This site contains writings based on the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, founded by the great American educator Eli Siegel. Here are three principles of Aesthetic Realism he stated, which the author of this blog have seen to be true and invaluable in my life and my studies in anthropology:
Three Principles of Aesthetic Realism
- “The deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.”
- “The greatest danger for a person is to have contempt for the world and what is in it…. Contempt can be defined as the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it.”
- “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”
Liking the World On an Honest Basis
About the first principle, here’s a passage from Mr. Siegel’s book Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism:
“Aesthetic Realism sees the largest purpose of every human being as the liking of the world on an honest basis.
“If, as Aesthetic Realism believes, all the sciences, let alone all the arts, present reality as constituted or shaped aesthetically, reality or the world can that much be liked. Aesthetic Realism does not bid people to like reality; it does bid people to hope to like reality and to do all they can to like it. A seeing of the sciences in their relation and where they begin, is a means of seeing the world favorably; with order and surprise.”
You can read here, for instance, an important poem titled “Anonymous Anthropology”; an article about Frederick Douglass, and one about truth & imagination in a very surprising etching by artist Chaim Koppelman. Also, a review of an exciting and important anti-prejudice novel by Dr. Arnold Perey. There’s more under Recent Posts and in the Archives listed to the right.