Talk:Aesthetic Realism/sources

New York Times
(Their review of AR's first gay cure book.)

New York Post

 * 


 * 


 * 


 * 


 * 

Vice Magazine

 * I joined NYC's most Ryan P. McCarthy, boring cult, Aug. 27, 2013

Erasing Reason

 * An entire book devoted to AR's cult aspects: ERASING REASON: Inside Aesthetic Realism - A Cult That Tried to Turn Queer People Straight, by Hal Lanse, Ph.D, 2012

1962
These two sources show that AR had been considered a cult as early as 1962:    — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.48.98.204 (talk) 09:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Belief that they have the ultimate truth (if only people would listen)
Op-ed in the Bangor Daily News (Nov. 24, 1997, p. 14) says that anti-depressants and psychiatry is ineffective at treating depression, because the real cure is through Aesthetic Realism, as AR is the only thing to recognize that all mental trouble is called by contempt.

"Eli later became the founder, leader, guru, rabbi -- take your pick -- of a movement he called Aesthetic Realism....And he had a host of believers who followed the teachings of Aesthetic Realism....He told me this once when I ran into him on Jane Street almost forty years later. 'You need Aesthetic Realism in your life,' he said, looking me in the eye. 'I know the kind of man you are. It'll straighten you out. And not only you -- it can straighten out the whole world. Aesthetic Realism can straighten out the whole world, if only the world will listen to me.'" --Max Gordon, Live at the Village Vanguard, 1982, Chapter 3

Victim of the Press Campaign
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8jdDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ka0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5983,1853036&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H-5HAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4_8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5777,3616047&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=i7A_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=71YMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3016,5736608&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en


 * AR's double-page ad in the NY TImes
 * (dead link)
 * Letter to the editor of the Village Voice by an AR critic, 1964
 * AR's ad in the Village Voice, March 1962
 * AR's ad in the Village Voice, June 1962
 * Column in the Wilmington Star News mentioning AR's complaining about a lack of coverage
 * The Village Voice, May 22, 1969, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below
 * New York Magazine, 1995, as per the "Aethetic Realists" section below
 * Getty Images, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below
 * EA Schwartz, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below

Purpose is to spread the gospel

 * Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3, by Nancy Starrels, Field Secretary, Society for Aesthetic Realism: "The purpose of the society is to have Aesthetic Realism known by more people."

Doctrines cannot be understood without intensive study

 * * Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3, by Nancy Starrels, Field Secretary, Society for Aesthetic Realism: "We thank the editor of The Voice for his invitation to explain 'What Aesthetic Realism Is' in one column of this paper; but it cannot be done."

Use of the term "members"
By the Aesthetic Realists themselves:
 * Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3: "The Society for Aesthetic Realism was organized in 1946 by students of Eli Siegel....Members of the society include established artists....[W]e include sentences by some of the 29 members of the society...."
 * an ad in the Village Voice, Jan. 16, 1957: "Discussion of this definition by members of the Society for Aesthetic Realism."
 * Village Voice ad], 1962: "members of the Society of Aesthetic Realism" []

By the media
 * Village Voice, Jan 2, 1957, p. 2:  "The end-all purpose of Siegel's teachings (the society has 28 members) is the use of objects to understand oneself."
 * Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3: "In an article on Jane Street in last week's Village voice there was an item about the Society for Aesthetic Realism which members of the society felt did not adequately represent the nature and purpose of their association."

"Therapy"


Following reference to support:
 * Professional psychologists opinion that reparative therapy is ineffective, and possibly harmful
 * AR described as conversion therapy
 * Ineffectiveness of AR's gay-change program
 * Harmful effects of the program claimed by those who underwent it

Other references to the gay-change program as a purported "cure"
{{quotation|There used to be a "homosexuality cure" called Aesthetic Realism. It argued that it is aesthetically pleasing that male and female fit together. By contrast, male and male and female and female don't possess the proper connectors and so are "unaesthetic." Of course, this ignored the fact that homosexuals find members of their own sex attractive. To homosexuals, homosexuality is aesthetically pleasing. Like most cures, Aesthetic Realism assumed homosexuality doesn't really exist.| Toby Johnson, Gay Perspective: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us About the Nature of God and the Universe, 2008} http://www.tobyjohnson.com/mobiusstrip.html

Other
Note the choice of words: Gays who see psychiatrists don't get *better*. This is yet more evidence that AR really does see homosexuality as an affliction.

link to above source (link will not embed inside the quote for some reason)

Handbook of Innovative Psychotherapies By Raymond J. Corsini Wiley, 1981.



Use of the term "Aesthetic Realists"

 * 1) By the Aesthetic Realists themselves, in their book "PERSONAL & IMPERSONAL: Six Aesthetic Realists", Sheldon Kranz, et al., Definition Press, 1959 Aesthetic Realism website, Amazon
 * 2) James H. Bready in the Baltimore Sun, a column which the Aesthetic Realists like so much they put it on their own website: Evening Sun, Baltimore, Wednesday, July 28, 1982.    "Rather than set up branches, Aesthetic Realists keep in touch with people in other cities by phone."
 * 3) The Village Voice, May 22, 1969.  "Also downtown, the Koppelmans (Chaim and Dorothy), noted Aesthetic Realists, are having their first show together in five years at the Terrain Gallery on Grove Street.  Their petition to gain a review from the Time quotes Hilton Kramer as saying he'd 'puke' if he got another telephone call from them.  I know what he means.  Aesthetic Realism, its philosophical merits aside, is the best reason for getting an unlisted number.  Nevertheless, I saw the show.  It's okay.  Mr. Koppelman's works are particularly sensitive.  I really doubt that the Koppelmans 'are being punished being of their stated conviction that the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel is a true approach to art and to life.'"
 * 4) The Village Voice, "A Brooklyn assemblyman's earmarks are political surrealism", May 6, 2008. "Assemblyman Felix Ortiz: Thinking twice about bacon for Aesthetic Realists"
 * 5) New York Magazine, "A Scene in Two Acts", Jan 2, 1995.   "THE AESTHETIC REALISTS.  An oddball presence in SoHo for more than twenty years, the realists expound a philosophy that focuses on a oneness between opposites....  Aesthetic Realists' contention that the media ignored their 'cure' [for homosexuality] led many of them to wear the familiar "Victim of the Press" buttons.... Two people identifying themselves as Aesthetic Realists approach the group from the street. They agree to help the XXXGays, insisting that Aesthetic Realists are not against homosexuality."
 * 6) Getty Images. Image title, "Aesthetic Realists", Jan. 1, 1978.   "Adherents of the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, founded by American poet Eli Siegel, protesting in Central Park, New York, about what they see as a deliberate lack of coverage of their movement by the media, April 1978. Some students of the philosophy maintain that its teachings have enabled them to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Two men at the demonstration carry placards to this effect."
 * 7) Photographer EA Schwartz, 1974, photo caption.   "Aesthetic Realists, [followers of] Eli Siegel, picket the New York Times. They contend their ideas are given insufficient attention in the Times....1974"
 * 8) Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History, original 1978, rev. ed. 1992, p. 129, as cited in a California court appeal. "Astrologers, Scientologists, Aesthetic Realists, and other quack philosophers have followed the medical profession's lead with their own suggestions for treatment."
 * 9) Mark Hufstetler Bozeman, professional historian, "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana", October 21, 2009.   "The statement was certainly admirable, but eventually the movement evolved into an often-inappropriate self-help agenda that became thoroughly cult-like. Today, the Aesthetic Realists are a tiny and eccentric fringe group, probably wondering why the Scientologists are the ones who get all the attention."
 * 10) Bill Samuels, "Gay Activists Alliance", February 3, 2009.  "Not that I didn't enjoy the 'zaps' or actions that we held. Infiltrating a meeting of the homophobic cult the Aesthetic Realists (who married off self-hating lesbians to self-hating gay men, a forerunner of today's "ex-gays") and passing out pro-gay literature to the members and observers."
 * 11) Anthony Haden Guest, "For a Different New York Woman", 2005.   "I'll put her on the mailing lists / Of the Scientologists, / The holocaust revisionists, / And the Aesthetic Realists".

On the need for disambiguation
"Aesthetic realism" has at least three distinct meanings:
 * 1) Eli Siegel's philosophy about opposites and contempt
 * 2) Analytical philosophy that properties of objects exist apart from subjective interpretations
 * 3) Artistic design geared towards being life-like or 'realistic' ''

The following list references instances of 2) and 3), unrelated to Eli Siegel
 * The Wikipedia Realism disambiguation page lists over 40 pages in philosophy and aesthetics with 'realism' in their title.


 * 2005 article in the British Journal of Aesthetics (Oxford) called 'A Note on Two Conceptions of aesthetic realism': "The term aesthetic realism has recently taken on great currency in analytic philosophical aesthetics. What is not generally known is that the American philosopher Eli Siegel called the philosophy he founded in the 1940s aesthetic realism... Thus, two distinct uses of the same terminology exist, and should not be confused."


 * Chapter 3 of the Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics titled: aesthetic realism


 * From a 2007 article in American Prospect titled "How America Does Art: "Classicism's surrender to aesthetic realism represented progress toward Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas," to be sure. But was pop art's move from abstraction to representation democratic?"


 * In 'Aesthetics and Material Beauty: Aesthetics Naturalized' By Jennifer A. McMahon the book summary reads: "In Aesthetics and Material Beauty, Jennifer A. McMahon develops a new aesthetic theory she terms Critical aesthetic realism - taking Kantian aesthetics as a starting point and drawing upon contemporary theories of mind from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science."


 * In 'Solving the Puzzle of Aesthetic Testimony' the author proposes to: "While we are quick to form beliefs on the basis of what others tell us about many non-aesthetic matters, we are hesitant to form aesthetic judgments on the basis of what others tell us. And while we are often comfortable counting someone as justified on the basis of nonaesthetic testimony, we tend not to be so inclined in the aesthetic case. These are puzzling disanalogies, and – as I shall show – they lend some attraction to aesthetic anti-realism. But aesthetic anti-realism can be resisted. I offer a solution to the puzzle of aesthetic testimony that is perfectly consistent with full-fledged aesthetic realism."


 * In the Oxford Journal 'Screen' there is an article titled "Between science fact and science fiction: Spielberg's digital dinosaurs, possible worlds, and the new  aesthetic realism."


 * In 'The Metaphysics of Beauty, by Nick Zangwill': "Here Zangwill sets out a working notion of aesthetic realism, which amounts to the minimal claim that there are mind-independent aesthetic facts..."


 * In 'The Illusion of Conscious Will' by Daniel Wegner: "...action theory and philosophy of mind, but by those working in moral psychology ... since in some chapters he attempts to defend aesthetic realism..."


 * In a paper called 'Fashion Models and Moral Realists' by Charlie Knuth at the University of California San Diego: "The realist might seek to bolster this version of the “proves too much” reply by modeling a fashion realism along the lines of Slote’s (1971) case for aesthetic realism or Railton’s (1986b) realism about an individual’s non-moral good."


 * Blaise Pascal University paper by Laurent Jaffro titled: 'Some Difficulties with the Reidian Argument for aesthetic realism '.


 * In a Salon.com article called 'The quest for the perfect game face': "But shortly after "Indigo" was launched, Cage began to receive complaints about the game's aesthetic realism, which one reviewer labeled, disparagingly, "atmospheric, but not stellar." The most significant flaw was the face of Lucas Kane, the hero of "Indigo Prophecy." In some scenes, Kane's face looked wooden; in others, the muscles around his mouth moved too much, giving him an eerie, reptilian quality." (nope)


 * British Journal of Aesthetics article by Marcia Muelder Eaton titled Intention, Supervenience, and aesthetic realism '.


 * Paper by Shelton Waldrep titled, 'The aesthetic realism of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray'.


 * Pitt University article 'Faultless Disagreement and aesthetic realism ' Karl Schafer


 * Robin Johnson's 2008 Paper 'Struggling With Reality: Technology and aesthetic realism in "Game Developer" Magazine'


 * [bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/2/111] British Journal of Aesthetics: ' Aesthetic realism and Emotional Qualities of Music' by Malcolm Budd


 * University of Calgary's History of Intellectual Culture: 'Hutcheson's aesthetic realism and Moral Qualities' by Susan M. Purviance


 * Article: 'Is one taste better than another? A case for aesthetic realism ' from the Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society by David E.W. Fenner


 * University of Lisboa dissertation: "This dissertation defends aesthetic realism: the view that there is a (non-mental) aesthetic reality, which our aesthetic beliefs and assertions can be reckoned to represent more or less adequately. The focus is restricted to contemporary discussion conducted in the analytic tradition (including some arguments by Hume and Kant that analytic philosophers have addressed, and which will be considered more or less on their own)."


 * Journal of Scottish Philosophy article: 'Thomas Reid's aesthetic realism ' by Roger Pouivet


 * In "Pleasure, preferenace and value", an essay by Philip Pettit: 'The Possibility of aesthetic realism '

...try searching site:www.jstor.org "aesthetic realism" -siegel -contempt -"making one of" -racism for 100 more 71.224.206.164 (talk) 08:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Michael Bluejay as a quotable authority
Aesthetic Realists have charged that Michael Bluejay is not a quotable authority, so here are examples of his being quoted on Aesthetic Realism specifically in the press.