
I grew up in the village of Glendale, Ohio, northwest of Cincinnati, graduated from Denison University, and moved to New York City. That’s where I first attended an Aesthetic Realism seminar. I was electrified by the honesty & scholarship of the speakers, and what they were saying about art and life.
On this website I’m glad to bring to people some of what I’ve learned that changed my life in ways I hoped for, enabling me to get to expression and happiness I never would have otherwise.
What Is Aesthetic Realism?
Aesthetic Realism was founded in 1941 by the great American poet and critic Eli Siegel. It’s education, logical and kind, about the world and the human self, our hopes and possibilities. Aesthetic Realism answers, as never before, the questions every person has by being alive—about ourselves, love, work, people, about our hopes and despairs, and more.
The Principles of Aesthetic Realism
These principles stated by Eli Siegel are the basis of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism. It is my careful opinion they are true, and urgently needed by humanity for the world to be safe, kind, truly civilized:
1. The deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.
2. 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.
3. All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.
Through studying these principles in Aesthetic Realism consultations and classes given now by video conference, I became happier and more the person I wanted to be. I recommend, too, Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism, and many other works about Aesthetic Realism in the Online Library.
Is Hope Worth Money? by Eli Siegel

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known (TRO) is serializing a thrilling lecture Eli Siegel gave titled Is Hope Worth Money? “There is no bigger subject,” Ellen Reiss says about this lecture, “historically and philosophically…[than] the relation of value and fact, of feelings and facts. The two, value and fact, have been seen by people as ever so divided….The Me who tries to be exact (and this Me is in some fashion in everyone) seems a different Me from the self who hopes, despairs, is enraged, or ashamed, or exuberant.” read more
Covid-19 Is Still With Us—
Editor Ellen Reiss has a series in her great TRO commentaries on how to use Covid-19 in a sensible, strengthening way:
“Decades ago, Eli Siegel asked the following vitally important question:
‘Is this true: No matter how much of a case one has against the world—its unkindness, its disorder, its ugliness, its meaninglessness—one has to do all one can to like it, or one will weaken oneself?’
I have seen, through many years of careful looking, the answer is: Yes, it’s true. So I’ll mention 4 aspects of that needed thing, using COVID-19 to like the world.
1) Evil (which the coronavirus stands for and has) is certainly real. But what is good in this world is just as real…” read more