Aesthetic Realism Foundation

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Anthropology Is about You & Everyone

Taught by Arnold Perey, PhD

Photograpy by Arnold Perey, Boys in New Guinea, on the cover of his novel GWEPeople, everywhere in the world, from the grasslands of Africa to the tents of Asia and North America, are understood through the principles of Aesthetic Realism: we are all trying to like the world aesthetically, as a oneness of opposites. All humanity is alike: kind and cruel, accurate and wild, powerful and delicate—trying to put together opposites in ourselves. Through Aesthetic Realism, anthropology is essential knowledge for us to know ourselves and do away with prejudice.

Alternate Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 PM Eastern Time (USA)

Classes via Zoom video conference are now in session.

SPRING-SUMMER 2022

In this semester we study Eli Siegel’s classic lecture Mind and People* in which he writes:

In thinking of people we are really thinking of two things: 1) the very unique and lonely self (no one has completely expressed himself) and 2) this self as having to do with everybody…and related to everything.

Out of this duality has come great pain and great beauty.

  • May 11:  Being Contrary on the Great Plains & in NY Apartments

In Mind and People there is this: “A person wants to be nothing but himself; yet he wants to belong and have to do with others.” Humanity has looked for a solution to this conflict. A Native American of the Great Plains, for example, could try to resolve it by declaring himself what’s known as a “Contrary.” And we who study them now have tried it in our way.

  • May 25: Stories Where Animals Talk—What Are They Saying?

In the folklore of the world, animals speak—to each other and to people—in order to give us knowledge that’s good for our lives. (See: Where Animals Talk: West African Folklore, gathered and translated by R.H. Nassau.)

  • Jun 8: Economics: What Is the Trouble?

J.G. Frazer in The Golden Bough, tells of human sacrifices at planting and harvest in ancient agriculture (from Europe to the Philippines) to make crops more abundant for the owners, while just the opposite was in Native America, where the kindness of the corn goddess made her loved by humanity and the harvest was shared out to all, in authentic fairness. Is there a relation in all this to what’s happening now?

  • Jun 22: We Look at “What Caused the Wars” by Eli Siegel

We study instances of warfare across the globe, including Papua New Guinea and the Amazonian Rainforest—both ancient and now—in the light of Eli Siegel’s showing of the cause of war in The Right Of #165:

It is necessary to see that while the contempt which is in every one of us may make ordinary life more painful than it should be, this contempt is also the main cause of wars…

The greatest ugliness in self is the seeing of contempt as personal achievement. Contempt must be had for contempt before squabbles grow less, terror diminishes. Respect for what is real must be seen as the great success of man.

  • Jul 6: Giants, Jokes, Proverbs, and Magic Beans; or the Wisdom in Folklore          

“Proverbs have come from the people and been accepted by people as being about them. So have folk tales, ballads, folk songs. The proverbs represent a good deal of wisdom, and can also be very contradictory.” —From Mind and People*

  • Jul 24 (SUNDAY) 11 am – 12:30 pm [NOT Wednesday Jul 20]: Works from The Language of Beauty in African Art at the Kimball Art Museum

Joint class of “The Visual Arts and the Opposites” taught by Marcia Rackow and “Anthropology Is About You and Everyone” taught by Arnold Perey

  • Aug 3: An Anthropological Fiesta—Papers by Students in the Class

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*Mind and People is serialized in two issues of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known: issues #1908 and #1909 in the Online Library (AestheticRealism.net)

Want to audit a class?

  • Contact the registrar at 212.777.5055, between 2-6 PM Eastern Time (USA), Monday through Friday.
  • Be sure to make your request at least 2 days in advance of the class.
  • Once you receive permission to audit a class, click on the “AUDIT” button to pay the fee.

Fee: $60 per semester (7 classes)

Auditing fee: $12

See Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology and Sociology and his novel Gwe: Young Man of New Guinea—a novel against racism.

Three instances of how Aesthetic Realism shows people of different cultures are more alike than has been known:

[1] What Big Mistakes Do Even Smart Men Make? With a consideration of the African story “Maliane and the Water Snake” from Lesotho.

[2] About the Ethical Unconscious. The myth of the flood: discussing anthropology, the anthropologist, and a representative American woman, Daphne Baker.

[3] “How Much Feeling—and What Kind—Should a Man Have?” Discussing my life, the life of Fusiwe, a head man of the Yanomami People, and men of the United States

Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3

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