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Two Teachings of Aesthetic Realism

By Eli Siegel

1. A Person and the World

The deepest desire of every person has been to like the world, that is, everything which is not himself. When a person likes what is not himself, he can like himself for a true reason. When a person likes the world, he is the same as the world, for every time we truly like something, there is a closeness or identification with that thing. However, when a person likes the world he sees himself at that time as a definite, deep, interesting reality in his own right: that is, he is different from the world. According to Aesthetic Realism, when a person feels he is the same as the world and also different from it, he is in an aesthetic relation with the world or reality; and it is this relation, Aesthetic Realism further states, which is happiness.

2. The Two Desires in Man

A person has to try to like the world, otherwise he could not continue to be; but there is also that in a person which wants to like only himself, and to see what exists in the world with contempt, with insufficient meaning. To want to like oneself at the price of lessening the meaning of other things, is the principle of vanity. This principle of vanity is in everyone and is in a constant fight or restless mingling with the desire to like the world as a means of liking oneself. The inadequate reconciliation of these two desires makes for all kinds of mishaps, infelicities, in a person’s life. Art arises from man’s ability to make a one of his desire to like himself only, to concentrate on only himself, and his desire to love reality through seeing what it is.


Copyright © 1971 by Definition Press

“Two Teachings of Aesthetic Realism,” was published in
The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known number 938, March 27, 1991.

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