Aesthetic Realism is the greatest opponent of injustice I know. (That is why a few selfish people are angry and lie about it). It explains we have two opposing drives all the time, one towards respect & seeing meaning, the other for contempt. Eli Siegel, the great poet, critic & educator who founded Aesthetic Realism, identified contempt as the addition to self by the lessening of other things. It is the root cause of racism and war. The study of respect & contempt is an emergency.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
What do anthropologists need to learn in order to really address the issue of racism?
Arnold Perey PhD writes in Aesthetic Realism, a New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology:
"For anthropology to be relevant to ending the horror of racism today, we must be able to answer these two desperately urgent questions: (1) What is the cause of racism? and (2) How can it be eliminated completely from human relations?"
Dr. Perey's website, remarkably, answers both questions. As we have issues of race and racism erupting in so many countries, what Arnold Perey has to say, based on what he learned from Eli Siegel, Aesthetic Realism, and the Chair of Education, Ellen Reiss, is about as important as anything I can think of. He has studied this subject professionally, through his field work -- notably in New Guinea -- and as an instructor of anthropology at college and at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. He has been published numerous times on the subject, and I must say, as a former student of his both in Aesthetic Realism consultations and in the education classes he has taught for decades at the Foundation, what he could say to America and the world could literally end racism.