LED BY THE BRICS:
Mankind Is Remaking Itself
Through Creativity Per Se
by Nancy Spannaus and Dennis Small
Sept. 29—Call it a cultural awakening, or a new Renaissance, in the sense the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley described it almost 200 years ago, in the wake of the American Revolution.
There is a power, expressing itself by scientific and cultural optimism and a determination to shape a beautiful future for mankind, which has gripped many of the world's leaders, especially those of China and India. This power, which Shelley called the "spirit of the age," is spreading across the planet, and bringing forth a fundamental change in man's conception of himself, and his relationship to the cosmos of which he is a living, noetic part. Lyndon LaRouche emphasized this week that there is no fixed principle or metric within this system—of man's relationship to the cosmos—and that the only metric for this self-defining process is one contained within the process of man's mind, creativity per se. Understanding and acting on that concept, is also the key to success, LaRouche stressed.
The markers for this shift have come in stunning events, particularly in the orientation and accomplishments of the BRICS nations, and their allies, toward nuclear power and expanding man's power in the Solar System through space exploration. India's recent successful launching of an orbiter around Mars is merely the most dramatic of the specific achievements, which in most cases are reflected in political commitments and agreements to develop new capabilities in space and nuclear science, as in Bolivia, which has been snatched from the clutches of the drug-pushing, bestial George Soros, to embark on a nationwide campaign for nuclear power. Similarly, with Egypt, which, under its new President el-Sisi, is reviving its long-shelved commitment to nuclear power, among other major projects.
A central component of this drive is that of providing a real future for the planet's youth, a generation that is being dumped on the scrap-heap by the dying trans-Atlantic financial system under the grip of the British Empire and its commitment to global depopulation.
A necessary concomitant of this new process is a new spirit of sovereign self-confidence arising in those nations which the British Empire, and its Wall Street and Washington branches, have been accustomed to treat as compliant servants, or merely irrelevant. Argentina and India, along with Russia, have plowed ahead on their development plans without kowtowing to Washington or the international financial institutions, confident that a new support apparatus exists to back up their courageous stands.
What is missing in this new global constellation is the nation which historically has epitomized the Renaissance spirit of a commitment to scientific progress and independence from empire—the United States. Now, trapped under a de facto dictatorship of pessimism and decay, under a President and Congress determined to implement the Empire's policy of geopolitics and deindustrialization, the U.S. and its latent capabilities are crippled, and dying. Bringing the United States into collaboration with the BRICS represents the necessary hurdle to be overcome in this revolution in progress.
A Self-Developing Process
What is the concept of man that is now coming to the fore? Lyndon LaRouche addressed this issue upon hearing the news of the successful Indian Mars mission last week.
What he said is: Look, the real lesson that we have to learn—and it's a lesson which is crucial for the political tasks before us—is that the system that we're looking at, is a system of man's relationship to the entirety of the cosmos: not just the planet Earth, not just his own economy, but the Solar System and beyond.
That system, LaRouche said, is a self-defining developing system. It has no fixed principle in it, it has no fixed metric. There is no rule that applies, now and forever. Why?
Well, the answer to that, he said, takes us back to what Johannes Kepler, and Nicholas of Cusa in particular, brought to Western civilization in the creation of the Golden Renaissance, and Cusa was the founding genius, in fact, of that Renaissance: Which is the idea that man, as a creative, noetic being, has the demonstrated capability of discovering and developing new universal principles, which, when applied, actually increase man's mastery over every aspect of the cosmos that he is in touch with, which now includes Mars—we're directly in touch with Mars.
Man's creativity in relationship to this cosmos system, means, according to Cusa, that there is no way you can measure anything in that system with a metric which is inferior to the creative process of man's mind itself. Cusa summarizes this in a simple, but profound concept: that man's mind is the metric of the universe, because man's mind is actually measuring its own creative impact on the cosmos around it.
Cusa broadens the concept to say that no merely finite thing can measure something which is relatively infinite. This is contrary to everything that that evil imbecile Aristotle taught, which is that you reach a measurement of the infinite by starting with tiny little pieces. You just get smaller and smaller pieces. It's like grabbing a sharp knife, in order to chop the sausage down as much as you can, to then get to the supposed "ultimate particle" which you then glue together and add up. That, supposedly, gives you your line. And then, you add lines together, that gives you your surface; you add surfaces, you get space. This is all nonsense, Cusa says. You measure the finite with the infinite, not the other way around: Meaning, man's mind is the only metric of the universe.
LaRouche's point was that this is a concept which China and its scientific leadership understands, and it's a feature of China that very few people actually get. It, however, is a universal concept, LaRouche said; it's accessible to all of mankind. And it is our task, as a political movement, to make that concept clear and accessible to all of humanity. Because the clarity that we need to have on that concept, is what is required to actually transform the current strategic situation.
We're in a period where one system—the British Empire—is dying, and threatens to bring the entire planet down with it. A new system is coming into being; it's being built. But it must be constructed on the principles and with an understanding that it is a system which is self-defining—where man's creative activity is the metric, which is not a metric, of that entire system, and that the source of the energy, of the power of that system, comes from man's creativity.
China, Russia, India, Egypt, Argentina, and Bolivia may not be discussing their perspective in those words. They may have different ways of expressing it—through the ideas of Confucius, for example—and may be going at it from different angles. But those are the ideas, which the LaRouche movement uniquely expresses and has developed, that are the key to saving humanity from a fate worse than death, a system governed by the British Queen and Obama: Let's put an end to that, and get on with the business of mankind.
China's Decision
The Chinese leadership, with its space program, has not only taken the clear lead in this global process, but is constantly seeking to elaborate the concept behind it. As Helga Zepp-LaRouche wrote in her recent article calling for a new international conference for an inclusive security architecture, the Chinese are rejecting geopolitics, and seeking to establish a basis for collaboration among nations which represents the common interests of mankind.
Just this past week, China's President Xi Jinping spoke at a conference celebrating the Chinese philosopher/scholar Confucius and the 2,565th anniversary of his birth, in which he expounded his government's thinking on this matter. Xi stated that "Culture is the soul of a nation. Countries must value and maintain their own thinking and culture, while recognizing and respecting others." He said, "All countries and nations should learn and draw on the strength and quintessence of others' ideology and culture.
"This is an important condition to encourage dignity, confidence and strength of native ideology and culture.... Any kind of civilization," he said, "no matter which country or nation it originated from, is fluid and open."
When she heard these remarks, Zepp-LaRouche commented: "Well, those are the founding principles of the Schiller Institute!" which she founded 30 years ago. Exactly this idea of the "dialogue of civilizations" in search of the common aims of mankind, which are premised on a concept of man which is the exact antithesis of everything that the British Empire represents, is what is required to raise mankind out of the current era of war and economic devastation.
The philosophical basis for the Schiller Institute's ideas in this area comes directly from the scientific and political conceptions developed by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In the 15th Century, Cusa put forward the idea of the "coincidence of opposites' in his Coincidentia Oppositorum, and demonstrated that rising to a higher level, above the apparent conflicting realities, is the only way to achieve "concordance in the macrocosm." Nor was it simply an academic issue with him, as he showed in his 1453 essay "On the Peace of Faith," where he addressed concretely the basis for escaping genocidal religious warfare, even as gruesome warfare between the Turks and Christendom was proceeding.
"On the Peace of Faith" features a discussion among representatives of various faiths, including Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism, and the Word, the latter representing the higher Truth, which alone can bring reconciliation of the separate views.
Two centuries later, Leibniz expounded the same conception in relation to the conflicts within Christianity, and between Christianity and Confucianism, and worked ceaselessly to build the basis for a productive peace among these forces.
These are the kinds of concepts that are needed to actually change the world in a profound way, and bring a productive peace today. If you want to get rid of terrorism, if you want to have actual security, you have to go to a higher level of thought. It is not the case, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. It's not true in geometry; Euclid was wrong on that, as well as just about everything else. It's not the case in politics: Because, if you want to get rid of terrorism, the worst thing to do is to respond directly, linearly, to the creation that the British Empire has put out there, such as ISIS, because then you get a spreading war! This is a point that Pope Francis has made, that Argentine Prsident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has made, and that Zepp-LaRouche has made repeatedly. You have to go at the underlying causes and roots of the problem.
Those root causes lie in a faulty conception of man as a beast, constantly battling with others for Lebensraum, resources, power. That conception, often expressed today as "competitiveness" rather than cooperation, is what underlies the intractable problems in international and economic relations today.
To resolve the problem means going to the higher level, particularly of viewing the area where all mankind is "in the same boat," so to speak: our relationship to space.
That is what China has done, at the highest level. That is what India is doing, and Argentina as well. Egypt and Bolivia are just beginning to become space-faring nations, but they are just as determined, because they see the future of their people, and most especially, their youth, based on fundamental scientific progress.
As Zepp-LaRouche put it in concluding her call for a new, inclusive security architecture, after her discussion of Cusa's concept: "Now we have arrived at the point where our survival as a species depends on achieving this level of thinking."
Focus on Youth
A further reflection of the revolutionary scientific spirit expressed by the BRICS and associated nations, is their concentration on the education and involvement of youth—as creators of the future. This focus has been strongly expressed by Indian Prime Minister Modi, Bolivian President Morales, and Egyptian President el-Sisi, as they seek to bring the young people of their nations into the economic and political process.
As you read the case studies below, reflect on your own nation, and yourself. What is your conception of your role, and that of your nation, in shaping the future of humanity? What do you need to do, to improve your capability to reach those goals? How can you, and your nation, link up with the beautiful vision of mankind developing the Solar System that these nations are working to realize?
