Steven Weiner, computer specialist and Aesthetic Realism associate, writes:

This new issue of The Right Of answers questions crucial in the life of every person. For instance: How can we be kind—really, intelligently, accurately kind? And, What is the great interference within ourselves to this accurate kindness? You’ll also learn why criticism—the real thing, the kind thing—is necessary for love to flourish. Through wonderful short poems by Eli Siegel and an article in which a man of our time speaks about himself, you’ll meet comprehension you’ve been longing for. It’s in “Criticism, Kindness, Love—What’s the Relation?,” the latest issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known!

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

We have the happiness of including here five short works by Eli Siegel, and an article by jazz musician and educator Alan Shapiro. The article arose from a paper its author presented at a seminar (pre-pandemic) titled “A Man’s Urgent Question: How Can I Be Both Critical & Kind?”

What you’ll read in this issue of TRO is a beautiful and true explanation of matters that trouble people very much. It’s an explanation of the fight within everyone—including heads of state, married couples, scholars, schoolchildren, persons in history. Because without Aesthetic Realism this battle has not been identified and understood, there has been ever so much unkindness in people’s lives. The fight is between two big desires: 1) our deepest desire, to like the world different from ourselves, see large meaning in it, be just to it; and 2) the desire for contempt—to elevate ourselves through looking down on what’s not ourselves, including our fellow humans. Contempt, Aesthetic Realism shows, is the source of every cruelty. “It is,” writes Mr. Siegel, “that which distinguishes a self secretly and that which makes that self ashamed and weaker” (Self and World, p. 362).

As a means of placing what is in this TRO, I’ll comment a little on the five short writings by Mr. Siegel….Read more