ANTHROPOLOGY IS ABOUT YOU & EVERYONE
Taught by Arnold Perey, PhD
People, 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.
The Spring-Summer 2020 semester of classes via video conference is now in session. To audit a class, permission must be requested by telephone 2 days in advance of the date of the class. Contact Registrar at 212.777.5055, between 2-6 PM Eastern Time (USA), Monday through Friday. If you receive permission to audit, click here to pay the auditing fee of $12.
Anthropology Is about You and Everyone
Dr. Arnold Perey
Spring-Summer Semester
“Culture, Science, & Questions”
This semester we continue to study people of diverse cultures and how deeply we are related to them. People everywhere have, in specific everyday ways, minds that are as deep, conflicts within themselves that are as urgent, and a desire to resolve them as insistent as ours. Integral to this study are questions asked today in Aesthetic Realism consultations, including: “What do you have most against yourself?” Using evidence from localities as far apart as the American plains, the tropical Pacific, and the mountains of Tibet, we’ll experience, on a scientific basis, the grandeur of humanity’s self-questioning and its potential for a fairer world.
The principle of Aesthetic Realism, stated by its founder Eli Siegel, on which these classes are based, is: “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites.”
Online Reference for This Semester: “Science—& Like of the World” in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, Issue #2031 (5/13/2020)
♦ May 27: The Self Belongs to Science
We study this great Aesthetic Realism question, “What do you have most against yourself?” for cultures including the Dobu Islanders of New Guinea, and our own.
♦ June 10: “Is the Way You See the World Good Enough for You?”
We look at studies of world view, personal and cultural, including Pilaga Native Americans, in relation to the Aesthetic Realism question that I quoted above. Online reference: Oksapmin Society and World View …read here >
♦ June 24: The Blazing Urgency: See Sameness & Difference Truly!
Anthropologist Ashley Montagu states: “Many tribes call themselves by names which mean in effect we-are-men, implying that all others are not.” How do we do the same thing in our minds? We look at the urgency–now and through history–for this Aesthetic Realism question: “Are you more different from other people or more like them?”
♦ July 8: The Battle: Authentic Good Will vs. “I Win, You Lose”
This fight between two purposes, one that is accurate and the other that is sheer contempt, has a long history. We will study this Aesthetic Realism question, which has in it the means to resolving that fight: “Are you more interested in being better than other people or as good as you can be?” We will look at this question among historic Native American people–Iroquois, Sioux, Hopi, Yanomamo–and its relation to the economic and social world now.
♦ July 26: (Sunday) [Not Wednesday, July 22 ] What Questions Does Successful Art Ask?
We meet with The Visual Arts and the Opposites class taught by Marcia Rackow via video conference.
♦ August 5: Students’ Papers; or, An Anthropological Fiesta
♦ August 19: Ego-Disproportion Begins Early, but It Can End Now.
We will study the groundbreaking value of this Aesthetic Realism question, “What do things outside myself deserve from me?” The injustices that take the life out of people through the centuries can be defeated only by an honest and thorough answer to that question. “The first victory of contempt,” Eli Siegel explained, “is the feeling in people that they have the right to see other people and things pretty much as they please.” [Self and World, p. 3] We will look at historic injustices and their solution, including (1) the pervasive, unjust male view of women and (2) the ugly way people are devalued in profit economics, illustrated by this old Kazakh saying: “All the poor people do not equal one rich man.”
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 StatesAlternate Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 PM Eastern Time (USA)
Dates of this class: May 27, Jun 10, Jun 24, Jul 8, Jul 26, Aug 5, Aug 19
Fee: $60 per semester (7 classes)
To audit a class, permission must be requested by telephone 2 days in advance of the date of the class. Contact Registrar at 212.777.5055, between 2-6 PM Eastern Time (USA), Monday through Friday.
If you receive permission to audit, click here to pay the auditing fee of $12.
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