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

Reprinted from...
Pittsburgh		Courier
Pittsburgh, PA		January 2, 1997

Real Welfare Reform Impact

By Miriam Mondlin

It is so necessary for people to know the real impact of the welfare reforms on people struggling to live with dignity—fathers and mothers worried about how to pay for food for their children, keep a roof over their heads, get needed medical care. It is ugly brutality to cut off welfare benefits and force workfare—which is tantamount to slave labor—on people in need. And there are elderly men and women terrified that their meager benefits, including food stamps, are going to be cut off.

I passionately want the people of Pittsburgh to know that Eli Siegel, founder of the education Aesthetic Realism, explained the reason people are poor and how this injustice can end. Profit economics, he explained, is based on contempt for people, where the only basis for a person to work at all is if he or she can make a profit for an owner or investor, who did not work for it. Contempt, Mr. Siegel defined as "the addition to self through the lessening of something else." Contempt can be as ordinary as a wife finishing her husband’s sentences, or looking at a person sitting across from us on the bus, and thinking, "I would never wear those colors together!" Contempt, Eli Siegel showed, is the cause of racism, the cause of all ethnic hatred, the cause of the agony of little children going to school hungry, who now have to worry about whether or not school lunches are going to be cut.

Beginning in 1970, Eli Siegel showed what no economist or historian has seen, and what these 27 years unequivocally affirm. He said: "There will be no economic recovery in the world until economics itself, the making of money, the having of jobs, becomes ethical; is based on good will rather than on the ill will which has been predominant for centuries."

Because it is harder for businesses to make a profit on the old terms, more people are being thrown out of work. And, if a person has a job, wages are so low that a family is forced to get public assistance in order to survive. When I was a child during the Depression in the 1930’s, my family was among many thousands to receive welfare benefits, to help pay for food and rent, so we wouldn’t be homeless. When I was 5 years old, I remember the distraught and angry look on my mother’s face when the social worker inspected our refrigerator, and told her she had to buy cheaper oranges for her children. I didn’t understand why this was happening to us then.

There is a solution to the economic pain in America which Ellen Reiss, Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, explains with clarity and compassion in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, #1220, titled: "For America to Fare Well:"

There will be economic justice in America when this kind, urgent question asked by Eli Siegel is studied and answered: "What does a person deserve by being a person?" Aesthetic Realism is taught at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, a not-for-profit educational foundation in New York City.

Addendum

Since writing this article, published 12 years ago—when the welfare reforms were just being put into action—THE REAL IMPACT OF THE WELFARE REFORMS is a brutal reality! 

During these years, there have been many articles citing the agony people forced off welfare endure daily. Because these reforms are unjust, they don't provide what people deserve. The welfare check is cut off--but poor families are not in a position to provide the necessities to get out of poverty: How can they get and keep a job that will enable them to afford health care for themselves and their children, and provide day care while at work. They need jobs that will pay the rent and the rising cost of food. And then there is the cost of transportation to and from a job. With the cost of higher education escalating, and training programs for mothers and fathers not being provided by government agencies, the prospect is bleaker now for thousands of families.

And there is this fact of profit economics which I learned very early— "last hired is first fired."  So many people on welfare who were forced to get workfare have been let go. These workers are the first to be laid off, and the economy is such that when you're in that situation, it's not so easy to get another job.

The urgency for economic justice in America becomes more pressing every day. The question asked by Eli Siegel needs to be studied and implemented:"What does a person deserve by being a person?"

--Miriam Mondlin, 2009