Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic Realism is a philosophy founded in 1941 by the American poet and critic Eli Siegel. He defined it as a three-part study: “One, Man's greatest, deepest desire is to like the world honestly. Two, The one way to like the world honestly, not as a conquest of one's own, is to see the world as the aesthetic oneness of opposites. Three, The greatest danger or temptation of man is to get a false importance or glory from the lessening of things not himself; which lessening is Contempt. Even more briefly, these three divisions can be described as: One, Liking the world; Two, The opposites; Three, The meaning of contempt.”
Aesthetic Realism differs from other approaches to mind in identifying a person's attitude to the whole world as the most crucial thing in his or her life, affecting how one sees everything, including love, work, and other people. For example, it says racism begins with the desire to have contempt for what is different from oneself.
The philosophy is principally taught at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, a not-for-profit educational institution based in SoHo, New York City. The Foundation offers public presentations, which include lectures by Eli Siegel, seminars by faculty and associates, a curriculum of classes including poetry, anthropology, art, and music, and private consultations. Ellen Reiss is the Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education and editor of the bi-weekly publication The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. Published both as a periodical and online, it contains the serialized lectures of Eli Siegel, writing by students of the philosophy, and commentaries by Reiss.
In the 1980s the Foundation faced controversy for its assertion that men changed from homosexuality to heterosexuality through study of Aesthetic Realism. In 1990, it stopped presentations and consultations on this subject.
Philosophy
Aesthetic Realism is based on the idea that reality has an aesthetic structure of opposites. Siegel stated that all the sciences and arts provide evidence of reality's aesthetic structure. For example, freedom at one with order can be seen in an electron, a tree, the solar system. These opposing forces of reality are within every person, and we are always trying to put them together.In Siegel's critical theory, "The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of opposites in art." A good novel or musical composition, for example, composes opposites that are often in conflict in a person's mind or daily life: intensity and calm, freedom and order, unity and diversity. Art, therefore, is a guide to a good life because it shows the aesthetic structure of reality and ourselves. "All beauty," he stated, "is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."
A core principle of Aesthetic Realism is that the deepest desire of every person is to like the world. It says the purpose of art education—and all education—is to like the world.
However, Siegel recognized another competing desire in every person: the desire to separate oneself from the world and make less of it. He writes in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, number 247:
A key study in Aesthetic Realism is how an attitude to the world as a whole governs how a person sees every aspect of life including a friend, a spouse, a lover, a book, food, people of another skin tone. Accordingly, the philosophy argues that individuals have an ethical obligation to give full value to things and people, not devalue them in order to make oneself seem more important. Aesthetic Realism states that the conscious intention to be fair to the world and people is not only an ethical obligation, but the means of liking oneself.
The philosophy identifies contempt as the underlying cause of depression and broader social problems as well: societal evils like racism and war arise from contempt for "human beings placed differently from ourselves" in terms of race, economic status, or nationality. Siegel stated that for centuries ill will has been the predominant basis of humanity's economic activities. The philosophy asserts that humanity cannot overcome its biggest problems until people cease to feel that "the world’s failure or the failure of a person enhances one’s own life." Siegel stated that until good will rather than contempt is at the center of economics and in the thoughts of people, "civilization has yet to begin." He defined good will as "the desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful."
Major texts
The philosophic basis of Aesthetic Realism was set forth systematically by Siegel in two major texts. The first, Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism, was written from 1941–3. Individual chapters, including "Psychiatry, Economics, Aesthetics" and "The Aesthetic Method in Self-Conflict", were printed in 1946. The full text was published in 1981. It presents the philosophy in terms of how it applies to everyday life and understanding mind. Chapters include "The Aesthetic Meaning of Psychiatry", "Love and Reality", "The Child", and "The Organization of Self".A second text, Definitions, and Comment: Being a Description of the World, completed in 1945, defines 134 terms, including Existence, Happiness, Power, Success, Reality, and Relation. Definitions of one sentence are given for every term, followed by a lengthier explanation. The work was published in 1978-9 as a series in the journal The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.
A third philosophic text, The Aesthetic Nature of the World, is largely unpublished, although selections appear in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.
Poetry
Aesthetic Realism arose from Eli Siegel's teaching of poetry. He stated that ideas central to the philosophy were present in his poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana", which won The Nation's annual poetry prize in 1925. The philosophic principle that individuality is relation, "that the very self of a thing is its relations, its having-to-do-with other things", is in this poem. Itbegins with a hot, quiet afternoon in Montana, and travels through time and space, showing that the diversity of reality is surprisingly connected, and things, people and places usually regarded as separate "have a great deal to do with each other."
The poem ends with these lines:
“I can’t tell you how important Siegel’s work is in the light of my present understanding of the modern poem..." wrote William Carlos Williams in 1951."Only today do I realize how important that poem is in the history of our development as a cultural entity..." Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems by Eli Siegel was published in 1957. It was nominated for a National Book Award. The title poem was made into a film in 2005 by filmmaker Ken Kimmelman, a consultant on the faculty of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, who joined an earlier recording of the author reading the poem with archival photographs and live-action special effects.
In 1968, a second volume of Siegel's poetry, Hail, American Development, was published. Kenneth Rexroth, in the New York Times, praised the poems and translations and wrote, “I think it's about time Eli Siegel was moved up into the ranks of our acknowledged Leading Poets.”
A third volume of poetry, Dear Time, awaits publication.
Siegel defined poetry as "the oneness of the permanent opposites in reality as seen by an individual." In Aesthetic Realism classes he explained that the greatest desire of a person is to put together opposites, as, in a good poem, "emotion changes into logic: there is no rift between the two." He maintained that music distinguishes true poetry, whatever the language, period or style; the music of a poem shows the poet has honestly perceived opposites as one, and sincerely united personal feelings with the impersonal structure of the world. "Poetry," he wrote, "arises out of a like of the world so intense and wide that of itself, it is musical." Therefore, Aesthetic Realism teaches, even a poem that in substance seems to condemn the world, in its technique and music is praising the world, seeing it truly.
Siegel demonstrated the centrality of poetry to every aspect of life in thousands of Aesthetic Realism lectures, including "Educational Method Is Poetic", "Poetry and Time", "Poetry, Money, and Good Will", "A Poetic Technique of Parenthood", "Poetry and History", and "Hamlet Revisited; or, The Family Should Be Poetry". His students affirm that an important aspect of the philosophy continues to be the study of how a good poem has within it "the composition, beauty, sanity we want in ourselves." Today, “The Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry” class is taught by the Chairman of Education, Ellen Reiss. This is the education, they assert, that "makes it possible for poetry to be, as Matthew Arnold said, a criticism of life."
Aesthetic Realism Foundation
The not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation was established by Siegel's students in 1973. Located at 141 Greene Street in SoHo, New York, it is the primary location where the philosophy is now taught, in public seminars, dramatic and musical presentations, semester classes, and individual consultations. There is an interactive workshop for teachers, “The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method”, and classes in poetry, anthropology, music, singing, and classes for children.Ellen Reiss is the Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education, appointed by Eli Siegel in 1977. Since that time, she has conducted professional classes for the Foundation's faculty. Herself an Aesthetic Realism consultant since 1971, Reiss also taught in the English departments of Queens and Hunter Colleges, City University of New York. She is a poet, editor, and co-author of The Williams-Siegel Documentary.
Eli Siegel died on November 8, 1978. Reiss continues his work teaching Aesthetic Realism in professional classes for the Foundation's faculty and in the course "The Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry". Her commentaries on how the philosophy views life, literature, national ethics, economics, and the human self appear regularly in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.
Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company
The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company, composed of actors, singers and musicians, has appeared throughout the country in both musical performances and dramatic productions based on Siegel's lectures on Shakespeare, Molière, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Ibsen, Strindberg, Eugene O’Neill, George Kelly, Susan Glaspell, and others.Opposition to prejudice and racism
The matter of racial prejudice has long been a focus of Aesthetic Realism. In one of his earliest essays, "The Equality of Man", Siegel opposed writers who were promoting eugenics. He argued that thus far in the history of the world, people have not had equal conditions of life, to bring out their potential abilities, and he asserted that if all men and women had "an equal chance to use all the powers they had at birth, they would be equal."According to Aesthetic Realism, racism and prejudice of all kinds begin with the human inclination towards contempt, "the addition to self through the lessening of something else." In her commentary to The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Ellen Reiss wrote about the massive American protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by a police officer who pressed his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for nearly 9 minutes: "Millions of Americans see that this video-captured killing of Mr. Floyd represents something ongoing: the daily injustice toward black people, which takes many forms. And millions of Americans feel, This ugliness must stop!" Reiss reaffirms what she first wrote in June 1997 on the art way of seeing people aesthetically, as both the same and different from oneself:
Aesthetic Realism and the Answer to Racism by journalist Alice Bernstein contains articles published in newspapers throughout the country. The People of Clarendon County, includes a play by Ossie Davis, re-discovered by Bernstein, together with photographs and historical documents concerning the Rev. Joseph DeLaine and others who took part in Briggs v. Elliott. This was the first of five lawsuits that eventually led to the breakthrough 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which made segregation in public schools illegal and struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine established in 1896 by Plessy v. Ferguson. The book includes essays about Aesthetic Realism, which is described as "the education that can end racism."
A production of The People of Clarendon County—a Play by Ossie Davis, & the Answer to Racism, presenting Aesthetic Realism as the educational method that explains and changes prejudice and racism, was staged in the Congressional Auditorium of the US Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC on October 21, 2009, with introductory remarks given by Rep. James E. Clyburn.
In public forums, individuals of diverse nationalities and cultural backgrounds have described how, through study of Aesthetic Realism, their racism and prejudice changed, not into mere "tolerance" but into a respectful desire to know and see that the feelings of another are "as real, and as deep, as one’s own..."
On an international level, students of Aesthetic Realism advocated the study of contempt and good will, as described by Aesthetic Realism, as "The Only Answer to the Mideast Crisis", in a 1990 advertisement on the op-ed page of The New York Times. To oppose prejudice they recommend that persons of nations who are in conflict "write a soliloquy of 500 words" describing the feelings and thoughts of a person in the opposing land.
The United Nations commissioned Ken Kimmelman to make two anti-prejudice films: Asimbonanga, and Brushstrokes. Kimmelman credits Aesthetic Realism as his inspiration for these films, as well as his 1995 Emmy-award-winning anti-prejudice public service film, The Heart Knows Better, based on, and including, a statement by Eli Siegel.
History
Lectures and classes by Eli Siegel
In 1946, Siegel began giving weekly lectures at Steinway Hall in New York City, in which he presented what he first called Aesthetic Analysis, "a philosophic way of seeing conflict in self and making this conflict clear to a person so that a person becomes more integrated and happier." From 1948 through 1977, Siegel continued teaching in his library at 67 Jane Street in Greenwich Village, where he also resided. Individuals studied Aesthetic Realism in classes such as the Ethical Study Conference, the Nevertheless Poetry Class, and classes in which Aesthetic Realism was discussed in relation to the arts and sciences, history, philosophy, national ethics, and world literature.Eli Siegel gave over 30,000 such lectures and lessons over the four decades he taught Aesthetic Realism. One series, “Aesthetic Realism As Beauty”, considered how particular opposites are brought together in the drama, music, sculpture, dance, and painting, and demonstrated how each of these arts unites opposites that are often in conflict in life situations. He lectured on “Aesthetic Realism and Love”, “Aesthetic Realism and Scientific Method”, “Aesthetic Realism and H.G. Wells’ The Outline of History” and “Aesthetic Realism Looks at Things: Understanding Children”. He gave a series of lectures on Henry James that was later published as the book James and the Children: A Consideration of Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw”. He gave a series of lectures on Imagination, Religion, and the Arts and Sciences. Aesthetic Realism classes were scholarly and sought to demonstrate that art is related to the problems of everyday life. This contradicts the Freudian view of art as sublimation.
The Terrain Gallery and the arts
Among the earliest students of Aesthetic Realism were Chaim Koppelman, a painter, sculptor, printmaker, and founder of the printmaking department of the School of Visual Arts, and his wife, painter Dorothy Koppelman, who opened the Terrain Gallery in 1955, introducing Aesthetic Realism to the cultural scene of New York City with art exhibitions and public discussions of the Siegel Theory of Opposites in relation to painting, sculpture, photography, poetry, and later, music, theatre, and architecture.Chaim Koppelman's interviews of Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Anuszkiewicz, and Clayton Pond, in which these artists discussed the relevance of Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel's Theory of Opposites to their work, are now part of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Artists began using Aesthetic Realism in writings about their fields, including Ralph Hattersley, editor of the photography journal Infinity, and Nat Herz, author of articles in Modern Photography and of the Konica Pocket Handbook: An Introduction to Better Photography. Aesthetic Realism: We Have Been There, a book of essays by working artists in the fields of painting, printmaking, photography, acting, and poetry, documents how the Siegel Theory of Opposites "relates life to art and is basically a criterion for all branches of aesthetics".
Some artistic productions inspired by the philosophy were surrounded by controversy. A theatrical production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler by The Opposites Company of the Theatre, in which the title character was presented as "essentially good", in keeping with Siegel's interpretation of the play, was highly praised in Time magazine, but severely criticized in The New York Times, which also published Siegel's response to the critics.
Aesthetic Realism and homosexuality
A controversial aspect of the philosophy concerns the assertion that men and women could change from homosexuality through studying its principles. In 1946 writer and WW II veteran Sheldon Kranz was the first man to report that he changed from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism. Kranz said that as his way of seeing the world changed, his sexual preference also changed: from a homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one that included love for a woman for the first time in his life. Kranz was married for 25 years to Obie award-winning actress Anne Fielding.In keeping with its general approach, Aesthetic Realism views homosexuality as a philosophic matter. A fundamental principle of the philosophy is that every person is in a fight between contempt for the world and respect for it. Siegel stated that this fight is present as well in homosexuality. In the field of love and sex, a homosexual man prefers the sameness of another man while undervaluing the difference of the world that a woman represents. This undervaluing of difference is a form of contempt for the world; therefore, as a man learns how to like the world honestly, his attitude towards difference changes and this affects every area of his life, including sexual preference.
Beginning in 1965 supporters of the philosophy began an effort to have press and media report on the change from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism. In 1971 men who said they changed through Aesthetic Realism were interviewed on New York City's WNET Channel 13 Free Time show and the David Susskind Show, which had a national syndication. The book The H Persuasion, published that year, contained writing by Siegel detailing his premise about the cause of homosexuality, transcripts of Aesthetic Realism lessons, and narratives by men who said they changed, describing both why they changed and how. In response to requests from men and women wanting to study Aesthetic Realism, Siegel designated four consultation trios, one of which, Consultation With Three, was for the purpose of teaching men who wanted to change from homosexuality. In 1983, five other men who said they had changed from homosexuality were interviewed on the David Susskind Show. The transcript of this interview was published in the 1986 book The Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel and the Change from Homosexuality.
With the exception of a brief 1971 review calling The H Persuasion "less a book than a collection of pietistic snippets by Believers," the New York Times never reported that men said they changed from homosexuality through Aesthetic Realism. Students of the philosophy who said they changed from homosexuality or in other large ways accused the press of unfairly withholding information valuable to the lives of people. In the 1970s they mounted an aggressive campaign of telephone calls, letters, ads, and vigils in front of various media offices and at the homes of editors. Many wore lapel buttons that read "Victim of the Press".
In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1978, ads were placed in three major newspapers stating "we have changed from homosexuality through our study of the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel." They were signed by 50 men and women. With few exceptions, the press in general either ignored or dismissed the assertion of persons who said they changed.
The gay press and gay reporters were generally hostile to Aesthetic Realism. A 1982 Boston Globe article written by "the first openly gay reporter" on its staff, interviewed primarily gay therapists and then reported that the "assertion" of change through Aesthetic Realism was "a claim staggering to psychiatrists and psychologists." About 250 people protested the article on the Boston Common. The Globe’s ombudsman later wrote in his column that the article was biased against Aesthetic Realism and that it contained "strong, negative words without attribution" and "inaccuracies".
Some gay advocacy groups and gay activists presented Aesthetic Realism as "anti-gay", accusing the philosophy of offering a "gay cure" and expressing skepticism that homosexuality could or should change. Persons within the gay pride movement associated the desire of a man to change from homosexuality with a lack of pride in a gay identity, and saw Aesthetic Realism as biased against those living a gay lifestyle. The Aesthetic Realism Foundation stated unequivocally that it supported full, completely equal civil rights for homosexuals, including the right of a man or woman to live their life in the way they chose.