Talk:Aesthetic Realism/Archive 3

message: I think the new editing is going in the right direction. 
Since, as I said earlier, I respect the desire of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation not to get enmeshed in the anger surrounding the subject of homosexuality, I am leaving this to your own best judgement. 
Meanwhile I would like to add some of what I have seen and give some opinions that might be helpful.
1. I interviewed three of the persons who signed "Yes, We Have Changed" advertisements and they told me: (1) there were only four or five ads altogether. (Not exactly a media blitz.) The ads were of modest size. (2) The people who signed the ads took care of them, not the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. The signers created them, paid for them, put them in the newspapers. (Some of the signers were in the advertising industry, and still are as far as I know.) So you now have a social scientist reporting that three eyewitnesses corroborate what TS writes. I am confident that we have got some verified facts here.
Wiki has not been picky about publishing "as if" true the totally unverifiable imaginary "factoids" of some others. Why so finicky about the actual truth?
2. Is the word "claimed" really the right word? To be fair--to be really NPOV--it's the wrong word. Simply to write "stated" is better. I began studying Aesthetic Realism in 1968. I had studied works on the subject of gender as part of anthropology (for ex. Gregory Bateson's classic Naven). So in August '68, when I heard Sheldon Kranz's paper decribing the logical basis on which he had changed from homosexuality years before (it was in the 1940s I believe) and married Anne Fielding--I knew I was listening to a scientific description of the highest caliber. For this and many other reasons it is clear to me--and anyone who knows people who signed the ads--that they shouldn't be described in Wiki as "claiming" to have changed. "Claim" already prejudices the reader into thinking the claim is hollow. The signers of these ads ought to be given their due--a presumption of integrity, not fraudulence. I believe each one felt some new emotion to which he or she had formerly been a stranger--and then wanted to say, "Yes, we have changed."
3. Was Aesthetic Realism best known for changing homosexuality? Perhaps in the gay world it was--but that does not mean it was so in the art world, in the literary world, and in the world of anthropology or the social sciences. In fact, it was only a small part of the picture, albeit highly visible for a short time.
4. I have put on a blog of mine the writing on Aesthetic Realism and Structuralism. It's a subject I've lectured on from time to time and I am pretty sure what I wrote is philosophically correct. It's something various anthropologists have asked me about over the years, including Conrad Arensberg one afternoon in his office at Columbia in 1968. Can some of it be used in Wiki? See this link.
5. There is, indeed, an anti-Aesthetic Realism gang of which Bluejay is only the most recent mouthpiece. They plan a reunion in NY City on the 17th of June, according to his web pages. These web pages of his on Aesthetic Realism are less than a year old. The lynchpin of the gang is Ellen Mali of Evergreen Colorado. Next is her son Adam Mali, now a restaurant owner there, who wrote a web page of astonishing misrepresentations a few years ago. Then, her close girlfriend Heide Krakauer, who lied in print and was "busted" for it . There is a recent "defector" whom I don't particularly want to name but whose spiteful writing I recognize among the Wiki anons. And there are a few others who also hide behind a screen of anonymity. Ms. Mali, former executive director of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, tried to use this educational institute as her "fiefdom" and caused much upset, but didn't get her way; finally she left in the early 1990s, to try to avenge herself on the Foundation by using the internet, etc.. This little gang has come out with a stream of lies that would curdle vinegar. Bluejay was just enlisted because of his internet savvy, and took to the job eagerly. There is no mystery. Just a gang. -- --Aperey 17:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some responses to the above 

message: Questions:
How did Siegel "found" AR? By writing a book? By starting to give lectures under that name? Were consultations given in Siegel's home prior to ARF?
Some answers: -- I put these as best I could into the Timeline.
I. By writing a book? No--Self and World was written in 1942-3 although his work on definitions started in the 1920s or earlier. 
II. By starting to give lectures under that name? The lectures were in 1944.
III. Were consultations given in Siegel's home prior to ARF? Yes
Here is source material:
:Baird and Reiss write in Corsini (p. 19), “The first Aesthetic Realism lesson was given in 1941.” This marked the beginning of Aesthetic Realism. 
:Meanwhile, lessons were a means of teaching the philosophy--the way of seeing the world--that Eli Siegel had earlier been developing for decades. He wrote:
::Aesthetic Realism, as taught by an individual, arose from requests by people in my poetry classed who asked if they could talk to me privately. In my talks on poetry, I mentioned often that what makes a good poem is like what can make a good life. This I see as still true, for poetry is a mingling of intensity and calm, emotion and logic. 
:This is how Aesthetic Realism began. Siegel started to give individual lessons which he first called Aesthetic Analysis and later, in 1948, he called the philosophy on which those lessons were based, Aesthetic Realism. The reason is, the word “analylsis” seemed too narrow a term for what this philosophy really is. --Aperey 20:01, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Answering some questions from Willmcw 

message: For the record, I think the writing of TS on the subject of homosexuality has balance and is well informed. I think his emendations to the material that is in place now should be used in the article. What he writes really fits the facts as I remember them. 
Considering the article again, I feel the section on "Aesthetic Realism and Poetry" is not clear. Perhaps it's been cut too much. We don't know why a way of seeing the world based on poetry does what Aesthetic Realism says it does. I can make some suggestions to clarify it.
I also suggest that an article by Dorothy Koppelman and Carrie Wilson (Directors of the Terrain Gallery)--which was presented at the World Conference referred to in the "Aesthetic Realism Scholarship" section--be substituted for the paper by Marcia Rackow and myself. It's a survey of how the Siegel Theory of Opposites has been used to explain beauty in the art of different periods, styles, and media--and the relation of art to individual's lives. Titled "Aesthetic Realism Shows How Art Answers the Questions of Your Life" the URL is: http://www.terraingallery.org/koppelman-wilson-art.pdf. --Aperey 19:24, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments on TS's suggestions 

message: I don't have time to keep up with all the nonsense over here but I'm going to dedicate myself to one of Perey's crimes in particular:
:One of the more persistent critics, Michael Bluejay of Austin, Texas, whose connection with Aesthetic Realism is that his mother, [name], once studied Aesthetic Realism when he was an infant, has devised his own web site stating that his purpose is to show that Aesthetic Realism is really a cult.
*[My dear Mr. Bluejay, what makes you think I wrote this? I did not write this. Please see below for my further comments. -- Arnold Perey -- --Aperey 21:50, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Our prime obligation is service to the reader.  For that reason, we couldn't honor a request from, say, Karl Rove that he not be mentioned in articles about the criminal exposure of Valerie Plame's identity.  In this instance, however, I don't see that the name of Michael Bluejay's mother adds anything to the reader's understanding of the subject of the article, so there's no reason to include it. JamesMLane 17:20, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop these dirty tricks right now 

message: ::::"One does have the right to self-defense."
:::::---14th Century Polynesian Chief
:Michael Bluejay writes this about me: 
::"I don't have time to keep up with all the nonsense over here but I'm going to dedicate myself to one of Perey's crimes in particular:
:::'One of the more persistent critics, Michael Bluejay of Austin, Texas, whose connection with Aesthetic Realism is that his mother, [name], once studied Aesthetic Realism when he was an infant, has devised his own web site stating that his purpose is to show that Aesthetic Realism is really a cult.'"
By the way, Mr. James M Lane, is the statement that a non-criminal person has committed "crimes" a smear? Would you consider it actionable?  
Again, I ask: Mr. Bluejay, what makes you think I wrote this? I did not write this. Whoever did, could have known the facts better. As you may know, I knew you when you were a toddler a few years old, not an infant--when, together with your mother, you had a lesson with Eli Siegel which you quote from on your web site. And so, first of all, I would never say that your mother "once studied Aesthetic Realism when he was an infant." I do not know who wrote these sentences. And second, I would not flatter you by calling you "one of the more persistent critics." As I wrote in these pages, I do not see you as a "critic" at all--no more than a person who hates Michealangelo can be considered a critic of the Pieta. Someone ANGRY WITH BEAUTY did, by the way, break the nose off the Virgin with a hammer. 
So please remove your accusations, which are wild and untrue. 
:And Michael Bluejay writes, in part:
::"(1) Perey knows damn well that my mother doesn't wish to be named because I explain so in detail on my site (the one that he and the other AR people have gone over with a fine-tooth comb to try to debunk with their CounteringTheLies.com).  This is a cheap shot so typical of AR people's tactics.  They put my mom's name on their website... etc."
I will say this: Your aunt, Alice Bernstein (who is your mother's sister) believes she has a right to name persons who have spoken cheaply about Aesthetic Realism. It's part of the historical record. That includes your mother who, she has pointed out, may have encouraged your present attitude. Mrs. Bernstein's right to free expression was not interfered with by anyone when she wanted to write rather fully on the internet in "Countering the Lies". I did a search, and she's the only one who wrote about your mother in "Countering the Lies". So when you say "They put my mom's name on their website..." you leave out a few relevant facts (which are part of the whole story). Meanwhile, have you ever tried to curb the spleen of your own writing?--even so far as to stick to the truth? Perhaps if you take your lies off the internet, and keep them off, Mrs. Bernstein will reconsider whether it's necessary anymore to name names. 
(I may mention that Alice Bernstein's mother--your grandmother--May Musicant, you also smeared brutally online, including in a song whose title is something like "My Grandmother Was a Lesbian." I cared for May Musicant, she and your grandfather Jack had a good effect on my life with their honesty, warmth and good humor.) 
:And Michael Bluejay writes:
::"2) For someone who claims that I'm a liar Perey sure plays fast and loose with the truth.  It's not true that my mother ONCE studied.  She studied continuously almost out of the crib through her thirties, when I was a TEENAGER (not an infant)."
As I said, the passage you are referring to is not my writing. You have a right to correct it, but not to abuse me. (1)Meanwhile, this is the third version of your story. (2)Your mother, if she did indeed continue to study Aesthetic Realism, did so from quite a distance--in Texas. Apparently she WANTED to. She certainly wasn't pressured into it. In fact, I didn't even know about it. The obvious conclusion anyone would draw from all this, is that you have no reason to call Aesthetic Realism a cult--something that can only be studied if you live below 14th Street in New York City and are "watched" constantly by other cultists. This is what Adam Mali says it is, a person to whom you link on your website and praise extravagantly as more eloquent than yourself. (Why don't you criticize what he says? You know it's untrue!) And this is what the Baltimore Jewish Times says, which you have linked to as evidence, and it is something you know from personal experience to be completely false. For if you studied Aesthetic Realism together with your mother, as far away as Texas, without any other students such as myself even knowing it, you lived a complete contradiction to what you write on michaelbluejay.com/x. -- (3)Would you care to comment? For an intelligent person you are riddled with inconsistencies. If I have to, I will analyse them in a complete deconstruction of your website, which I don't mind saying is despicable. 
:And Mr. Bluejay continues:
::"(3) My relation to AR is NOT just that my mother studied -- and nor that my father studied, nor that my mother's two sisters studied, as did their parents, including my grandmother....and I regularly attended the AR study group my mother started in Texas...etc."
So you were trapped in a cult while being hundreds of miles away from it, and it was your mother who was the "Leader" in Texas? I am ashamed of you. By the way, your contact with the Aesthetic Realism Foundation as a teenager was only one visit, right?] --Aperey 21:11, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume that Aperey's question to me about "crimes" is rhetorical.  The Disclaimers link at the top of the page leads the reader to the information that Wikipedia is not a source of professional advice.  If you just want to improve your understanding of the law of defamation, my answer is that use of the word "crimes" to allege a violation of a criminal statute would be actionable, but that use of the word "crimes" in a broader sense to express an opinion of disapproval would be constitutionally protected.  Now, returning from that interesting excursion, I agree with Willmcw's comment below that we should focus on the writing of the article. JamesMLane 00:58, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Response from Arnold Perey to Michael Bluejay's endowing him with "crimes"