Aesthetic Realism:
Some Beginning Notes —

Aesthetic Realism is the philosophy founded in 1941 by poet and critic Eli Siegel. He was by then already famed as a poet, for in 1925 he had won the much desired Nation magazine poetry award. Aesthetic Realism is kind and scientific — see "About Aesthetic Realism" on the Aesthetic Realism Foundation Online website, which tells you more.

In my paper on the subject of stuttering (see How My Stuttering Ended) I tell how Eli Siegel's philosophy Aesthetic Realism encourages self-expression. This large overall matter — expressing oneself and what interferes — is my theme.

Where the economy is unjust, the fullest self-expression of many, many people is interfered with. I am for a just economy and say so, with colleagues of mine, in articles reprinted here.

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library is a definitive source for publications about Aesthetic Realism. For example, visit the online library to learn about how this philosophy, founded by Eli Siegel, explains Poetry, to read Reviews written by Mr. Siegel; reviews of his poetry and prose.—Essays on art and life; Books—including chapters from Self and World, the Williams-Siegel Documentary, James and the Children, Children's Guide to Parents and Other Matters and more.  Articles in the press & media about the ideas and principles of Aesthetic Realism in relation to life, economics, love, art, youth and age and Includes WKCR-FM "The World of Art" interview of Eli Siegel.

Reports of Aesthetic Realism classes

"The Ordinary Doom"
By Eli Siegel

By Devorah Tarrow, Aesthetic Realism Consultant

People all over the country are outraged at what senior citizens must pay for prescription drugs. 

As a person who spent much time in the Mid-west when I was growing up and now living in New York, I was shocked hearing a PBS report about the enormous prices senior citizens pay in my state: "Especially hard hit are older people on fixed incomes who don't have prescription drug insurance coverage." 

Seniors go to Canada or Native-American reservations to buy drugs--for cancer, diabetes, pain as real as yours and mine! An Associated Press story says, "Last year, prices for 50 prescriptions commonly filled by the elderly rose by 6.6%. Inflation was 1.6%." Public Citizen has this:

"One out of three Medicare recipients -- 14 million older adults and people with disabilities -- have no private prescription drug coverage....Unfortunately, wealthy prescription drug companies, whose chief executives rake in millions of dollars annually in pay and stock deals by price-gouging our seniors, want to keep it that way."

Drug companies claim they need these profits for research. Some people suggest, timidly, that some of these profits could be given up. I say that the entire idea of making profit off of the pain and distress of another is WRONG! People have to know: Eli Siegel, founder of the education Aesthetic Realism, showed that the making of profit off of the distress of another is contempt, the "addition to self through the lessening of something else." 

That "lessening" is off the very life of another, and is un-American. In The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, wrote:

The profit motive as such is sheer contempt. When your motivating interest is how much money you can make from someone, you can't...be too interested in what that person feels and deserves: it will cramp your ability to make profit from him or her...

Never was there more fury at drug companies. Americans know that these companies use people's need for medicine to charge exorbitant prices.  Because pharmacy is based on profit, many men, women, and children cannot get the medication they need.  And senior citizens can go without sufficient food in order to pay for medicine. There is in Americans a real hate for the fact that what one needs for health is tied in with profit.

Yes, senior citizens are angry and have demonstrated at state capitals.  People like myself are furious that this exists at all in an America wealthy enough to provide for everyone if profit for a few were taken completely out of the equation. Aesthetic Realism is not political; it is ethical education which explains the cause.