AESTHETIC REALISM FOUNDATION 141 Greene Street  New York, NY 10012

July 2007           

Dear Friend,

     I'm writing to you at a time when change is so much needed in America and the world; and a time, in the history of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, of great development-good for the world and people.

     I'm writing to request your generous support for the work being done by this Foundation. That work, described in our Mission Statement, which I'm very happy to enclose, is cultural, immediate, diverse, scientific, and rich in the arts. It's the most desperately needed education today.

	How valuable is it for children to be encouraged to like the world, to love learning, to see children different from themselves as adding to them and not as people to hate? How valuable is it that children want to know and respect other people, rather than turning to drugs or a gang?
	How much does it matter for seniors to be able to look at life with new wonder and energy, useful to themselves and others?
	How much does it matter for men and women to be able to make sense of their lives-increasingly understand themselves, people close to them, people different from them?
	What is it worth that people can learn what beauty is and how art can be immediately, permanently useful to every person's life?
	that the cause of the racism which still plagues our country has at last been explained by Aesthetic Realism-and can finally end through this education?
	that a person can feel understood at last?

     These are some of the life-changing, life-encouraging benefits of the Aesthetic Realism education. And they each represent the work being done by the Foundation, which contributions such as yours help make possible.

     Founded in 1941 by the great American philosopher, critic, and poet Eli Siegel, Aesthetic Realism is based on this principle: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves."

	How valuable is it that Aesthetic Realism has identified the cause of cruelty, injustice, and mental misfortune? It's the desire for contempt, "the addition to self through the lessening of something else." Contempt is the cause of all racism, prejudice, and economic exploitation. And Aesthetic Realism-for the first time in history-enables people to understand contempt and effectively oppose it!

     Learning about the desire for contempt changes beautifully how a person sees all other people and things. It did for me. I learned that contempt is as everyday as summing up or not listening. It has a man think he owns a woman, and a woman give herself the right to manage a man. It has a girl see people as existing to praise her-not as standing for a whole world to be known and respected. It has a boy of ten taunt a boy of six just for "fun," not seeing that the little boy has feelings as deep as one's own. All the while, contempt weakens the person having it, makes him or her mean, lonely, unsure, ashamed within.

     I have seen, through teaching Aesthetic Realism in consultations, and seen in my own life: when a person learns to criticize her contempt, a proud, deep desire to be just comes to be, increases-and wins! Seeing that what we really want is not to lessen things but to find meaning in them-happenings, our family, objects, art, other people-makes a person kind and intelligent, and glad to be alive!

     Eli Siegel himself exemplified the ethics Aesthetic Realism teaches people today. He was passionately for justice to every person, every thing. I saw this with my own eyes, as any person who knew Mr. Siegel did.

     This has been an important year for the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. Classes and events at the Foundation have flourished-for instance, the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company's dramatic and musical presentations, and the magnificent photography exhibition in the Terrain Gallery. We have launched a new website: the Aesthetic Realism Online Library. And we have also created webpages dedicated to Aesthetic Realism consultations, where excerpts from actual consultations can be read. Our outreach programs have expanded to include new talks and workshops-your contribution sustains these programs, which in the last two years alone served over ten thousand boys and girls, women and men.

     On the beautiful Aesthetic Realism Foundation website [www.AestheticRealism.org] and Online Library [www.AestheticRealism.net], you can read articles and essays about what this education does and can do-including have marriages and love truly succeed; prevent tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech; have parents and children kinder, happier; and bring an end to prejudice and racism and, yes, even war.

     The knowledge people are looking for is in the education of Aesthetic Realism. Let us see that it is available for all!

	Sincerely,
	Margot Carpenter    Aesthetic Realism Consultant    Executive Director
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