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
Here are two reports of Eli Siegel's lectures:"Look, the World is Poetic!" and "The Rhythms: They Are There."

"The Ordinary Doom"
By Eli Siegel

Reprinted from
March 2001 Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Women's Health Care—A Fundamental Right!

By Miriam Mondlin

I was outraged to learn from the article in The Milwaukee Times ("Wage Gap, Poverty, Bias Harm Women’s Health," by Melinda Voss 1/4/01} that there are millions of women living in poverty whose health and well-being are seriously affected by the lack of medical services. It is a national disgrace. She quotes from a recent study, "Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card" issued by the National Women’s Law Center. It is reported that not one state received a passing mark on women’s health. Millions of women’s lives are endangered because they do not have health insurance and almost one in ten Americans (9.6 percent) live in an area where there are few or no health care providers. Wisconsin ranks 13^th and received an Unsatisfactory mark. According to the Report:

Behind every statistic is a real person—a woman who worries every day about how she will cover the rent, food and clothing for her children. She may have to choose to neglect her own health so her children can eat. My own mother didn’t go to a doctor when I was a child because she could not afford it, and her health worsened. This was more than 50 years ago and it is unconscionable that Americans are still being deprived of what is a fundamental right.

It is contempt for the life of every citizen that there is not universal health care. Eli Siegel, the great American philosopher, historian and founder of Aesthetic Realism, defined contempt as "the addition to self through the lessening of something else." He explained that contempt is the basis of our economy, where people are paid as little as possible so owners or stockholders can reap as much profit as possible. The profit-driven sky-rocketing prices for prescription drugs force people to go without the medications they so desperately need. Mr. Siegel stated with beautiful passion: "Nobody should ever have to pay for having his body [cared for], even if he wanted to pay…The idea of people worried about their health [and] worried about money is barbarous. It’s ego corruption."

In the international periodical, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism, explains:

Economics based on some few persons using the needs and labor of others for profit, has continued these decades only through making Americans work under conditions more painful, agitating, insulting than before. Americans have had to work longer hours, increasingly without benefits, without job security, millions are unable to afford medical care... 

To be just to every person, our economy and our health care system must be based on good will, which Mr. Siegel has defined as "the hope of a person that good things happen to things (things include people); with the desire to know what those good things are." And this will come to be when this urgent question stated by Mr. Siegel is asked and answered honestly: "What does a person deserve by being alive?"

Aesthetic Realism is taught in New York City at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, a not-for-profit educational foundation; 212-777-4490; www.AestheticRealism.org

This article has been published in other newspapers, including
the African Herald in Texas.