just seen the new Aesthetic Realism podcast, "Toughness and a Feeling Heart-- Can a Man Have Both?" The answer, consultant and actor Bennett Cooperman shows, is yes. It was a moving experience to witness this podcast. If people felt what is shown here -- that being moved by the world is also a tough thing, not weak -- would they be unjust to someone because their skin colour or their features are not just like their own? I don't think so. I used to pride myself on being able to remain unaffected. I thought feeling was a weakness. At the same time I longed to have sweeping emotions and cursed myself for being cold. This podcast has the answer men, and women too, are yearning for.
And if, like me, you're a Jack London fan, you're in for a real treat!

"The People of Clarendon County"

2009-11-21T15:45:00.004-05:00

Check out this great event last month in Washington DC at the Capitol Visitors' Center:
"The People of Clarendon County”—A Play by Ossie Davis, & the Answer to Racism!"

The Great Fight of EGO vs. TRUTH

2009-08-18T16:18:00.006-04:00

This coming Sunday, August 23 at 2:30 PM, at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City there will be a matinee of songs -- Gilbert and Sullivan, doo-wop, spirituals, Broadway show tunes, and more -- that will move us and teach us about the most important fight going on now in America and under our own skins -- between ego, lying about the world to please ourselves, and truth.

Every person, of every ethnic or national background, religion, sex, has this battle, and it's raging in America, with lies about the British and Canadian health care systems and President Obama's proposals all over the media. The comments to the songs in this matinee explain what is going on.

The fight between ego and truth is constant, both nationally and personally, including in love. One of the songs in this matinee is about just that subject, as a young woman tells us defiantly and complacently, "Don't Say Nothin' Bad about My Baby!" Then there are songs that are about real love; about how, through caring more for one person, the whole world can look good to us. How the battle of ego vs. truth goes in us will determine how love fares in our lives.

I've learned that every beautiful song puts together opposites -- heaviness and lightness, for and against, pleasure and pain -- in a way that we need to in our daily lives, at work, with friends, with our family, in our thoughts to ourselves. In every good song a composer was doing justice to the aesthetic structure of the world -- the oneness of opposites. "The world, art, and self explain each other:" Eli Siegel stated, "each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." Learning and studying this has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Music can really help us be the people we want to be; proud, at ease, happy!

Here is the announcement:
The Great Fight of EGO vs. TRUTH!

"They Look at Us," by Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism

2009-08-11T16:31:00.004-04:00

Here is a poem about two of the men I respect most:

They Look at Us

Martin Luther King
Is with John Brown.
Look up: you'll see them both
Looking down--
Deep and so wide
At us.

You can read Eli Siegel's note to his poem at the Aesthetic Realism Online Library.

"The People of Clarendon County"

2009-07-21T10:16:00.006-04:00

Journalist and Aesthetic Realism associate Alice Bernstein has done a wonderful thing in resurrecting the dramatic and moving Ossie Davis play about the 1954 landmark Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court decision. The People of Clarendon County I first learned of R ev. Joseph DeLaine and those brave men and women of Clarendon County, South Carolina, when I was teaching government classes in New York City. We were studying the Brown case and I was interested in the fact that the Supreme Court decision was about five separate cases that had been filed under an umbrella suit. This play is about the people whose heroic actions really started that case. It was written by Ossie Davis. And as the book flier says: "It was performed just once, in 1955, for an enthusiastic audience of union brothers and sisters at Local 1199’s Bread and Roses Cultural Project in New York City. The young actors were Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Sidney Poitier.
"In her Introduction, journalist and Aesthetic Realism Associate Alice Bernstein tells of conversations with Ossie Davis in 2004 which led to her discovery of “The People of Clarendon County” and her idea for this book. With Mr. Davis’s encouragement, she gathered documents and photographs by and about these unsung heroes, which make history come alive, and essays by authorities on the education that can end racism: Aesthetic Realism, founded by philosopher and poet, Eli Siegel."
I've seen as a teacher and as a person that Aesthetic Realism really can change the prejudice, the conceit and ignorance of racism, into a true appreciation of the value of people different from oneself.

Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method

2008-09-20T12:01:00.003-04:00

This week's issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is about education. The understanding of children and of the subject of education here is new, kind, very hopeful, and true. It is completely anti-prejudice.
In it, editor Ellen Reiss writes:
"Aesthetic Realism explains that the purpose of education is “to like the world through knowing it.” And the fundamental interference with learning, the thing that has a child not want to learn, or be unable to, is a dislike of the world which has gone deep in that child. Eli Siegel has described the world as all “that begins where our finger tips end.”

I see this as true about every child I've ever taught; and as true about myself of once. As a child I had difficulty with chemistry, advanced mathematics; and I even had trouble remembering facts about history on a test I had "aced" just the previous day. My accuity did not go deep because with all my brightness and high scores on tests, I had a dislike of the world as such.

There is so much more in this journal. It is light years ahead of anything I learned in teachers' college. It should be the basis of every class for teachers. For instance, Ms. Reiss writes:
"Take a boy of 8, whom we can call Marcus. In his short life he has come to feel that what's-not-himself will likely hurt him, is something he should be suspicious of and hide from or try to fool. Then Marcus is in a classroom, and every subject presented to him is an aspect of that outside world. Arithmetic is that world taking the form of numbers. History, plainly, is about the world—the world as past. Letters and books were created by strangers—they're ambassadors of that wide external reality.
"Though Marcus hasn't made the decision consciously, he has made it deep within: he doesn't want the representatives of a disliked, distrusted universe to get inside him, lodge within his mind. Therefore he has a “learning difficulty.”

One more quotation from the commentary:
". . . persons who speak about improving education in America but aren't interested in having every child own justly the wealth of America, are hypocrites."

As a teacher for over twenty-five years -- of which most of that has been teaching in the inner-city, I saw "Thank you, Ellen Reiss. This is the education America needs."

Rock 'n' Roll, in its technique, opposes racism

2008-08-25T10:23:00.004-04:00

I've just had the honour to take part in the greatest tribute to Rock 'n' Roll that I know of. It is "Rock 'n' Roll, the Opposites, & Our Greatest Hopes -- A Celebration!"

With songs from 1954 up to this very millennium, we present what Aesthetic Realism explains; that all art is for justice, for life, and against cruelty.

Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism, gave a lesson in the 1960's to a rock musician, and in it he explained the meaning and purpose of rock 'n' roll. A person's private, often painful, thoughts are made public, made into a rip-roaring celebration of organised (and often wild!) sound. A purpose of rock 'n' roll, he said, is to shatter what he called "The Ordinary Doom" -- the feeling in every person that what we feel to ourselves will never be known.

This presentation shows that rock 'n' roll by its very nature is ethical. Singers and instruments join with each other, add to each other's meaning -- they don't diminish each other, even when they conflict; the purpose is to bring out meaning, to show this is a world with a structure that makes sense. This is so different from what happens in racism, where one person builds himself/herself up falsely by making less of another.

Do not miss our next performance: Sunday, September 28, at 2:30 pm. Call ahead for reservations to be sure of a seat: 212 777 4490.

For more on how Aesthetic Realism sees the great subject of Rock 'n' Roll, see:
Ellen Reiss on the meaning of music, including the Rolling Stones
Kevin Fennell on the life and art of Elvis Presley
My article on The Beatles' "She Loves You"
The Opposites in Music class taught by Barbara Allen, Anne Fielding, and Edward Green

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known

2008-07-29T17:52:00.003-04:00

The current issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, which is titled "People, Literature, & Evolution" includes another section of Eli Siegel's magnificent lecture, "Poetry Is of Man." There is also a very funny, very ethical essay by Carol McCluer, actress and writer.

Every section of this journal opposes racism. For instance, the opening commentary by the editor, Ellen Reiss, takes three famous characters from literature and shows how each is described as aesthetic; that, I have learned, is what every good novelist does.

"The one effective opponent to the having of contempt for people," Ms. Reiss explains, "is aesthetics. It is to see that reality's opposites—such as rest and motion, high and low, mystery and everydayness, hope and fear, wildness and containment, complexity and simplicity, history and the moment—are richly, vibrantly, inevitably in every person we may meet or hear of, from our uncle, to a stranger on the street, to a person with a different skin tone a continent away."

Isn't that fine?

Eli Siegel, Ellen Reiss, and "Poetry Is of Man"

2008-07-17T10:59:00.003-04:00

There is a recent issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known titled titled "Humanity: One and Many." It begins the serialization of Eli Siegel's landmark lecture Poetry Is of Man. This lecture is a gold mine for history teachers such as myself. Eli Siegel shows the poetry, the aesthetics, of the development of man. This lecture, together with the companion editorial writing by Ellen Reiss, is one of the most anti-racism texts I know. It is a true, scientific, joyous celebration of the existence of people in all our diversity and deep unity.

Justice, Beauty, & Our Lives

2008-06-27T08:46:00.016-04:00

"All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." -- Eli Siegel

I have studied this principle of Aesthetic Realism for more than twenty-five years. I've learned how it's true about a song by Billy Joel; about Shakespeare's immortal play Hamlet; about the hills, trees, and hedgerows of Kent, in England, where I was born; about the monuments of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn where I live now -- and about me. (See "Aesthetic Realism Is True")

This principle explains not only what beauty is and why it stirs us, but also the greatest opposition to racism. Justice is indivisible, according to Aesthetic Realism. It's not only a social goal or campaign, but it begins in the thoughts of every person, with how we see the world not us, including people.

How can you learn more? Find out at the following events:

Aesthetic Realism seminars for July and August

-- On JULY 10
INTENSITY & EASE IN A WOMAN: HOW CAN THESE OPPOSITES BE ONE?
Speakers: Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, Ann Richards, Devorah Tarrow

-- On AUGUST 7
COMFORT, JUSTICE, OBLIGATIONS—CAN A MAN MAKE SENSE OF THESE?
Speakers: Avi Gvili, Matthew D'Amico, Bruce Blaustein

Saturday night presentations

-- On JULY 19
What Does It Mean to Be True to Oneself?
On Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon, the Beatles' She Loves You, an Aesthetic Realism lesson given by Eli Siegel to an actor -- and more!

-- On AUGUST 16
The Thrilling Relation of Art & Life!
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a lesson about what love is, Lewis Carroll's The Walrus and the Carpenter -- and much, much more!

AND - - -

Special Event on Rock and Roll!

May 17 Event at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation

2008-05-08T22:57:00.004-04:00

"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

2008-03-30T10:43:00.004-04:00

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

2007-11-18T12:46:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-07T08:04:00.000-04:00

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"

2007-07-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-07-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

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"

2007-06-04T19:43:00.000-04:00

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.

Aesthetic Realism Special Event

2007-04-10T07:32:00.000-04:00

See an inspiring dramatization of Eli Siegel's lecture on Southey's "Wat Tyler." Set during the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381, this matinee brings to life individual people of that time. It shows movingly that their hopes and dreams, their struggles, and the ethics they fought for are related intimately and profoundly to us, living hundreds of years later. It gives evidence for what Aesthetic Realism explains: that ethics is the biggest force in history and our lives.

Here is the link to Ethics Is a Living Thing!, on Sunday, May 6th at 2:30 PM

http://www.aestheticrealism.org/WatTyler-Repeat-5-07.pdf

Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, writes against racism

2006-07-14T13:48:00.000-04:00

Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. To be an Aesthetic Realism consultant requires the highest ethical standards. The consultants who taught me in consultations gave many examples of what they had learned and questions they had been asked by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism. For instance, they asked: "Do you grant to other people the depths you give yourself?" "Are your students good enough for you to really think about? Wouldn't you rather be working on your novel?" (I had told them I was interested in writing) and "Don't you think other people have a lot of nerve not being you?!" These questions and hundreds of others, while not specifically about how I saw people of other racial backgrounds, set the groundwork for seeing everyone I met more fairly. As I changed, including by seeing where I had been unfair, I became more passionate about fighting injustice everywhere, including racial prejudice.

When I studied in consultations I learned how to see my friends, family, situations at work and at home with more justice--and I learned how to see myself with more perspective and more critically. Ellen Reiss puts into practice the ethics asked for by Aesthetic Realism in every class I have ever attended.

This includes her understanding, through the principles of Aesthetic Realism, the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein.

Also, in Racism Can End Ellen Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own.

What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?

Some of my favourite links are the following:
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?

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

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.

Read Ms. Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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.

See the amazing essay of art criticism, Simplicity and Complexity: Roy Lichtenstein's “Stepping Out” (scroll down). Also read articles about the opposites of Comfort and Justice, Coldness and Warmth, in a man's life, at union offical and Aesthetic Realism associate Steve Weiner's webblog--plus the essay "The Pleasure and Perils of Conceit."

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.

See a film of Eli Siegel conducting a class--and there is more!

2006-07-13T14:31:00.000-04:00

SPECIAL REPEAT PERFORMANCE!

Wed., September 20, 7:30 pm

Call 212 777 4490 to make reservations

On August 13 and August 23 in New York City there will be an event of the utmost beauty and urgency: Film--and "The Art of Enjoying Justice!" by Emmy-Award winning filmmaker Ken Kimmelman. Altogether, five of Mr. Kimmelman's films will be shown, including Brushstrokes and Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana. Download the flyer or go to the Aesthetic Realism Foundation website for more information.
Also, see a biography of Eli Siegel, poet, critic, philosopher, and founder of Aesthetic Realism. And see the faculty biography of Ellen Reiss, who is the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, and whom I have the great pleasure and honour of studying with in the classes she teaches for Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates.

Some of my favourite links are the following:

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.

Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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?

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.

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

Beauty, Seen Clearly, Has The Answer To Racism

2005-12-28T10:48:00.000-05:00

Come hear famous songs, ballads, Broadway hits, and more on Sunday, February 12 at 2:30pm. This is a gala cultural and ethical event! The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company is presenting a repeat performance by popular demand of THE GREAT FIGHT OF EGO vs. TRUTH - Songs about Love, Justice, & Everybody's Feelings!

*UPDATE: BECAUSE OF LAST WEEKEND'S BLIZZARD THIS MATINEE WILL TAKE PLACE ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19 AT 2:30 PM*

We (I'm proud to be one of the singers taking part) will show how every good song has in its technique the ethics that every person and every nation needs --the oneness of opposites such as freedom and justice, sameness and difference, pride and humility. And this is literally the answer to every injustice of man, from racism to homelessness. See for yourself: 2:30 pm, Sunday February 12, 141 Greene Street in SoHo, New York. I recommend that you call for reservations ahead of time -- 212 777 4490.

To read the flyer, click on the link above.

More about Aesthetic Realism:

Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. I have seen and marveled at her unfailing desire to understand every person and every situation. FOr instance, look at the class in which she discussed a newspaper article about what is known as ADHD

(Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She said, "The question is whether this trouble of a child—trouble keeping his attention on a thing, which may be joined by a desire to race around—comes from a way of seeing the whole world. Is there a fight about the world in this child? Whether you're seventy-nine or a boy of four, you have an attitude to the whole world." There was such respect for the mind of a child, as Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips describe in their account of the class. Read more here.

Ellen Reiss has also been commenting on, through the principles of Aesthetic Realism, the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein. Also, in Racism Can End Ellen Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own. What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?

Some of my favourite links are the following: Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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 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. She also shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.

One of my favourite links is to columnist and civil rights advocate 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.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library has poems, lectures, reviews, essays, and selections from other major works by Eli Siegel. There are also articles in the press and media about the founder of Aesthetic Realism.
Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology is the website of celebrated cultural anthropologist and novelist Arnold Perey, PhD.
At Aesthetic Realism Resources there are articles on many subjects that concern people today such as love, self-expression, current events, economics, the arts, racism and much, much more.
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is the international periodical read by everyone who wants to understand what is going on in America today. Edited by Ellen Reiss, The Right Of serialises lectures by Eli Siegel and shows how they comment on current events such as the unprecedented growth of personal debt as well as our own questions and hopes as individuals.
See photographs with moving commentary and technical insight at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel
Important writings on economics, history, the questions of women, art, literature and more can be seen at Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life
The website of Aesthetic Realism Consultant Miriam Mondlin is here: Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression
For teachers especially, we suggest you get to know the work of noted educators Rosemary Plumstead and Donita Ellison. They are two of the finest teachers we've ever known.
To find out what is true about the kind, intellectually-rigorous philosophy that is Aesthetic Realism go to this website which sets the record straight and has, for the public record, the assessment of dozens of noted critics, poets, cultural icons, social scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, teachers, and more, and more: Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies
Find our more about Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

Click here to see other important links

See the website of myself and Ann Richards: Aesthetic Realism & Our Lives

2005-11-12T11:05:00.000-05:00

Here is a letter I wrote which was published yesterday -- Veterans Day -- in the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, New York:

Combating racism

"I applaud the community of Kingston for resisting attempts to stir up racism there ("Fanning the flames," Oct. 29). As a high school teacher myself, I want parents, teachers, superintendents, community leaders and anyone involved with young people to know that the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method combats racism, encouraging students to respect each other as well as people they've never met, and this happens as they learn the facts about science, English, mathematics and social studies. Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism, explained that racism doesn't begin with how we see another person; it begins with how we see the world itself. A young person (or an older person) who sees the world as an enemy is not likely to be kindly disposed to a person who looks different and represents that world. That is why it is crucial for teachers to do all we can to present the world, through each subject, as truly likable, showing them that there is indeed sense, order, beauty, in reality."

Christopher Balchin
Co-author, "Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism"
Yankee Lake

More about Aesthetic Realism:
Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. I have seen and marveled at her unfailing desire to understand every person and every situation. For instance, look at the class in which she discussed a newspaper article about what is known as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She said, "The question is whether this trouble of a child—trouble keeping his attention on a thing, which may be joined by a desire to race around—comes from a way of seeing the whole world. Is there a fight about the world in this child? Whether you're seventy-nine or a boy of four, you have an attitude to the whole world." There was such respect for the mind of a child, as Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips describe in their account of the class. Read more here.

Ellen Reiss has also been commenting, using the principles of Aesthetic Realism, on the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein. Also, in Racism Can End Ellen Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own. What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?

Some of my favourite links are the following:
Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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 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. She also shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.

One of my favourite links is to columnist and civil rights advocate Alice Bernstein. (See her article above) 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.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library has poems, lectures, reviews, essays, and selections from other major works by Eli Siegel. There are also articles in the press and media about the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology is the website of celebrated cultural anthropologist and novelist Arnold Perey, PhD.

At Aesthetic Realism Resources there are articles on many subjects that concern people today such as love, self-expression, current events, economics, the arts, racism and much, much more.

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is the international periodical read by everyone who wants to understand what is going on in America today. Edited by Ellen Reiss, The Right Of serialises lectures by Eli Siegel and shows how they comment on current events such as the unprecedented growth of personal debt as well as our own questions and hopes as individuals.

See photographs with moving commentary and technical insight at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel

Important writings on economics, history, the questions of women, art, literature and more can be seen at Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life.

The website of Aesthetic Realism Consultant Miriam Mondlin is here: Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-ExpressionFor teachers especially, we suggest you get to know the work of noted educators Rosemary Plumstead and Donita Ellison. They are two of the finest teachers we've ever known.

To find out what is true about the kind, intellectually-rigorous philosophy that is Aesthetic Realism go to this website which sets the record straight and has, for the public record, the assessment of dozens of noted critics, poets, cultural icons, social scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, teachers, and more, and more: Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies

Find out more about Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

Click here to see other important links

See the website of myself and Ann Richards: Aesthetic Realism & Our Lives

An Invitation to have the time of your life

2005-09-22T21:38:00.000-04:00

This musical event will be a thrilling, educational time that will include criticism--through comments and song-- of the contempt that is at the root of both the racism and economic injustice that is hurting life all over the world:

The Great Fight of Ego vs. Truth-- Songs About Love, Justice, & Everybody's Feelings!
Don't miss it!

Learning to Respect

2005-09-22T21:13:00.000-04:00

This letter has just been published in the UK.

Learning to Respect

The brutal, horrific bombings in London caused the killing and injuring of so many innocent people.

Now there is increased fear in people all over England, and even in New York City, where I now live and work
I know I have felt it. Adding to the pain of this awful situation is the increase in prejudice towards and even attacks against people who look Middle Eastern or South-East Asian.
As Britain is in turmoil, and police and government leaders question what security measure to take and community leaders discuss how to bring together those of different backgrounds, it is crucial to know what the real enemy is. Yes, clearly it is people who would perpetrate such heinous acts, as those of July 7, and those who incite and fund them. But a question is, what could drive someone to do such a thing?
The philosopher Eli Siegel, founder of the education Aesthetic Realism, got to grips with evil where it begins in the thoughts of every person when he wrote: "As soon as you have contempt, as soon as you don't want to see another person as having the fullness that you have, you can rob that person, hurt that person, kill that person." (www.aestheticrealism.org)
My contempt had me look down on people whose skin colour was different from mine. I regret this very much, and I am thankful that through studying Aesthetic Realism I'm seeing what true kindness is and where I didn't have it.
Every person, I have learned, is in a constant debate about whether to have respect for the world or contempt, the building up of oneself through the lessening of the world. Contempt must be defeated, Siegel said, if people are to be kind. Any person who could plan or carry out a bombing attack leading to the death and maiming of others has to see them as two-dimensional, without real feelings like his own. But this callousness doesn't appear suddenly; it goes on quietly in a person's inner thoughts. A Londoner can think a person from Somerset is not too bright just because of his or her accent. A Northerner can see a Southerner as a snob as soon as he opens his mouth. Someone attending Oxford, as I did, can look down on anyone who isn't. This ugly way of seeing, in an ordinary citizen or a prime minister, can lead to the worst horrors in history and today if it is not opposed.
What is urgently needed, in order to provide real security, is the study by everyone, from schoolchildren all the way up to government leaders, of what it means to see that another person has thoughts and depths as real, as deep as your own. This is the greatest countering of cruelty that can be.
Aesthetic Realism provides a practical, effective method for beginning to do this: "Write a 500-word soliloquy of that person; write as that person might speak to himself; try to describe his thoughts, hopes, fears." The Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, Ellen Reiss, suggested this be done by those on opposite sides of a conflict, such as Israelis and Palestinians.
In the predominantly Hispanic school I taught in several years ago, the Asian pupils were being forced to run a gauntlet of kicks and punches on their way into school after lunch. After I had the older pupils -- the ones I taught at that time -- write 500 words, imagining they were recent immigrants like the Asian students, the bullying stopped immediately.
Having written such soliloquies myself I know firsthand that it always makes you kinder. You see another person has depths, feelings that without fully knowing it, you had robbed them of.
I am sure that if community and government leaders arranged for these to be written -- and wrote soliloquies themselves -- there would be an immediate, widespread, increase in real understanding and kindness. Even if the most hardened, bitter persons did not change, the overwhelming majority of people would simply care more about other members of the public, whatever their background, colour, race, or religion --and this would be the greatest help of all to security.

* * * * *

Recommended Links:

Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies

Aesthetic Realism in the News

Aesthetic Realism is Education

Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology

Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression

Letter to the Asian News

2005-08-22T16:04:00.000-04:00

Published in the UK

Aesthetic Realism Way Forward

It was shocking to read about the racist attack on Mohammed Hussain in his Peel Lane convenience store (Asian News, May 31).Recently a young man of Sri Lankan origin died from the injuries he had suffered in a racist attack by two young white men in my home town, Ashford, Kent.

As a white person myself, I deplore these acts, as well as the daily racist attitudes and comments that people have to endure.

It is urgent for everyone to know what Eli Siegel, founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, explained. He saw that there is a constant debate in the mind of every person between the desire to have respect for the world, see meaning in it--and the desire for contempt.“As soon as you have contempt, he wrote, “as soon as you don’t want to see another person as having the fullness that you have, you can rob that person, hurt that person, kill that person.”

No matter how considerate we judge ourselves, if we don’t see another person as having the depth of feeling, the reality we have, we are unkind and worse. Racist attitudes, let alone attacks, simply would not occur if people saw each other as having the same depth of feeling as themselves.

I know this from my own life. Growing up, I hated cruelty when I saw it, but I didn't see that the way I robbed other people of meaning made me cruel myself. When a young man from the Indian subcontinent started at the 99 per cent-white school I attended, I made fun of him and didn’t see him as having feelings like my own.

In the international journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Class Chairman Ellen Reiss said: “What needs to replace (racism) is not the feeling that the difference of another person is somehow tolerable. What is necessary is the seeing and feeling that the relation of sameness and difference between ourselves and that other person is beautiful."

I know if I changed, anyone can!

Christopher Balchin, Grand Street , New York,

Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method

2005-04-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

I have just seen that Lois Mason, Aesthetic Realism consultant and history teacher and one of the teachers of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method workshop, has a website. Her success as a New York City teacher is phenomenal. I have learned so much from her. I am so glad that educators all over the world can now see for themselves what she shows -- how relevant history and geography really are to young people (and not-so-young people!) Here is the link to "Lois Mason, Aesthetic Realism Consultant and Social Studies Teacher".

Scroll down for news about the May 12 education seminar, "The Answer to the Fury and Failure in America's Schools: The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method."

Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company

2005-04-03T15:39:00.000-04:00

The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company presents lectures by Eli Siegel on works by Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, Strindberg and others that include dramatic excerpts from the plays, acted with a depth and subtlety that is rare. Every time I'm fortunate enough to be in the audience I come away feeling satisfied and stirred and ALWAYS with a new sense of respect for people of all races.

The next production (Sunday, April 10) is a comedy, Sheridan's "School for Scandal." It is remarkable both in the understanding of the playwrite, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and also because it is uproarious and moving. With its polished and rapier-like 18th-century style, it explains something that is affecting people all over America right now -- the way politicians and the ordinary man or woman in the street can be so careless with truth, and have such a THIRST for gossip. Here is the flyer to

"Comedy & Music Defeat Contempt--an Ethical Celebration!"

As you can see if you followed the link, Sheridan will be accompanied by Handel, in Barbara Allen and Edward Green's "What Can Chamber Music Tell Us About Social Life?-- Handel's Flute Sonata in G Major" If you have ever wondered why music can bring tears to your eyes, come on Sunday and find out the answer!

Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method seminar

2005-03-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

The next education seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation will take place on Thursday evening, May 12 at 6:30 pm. I strongly recommend it for every teacher, parent, and anyone who works with young people or cares about what happens to them. Here's the announcement:
The Answer to the Fury & Failure in America's Schools -- The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method !

The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Ends Prejudice!

2005-03-26T10:15:00.000-05:00

This is a paper I was honoured to give at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City in an education seminar, which I've also spoken about at the New York Technical School and at the National Union of Teachers in London, (England). There are so many problems in schools, here in the US, in the UK, and elsewhere involving racism, bullying and this teaching method can really change them.
I have changed the names of the students since this is a public posting.
--Christopher Balchin

THE AESTHETIC REALISM TEACHING METHOD ENDS PREJUDICE

It is a shameful and totally unnecessary fact that prejudice is rampant in America today including, tragically, in schools, the very places where it could and should be understood and ended.

The students at the middle school in Brooklyn where I taught science several years ago, most of whom are Hispanic and African-American, are seen with prejudice as they walk the streets and ride the subway. Our unjust economy hurts their lives immeasurably. What these young boys and girls and their parents meet is described by Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, in the journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #1187:

As millions of people are jobless, or working long hours and getting paid much too little, as they worry about being able to feed their families and pay their rent, there is within people a terrific anger. That is why prejudice in America is, in many ways, more intense and overt than once: having contempt for someone different from you; feeling you're Somebody because you're better than someone else; has a person feel he has gotten swift sureness and put in its place a world he can't make sense of and sees as an enemy.

This describes what I have seen increasingly—students are angrier than ever, more likely to flare up suddenly, and there is more racism. Cuts in funding for education combined with ill will on the part of school administrators means that even basic supplies such as paper, pencils, and photocopies are not available, and students who desperately need reading and maths are left without subject teachers for four months. Some teachers make fun of students and lump together students who they see as "troublemakers" in a way that is prejudiced. Students are justifiably angry at the way they are seen and treated—yet, unfortunately, too often they use the injustices they meet to have wholesale contempt for everything, including each other and learning itself.

Yet, I am so proud to say: I have seen the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method change prejudice in students, just as Aesthetic Realism has criticised and changed prejudice in teachers, including me. Not long ago there was an ugly "game" of bullying of students from Guyana, who are in the minority, by other students. The Guyanese were seen as different, and they were forced to run a gauntlet of kicks and punches every day on the way in from the playground after lunch. It was contempt, which seemed to give the bullies that "swift sureness" in a world they couldn't make sense of and saw as an enemy.

I was furious, and I wanted to it to end. I told all my students about a time I beat up Jonathan Scott, who, coming from a poor neighbourhood, was seen as different by my friends and me. Right after the fight I was so ashamed, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I told my students what I had learned from Aesthetic Realism about the cause of meanness in myself—it was contempt—and that I learned that if we see another person as having feelings as real as our own, we cannot be cruel. I told them about an Aesthetic Realism assignment I had done and asked them to do it: Write a monologue about what a person recently arrived from another country feels. They did it, and they became kinder to each other. The bullying stopped.

I. Symbiosis Shows the World Makes Sense
I am grateful to use as my basis for teaching science this principle by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism: "The world, art, and self explain each other; each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." And I have seen the same opposites that fight in prejudice--sameness and difference—are one in the structure of reality itself, and every lesson can show this.

Our first unit was on Ecology. As we began the year, I saw prejudice in my students in the form of mocking each other’s skin tone, suspicious looks, and making fun of new ideas. I knew it would be good for them, because of the way they were against each other and the world, to learn through the Aesthetic Realism Method about symbiosis. It is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as "the intimate living together of two kinds of organisms, especially where such association is of mutual advantage." In symbiosis the organisms are often strikingly different, but they actually help each other.

We looked at instances of symbiosis. Reading a page from the book Animal Behaviour, edited by Patricia Daniels and Karin Kinney, (and I wish you could see the wonderful illustrations in the book!) we learned about the relation between two very different beings:

Certain types of ants and aphids enjoy a relationship known as symbiosis, in which different species help each other to survive. Aphids—tiny, slow-moving insects that live on plants—feed on nectar, which they suck out of plant stems with their long, pointed mouths…(and) it is turned into a sugary substance called honeydew…Honeydew is a favourite food of dairying ants.

We learned that the ant, which likes this liquid, cannot obtain it by itself. But nature has so made these two beings, that when the any strokes the aphid's abdomen it gives off honeydew, which the ant “then drinks from the aphid’s cornicle.” Our text continued: “Ants will also attack any insect (like the ladybird) that tries to eat the aphids, even if the invader is much larger than they are…Scientists are not sure when or how this remarkable relationship began, but the discovery of fossilised ants and aphids together shows that the two types of insects have been helping each other for at least 30 million years.”

"How do both creatures benefit?" I asked the class. "The ants get honey, which they need," said Luis Betances. "And the ants drive off the ladybirds, so they protect the aphids!" said Jorge Osorio. I asked the class, "What would happen if an ant looked at an aphid and thought, in the way that a person who is prejudiced can think, "You look different--who needs you?" "It would starve," said Charles Miranda. But Juan Santiago, a young man who can use his keenness to mock, commented scornfully "No it wouldn't! It has plenty of other things to eat!" I asked a question I was once asked in an Aesthetic Realism consultation: "What's going to make us stronger--to use your mind to look down on things, to feel superior; or to know the world?"

Everyone saw that the ants and aphids are different but they add to and need each other. And I asked: Does this show that what is different from us can add to us, make us more who we are?” There was excitement in the class as they wanted to give examples of how needing the world made them more themselves, such as needing the sun, oxygen, friends, food, music, and more.

II. Symbiosis Seen Newly
The question can be asked: why all these years has the study of symbiosis not made students less prejudiced? The reason is that without the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method people haven’t seen: 1) that symbiosis is about the tremendous opposites of Sameness and Difference which are tormenting people on the streets of New York, and 2) it shows that these opposites don’t have to fight; you don’t have to be against what is different from you, because in reality, sameness and difference are thrillingly friendly.

I asked the class if they knew what a hermit crab was, and several did. It is a crab that finds an abandoned shell of suitable size to live in. "Why do you think it has this sea-anemone that looks like a hat on its shell?" I asked the class. They thought it was probably for protection-- maybe for camouflage, or maybe the sea anemone would get eaten instead of the hermit crab if an enemy attacked them. The class learned that the truth is even more amazing. The crab lives in a shell for protection, which is good enough to thwart some predators. However, the fearsome octopus has jaws that are strong enough to crush the crab, shell and all. So what this ingenious crab does is to take a living sea-anemone and place it on its shell, because the sea-anemone with all its luscious beauty has stinging tentacles that will repel the octopus. "How does it know to do that?" asked Rachel Torres, amazed.

We learned that the sea anemone gets something out of this relationship, too. It has more mobility, is able to travel about the waters with the crab and have access to foods it otherwise could not obtain. The whole class had a sense of wonder, and I am so grateful that through this lesson the students had more respect for living things, including each other, and for the force in reality towards kindness. Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method they saw mind working, real intelligence, in other living things and liked it. Symbiosis is a relation of sameness and difference that shows the world itself has a beautiful structure. Here is reality itself giving the lie to the contempt in a person which exploits weaknesses and differences for superiority and says instead: I need something you have and you need something I have and we are stronger and happier together!

One student asked "What happens when the crab needs a bigger shell?" The class was moved to hear this answer:

When a hermit crab outgrows its shell, it moves to a new one. If it has anemones on its shell, the crab also takes them along. A person trying to pry an anemone off a hermit crab's shell would have a tough time. Sea anemones hold on to their supports with powerful suction disks at their bases. Any attempt to move a sea anemone by force causes the anemone to contract into a tight mound that cannot be moved. But when the crab tries, it gently massages the anemone with its claws until the anemone relaxes, grows limp, and loosens its grip. Then the crab plucks the anemone off its shell and carries it in its claws to their new home...The crab is not harmed by the poison in the anemone's tentacles...If the anemone was put on upside down, it rights itself, moves to a good position, and then sticks firmly in place.

Doesn't this show a beautiful and surprising fittingness between different things in reality?

The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method is at once the most tender, loving, and the most powerful means of changing schools, including as to prejudice, because Eli Siegel understood the human self and the structure of the world.

I want every teacher to hear the questions asked in an Aesthetic Realism education workshop taught by consultants All For Education, questions I have learned from: “Am I prejudiced? If so, what about? What am I giving false value to? Where am I making more or less of something to serve myself?”

As the days and weeks went by, I saw big changes in my students. There was less meanness and more kindness, much less anger and much more of a desire to know. Manuel Rivera, a boy with a sweet face, used to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. He hardly spoke except to mutter under his breath to people around him, whom he seemed to see as enemies. He would come late to class, and got into a fight every day. He started to come on time, became so much happier and he made friends in his class. They played football in the playground, shared their pens and helped each other study for tests. Manuel no longer had the world summed up as an enemy, and he gave it another chance.

Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism have educated me in what it means to like the world, and I am so happy for the effect this is having on my students and myself, and for the understanding that can and will make prejudice a thing of the past.

Here are some important resources about the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, the understanding--and fighting--of prejudice, about Aesthetic Realism consultations, how Aesthetic Realism sees beauty, and more:

Devorah Tarrow & Jeffrey Carduner, Aesthetic Realism Consultants

Good Will, the Only Solution, by Rose Levy

Bennett Cooperman & Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman

Aesthetic Realism Is Education -- links

music & our lives -- blog of Michael Palmer, Aesthetic Realism Associate and writer

Teaching The Miracle Worker by Ann Richards

The Criterion for Confidence, a seminar paper by Dr. Jaime Torres that explains the subject of confidence--and how to have it!

Article on using the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method to teach students in special education. Published in La Vida News, The Black Voice, by Jeffrey Williams. Includes thrilling discussion of the ethics and aesthetics of softball and baseball.

It is in Contempt that the Roots of Racism Lie--an article by Captain Allan Michael published in the Miami Times

Read what about what happens in Aesthetic Realism classes, from people who actually attend them and know firsthand--rather than falsehoods by someone who pretends to know.

See reviews of books by Eli Siegel.

Here are some other websites I strongly recommend:

Rev. Wayne Plumstead on Aesthetics and Religion

Aesthetic Realism Foundation faculty bio for Rev. Wayne Plumstead

The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method

2005-01-23T19:51:00.000-05:00

Since 1982 I have been a teacher in New York City, one of the most ethnically-diverse places on earth. In the past twenty-three years I've seen first-hand that the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method brings out greater kindness between young people, elicits their desire to be fair to each other, including those of different ethnic backgrounds, rather than mean--and this happens through study of the subject itself.
That is what happens, I'm grateful to say, in the classes I teach, one of which I'll describe soon. First, I'm including some links about this teaching method, including articles about it in the news.

Links:
The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: Students Learn, Prejudice Is Defeated!, by elementary school teacher Lori Colavito

Prejudice Changes to Respect: The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, by junior high school teacher Barbara McClung

The Success of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: Students Learn, Prejudice Is Defeated! by elementary school teacher and Aesthetic Realism consultant Patricia Martone

The Philippine Post has an important article by science teacher Rosemary Plumstead on the blood and how teaching this subject countered racism and encouraged respect for the world in her students.

Educational Method Is Poetic, a lecture by Eli Siegel that is a must-read for educators of all levels, is published in the journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known

Important websites against racism:
1. Aesthetic Realism; Or, Why I Love Teaching Art, by Donita Ellison
2. Alan Shapiro, Aesthetic Realism Associate, Jazz Pianist, Music Educator
3. Articles About Art and Life, as Explained by Aesthetic Realism, the weblog of Aesthetic Realism consultant Miriam Mondlin

AND this is the link to the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Workshop--the new semester began this past Saturday, January 22 at 12:30 pm. It takes place every other Saturday so the next class will be on February 5. You should call ahead to request to audit. I thoroughly recommend it both for new teachers and for veterans; what you learn will have you see big, new things about the subject you teach and have you better able to meet the hopes of students in 2005, including by really exciting their interest in the subject, be it math, English, history, science, physical education, or anything else.

The next public seminar on this method will take place in May. See the Chronicle of Higher Education.

My article will follow shortly.

Aesthetic Realism and "The Heart Knows Better"

2005-01-19T20:42:00.000-05:00

Ken Kimmelman, Aesthetic Realism consultant and noted filmmaker, won an Emmy for his anti-prejudice film, The Heart Knows Better. Based on a statement by the founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel, it is an invaluable resource for every person hoping to improve relations between different ethnic groups. Mr. Kimmelman is also one of the speakers this coming Friday in "Artists Talk on Art" at the School of Visual Arts. (New York City)

Aesthetic Realism; or, Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?

2005-01-12T22:17:00.000-05:00

On her website, Aesthetic Realism consultant and actress Anne Fielding reproduces the transcript of an interview of Eli Siegel by Lewis Nicholls of the New York Times Book Review.
While the word "race" is not used, it is nonetheless a terrific refutation of racism, because it shows that every person, of whatever colour, age, background, religion, country--has nothing less than the structure of the world in common.

See the tribute by the Hon. Elijah E. Cummings, one of today's leading voices for ethics and justice in the US House of Representatives concerning Eli Siegel's crucial contributions to the understanding and fighting of racism.

Also, I suggest that you visit the website of distinguished anthropologist and Aesthetic Realism consultant Arnold Perey,Ph.D., A New Perspective for Anthropology: The Aesthetic Realism Method. Dr. Perey is breaking important new ground on this subject, including with Gwe, Young Man of New Guinea, his deep, kind novel against racism.

Read an important lecture on the subject of World War I, racism, and the play "The Miracle of Verdun," by Hans Chlumberg at the home page of Aesthetic Realism Associate Lynette Abel.

AND, essayist Ruth Oron, whose important articles about what can end the bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians have been published far and wide, tells of what she has learned from Aesthetic Realism on her website.

You can see my article, which is based on what I have learned from Aesthetic Realism, in the archives of The Tribune, one of India's leading daily newspapers.

More Important Links:

More about Aesthetic Realism:
Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. I have seen and marveled at her unfailing desire to understand every person and every situation. For instance, look at the class in which she discussed a newspaper article about what is known as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She said, "The question is whether this trouble of a child—trouble keeping his attention on a thing, which may be joined by a desire to race around—comes from a way of seeing the whole world. Is there a fight about the world in this child? Whether you're seventy-nine or a boy of four, you have an attitude to the whole world." There was such respect for the mind of a child, as Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips describe in their account of the class. Read more here.

Ellen Reiss has also been commenting, using the principles of Aesthetic Realism, on the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein. In Racism Can End Ms.Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own. What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?

Some of my favourite links are the following:
Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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 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. She also shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.

One of my favourite links is to columnist and civil rights advocate Alice Bernstein. (See her article above) 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.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library has poems, lectures, reviews, essays, and selections from other major works by Eli Siegel. There are also articles in the press and media about the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology is the website of celebrated cultural anthropologist and novelist Arnold Perey, PhD.

At Aesthetic Realism Resources there are articles on many subjects that concern people today such as love, self-expression, current events, economics, the arts, racism and much, much more.

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is the international periodical read by everyone who wants to understand what is going on in America today. Edited by Ellen Reiss, The Right Of serialises lectures by Eli Siegel and shows how they comment on current events such as the unprecedented growth of personal debt as well as our own questions and hopes as individuals.

See photographs with moving commentary and technical insight at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel

Important writings on economics, history, the questions of women, art, literature and more can be seen at Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life.

The website of Aesthetic Realism Consultant Miriam Mondlin is here: Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression.

For teachers especially, we suggest you get to know the work of noted educators Rosemary Plumstead and Donita Ellison. They are two of the finest teachers I've ever known.

To find out what is true about the kind, intellectually-rigorous philosophy that is Aesthetic Realism go to this website which sets the record straight and has, for the public record, the assessment of dozens of noted critics, poets, cultural icons, social scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, teachers, and more, and more: Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies

Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism

2005-01-08T22:23:00.000-05:00

I am extremely proud to be one of the co-authors of "Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism." This book, compiled by journalist Alice Bernstein, includes what I see as the definitive work on the subject: "The Equality of Man," by Eli Siegel, first published in 1923. Eli Siegel, the American poet, critic, and educator, was the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

See the tribute by the Hon. Elijah E. Cummings, one of today's leading voices for ethics and justice in the US House of Representatives concerning Eli Siegel's crucial contributions to the understanding and fighting of racism.

Also, I suggest that you visit the website of distinguished anthropologist and Aesthetic Realism consultant Arnold Perey,Ph.D., A New Perspective for Anthropology: The Aesthetic Realism Method. Dr. Perey is breaking important new ground on this subject, including with Gwe, Young Man of New Guinea, his deep, kind novel against racism.

Read an important lecture on the subject of World War I, racism, and the play "The Miracle of Verdun," by Hans Chlumberg at the home page of Aesthetic Realism Associate Lynette Abel.

AND, essayist Ruth Oron, whose important articles about what can end the bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians have been published far and wide, tells of what she has learned from Aesthetic Realism on her website.

You can see my article, which is based on what I have learned from Aesthetic Realism, in the archives of The Tribune, one of India's leading daily newspapers.

More Important Links:

More about Aesthetic Realism:Ellen Reiss, in addition to teaching the Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry Class, teaches classes attended by Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates, including myself. I have seen and marveled at her unfailing desire to understand every person and every situation. For instance, look at the class in which she discussed a newspaper article about what is known as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). She said, "The question is whether this trouble of a child—trouble keeping his attention on a thing, which may be joined by a desire to race around—comes from a way of seeing the whole world. Is there a fight about the world in this child? Whether you're seventy-nine or a boy of four, you have an attitude to the whole world." There was such respect for the mind of a child, as Barbara McClung and Lauren Phillips describe in their account of the class. Read more here.

Ellen Reiss has also been commenting, using the principles of Aesthetic Realism, on the upsurge of racism in these years. To see more about this, read the article by Alice Bernstein. Also, in Racism Can End Ellen Reiss writes about about how a way of seeing the world affects a person's way of seeing someone whose culture or ethnic background is different from one's own. What could be more important for people to understand in today's world?

Some of my favourite links are the following:Read Ellen Reiss's critical observations about the poetry of Robert Burns (one of my 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.

Injustice can 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. She also shows the immediate relevance of this mis-seeing to our own lives and time.

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?

One of my favourite links is to columnist and civil rights advocate Alice Bernstein. (See her article above) Her writing against racism has Aesthetic Realism as its basis.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library has poems, lectures, reviews, essays, and selections from other major works by Eli Siegel. There are also articles in the press and media about the founder of Aesthetic Realism.

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.

At Aesthetic Realism Resources there are articles on many subjects that concern people today such as love, self-expression, current events, economics, the arts, racism and much, much more.

Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology is the website of celebrated cultural anthropologist and novelist Arnold Perey, PhD.

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known is the international periodical read by everyone who wants to understand what is going on in America today. Edited by Ellen Reiss, The Right Of serialises lectures by Eli Siegel and shows how they comment on current events such as the unprecedented growth of personal debt as well as our own questions and hopes as individuals.

Important writings on economics, history, the questions of women, art, literature and more can be seen at Lynette Abel: Aesthetic Realism and Life.

See photographs with moving commentary and technical insight at Len Bernstein: Photographic Education Based on the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel

For teachers especially, we suggest you get to know the work of noted educators Rosemary Plumstead and Donita Ellison. They are two of the finest teachers I've ever known.

The website of Aesthetic Realism Consultant Miriam Mondlin is here: Aesthetic Realism Encourages Self-Expression.

To find out what is true about the kind, intellectually-rigorous philosophy that is Aesthetic Realism go to this website which sets the record straight and has, for the public record, the assessment of dozens of noted critics, poets, cultural icons, social scientists, civil rights leaders, artists, teachers, and more, and more: Friends of Aesthetic Realism--Countering the Lies