LaRouche speech Copenhagen Nov 30

Lyndon LaRouche's speech at the Founding Conference of the Nordic Chapter of the International LaRouche Youth Movement

Copenhagen, November 30, 2002

Poul: You are connected and you are now on the air.

Lyndon LaRouche: I recognize you.

Poul: I'm not really sure that you understand this, but despite it's dark up here, I see signs of life.

LaRouche: [laughing] In the faces of people around you?

Poul: Yeah, also in their faces. There's movement in the bodies, that means that something is going on. We have a very beautiful mixture here: half and half, Danish-Swedish.... We are 22 people in the room....

I would actually say, Lyn, this is a perfect mixture for--

LaRouche: Do you expect some combustion?

Poul: [laughing] Yeah! But, we didn't eat any beans, so you don't have to be afraid! You can not ignite anything like that.

So, you are on the air.

LaRouche: Okay, good.

Well, let's talk about two issues, one primarily the one I addressed in my Thanksgiving Presidential address, which was published in the briefing on Friday morning. And, the other is the relationship of, that is, the parliamentary problem; and the other being the relationship of Europe and the United States to what is happening in Eurasia, especially the Eurasian Triangle developments among Russia, China, India, and the countries associated with them, in these ventures.

First of all, the crucial thing for anyone to understand, right now, is that, we have come to the end of a long, ideological cycle. And I'm referring to a particular cycle--we're in many cycles; we have the post-war cycle; we have other cycles, in terms of history. But, in particular terms, about 1964, about the time the United States launched its commitment to a war in Indochina, officially, until the present, is one cycle, which has taken over Europe, which has taken over world relations, and so forth.

Now, this was, essentially, with a very crucial point of inflection in 1989-1991, when the Soviet power collapsed: With the collapse of the Soviet power, a new phase-change within the cycle came into existence, which is now, we're looking at, right away. This situation has resulted in a general breakdown of elementary human mental behavior, among the parliaments of most of the world, especially of the Americas, the U.S. Congress, and the parliaments of Europe. This is a crucial problem.

This is also a reflection of a vast mental problem, a mental breakdown, in the top 20% of income brackets, of the leading circles of Europe and the Americas. The point is, if the person next to you is in the upper 20% of income bracket (I don't think any of you are suspected of being so tainted), then'll you have a mental problem. Or, if you are otherwise, not a member of the upper 20% of income brackets, but are emotionally attached to something which is being part of that layer, then you are probably suffering a very severe mental problem: A mental problem, which is manifest in the absolute breakdown of mental life, among the parliaments of Europe, generally speaking, and the Americas. This is also a breakdown in the leading, or most politically influential layer of the population in general. This is a breakdown in what is called "popular opinion." If your neighbor shares popular opinion, get them to the nearest psychiatrist, immediately--we have an emergency on our hands. Because of the nature of this cycle.

As I've said before, what happened was, over 1964 approximately, the post-war tendency of the so-called "Utopian tendency" of Bertrand Russell and H.G. Wells, and their followers--the so-called "world government through nuclear warfare" tendency--this took over, increasingly, with the death of Franklin Roosevelt and the inauguration of President Harry Truman. This was not, however, predominant. Two things remained: We were, in the post-war period, especially up to the middle of the 1960s, committed to economic reconstruction of the world, especially Europe, the Americas, and a few other locations. We also had a strong resistance, to going to the Roman imperial, Waffen-SS style in politics, which was coming out of a group called the Utopians, which essentially were the people, who were the implementers of the policies set into motion by Russell and his type.

So, in the 1960s, a phase-shift occurred, in which we abandoned, in the United States and under Harold Wilson in Britain, abandoned the idea of being producer societies, whose values were based on increasing our productive powers of labor, and ameliorating life through that method; to becoming a post-industrial, consumer society. This was marked among the university-age youth of the '60s, of the so-called "rock-drug-sex youth counterculture."

The result is, that the people who are in top positions of power today, were people who entered adolescence or post-adolescence, during the period following the two events: That is, the combination of the missile crisis of 1962, the launching of the Indochina War, and widespread introduction of the rock-drug-sex youth counterculture, called the environmentalism, post-industrialism, consumerism, ecologism, and whatnot.

So, this was the culture shift. These people who came out into adolescence or adulthood, during this period, have no rational experience, of operating as responsible persons, in a producer society. They are essentially parasitical in their outlook, and think in terms of credit-card debt-management, consumption, standards of consumption, lifestyle, "how I feel," "how my neighbor feels," "what my neighbor's sex-change was," these were the dominant things that go on in that circle.

So, this is popular opinion. This is also the characteristic of the political parties of parliamentary systems, even down to little nut groups, like the Trotskyist cults. They all share this same kind of moral decadence, this intellectual decadence. And this is what the problem is with parliaments: They can not make consistent decisions, which have any competence, because the world of consumer society--that is, of imperial post-industrial society--has collapsed.

The other feature was, that with the collapse of the Soviet power system, that the English-speaking imperial powers, saw themselves as in a position to set up a one-world empire: This is called "globalization." This is called "free trade" in a radical form. This is typified by the introduction of NAFTA, in relations among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This is typified by the attempt to bring the British in on an English-American system, like the NAFTA free-trade system, and so forth. This is the the euro; this is the Maastricht agreements. These are all efforts to destroy the residue of the sovereign nation-state economy, a producers' form of society, in order to go to something, which is a caricature of what happened in Rome, during and following the Second Punic War: when Rome shifted, and Italy shifted, from being largely, still, a producer society, dependent upon the production at home, such as that of the farmers, the Gracchian reforms. Then, the failure of the Gracchian reforms, the defeat of the Gracchi, and the earlier successes of the Flamarian [ph] reforms, typify what this change was.

So, Rome became a parasite, with extensive use of slavery, ruling the rest of the world, and fighting wars of perpetual genocide along its borders, called the "limes" policy. What has happened, we now have that kind of policy: The collapse of the Soviet system--these lunatics decided that they can have a one-world empire, Bertrand Russell- or H.G. Wells-style, forever. And they're determined to use the supremacy in nuclear weapons, on the ground, on the sea, and in the air, to compel the entire world to submit to a world government, run by them.

Now, who is "them"? This gets interesting, when you get to Denmark, because it becomes a very sensitive subject, among names like Baring. In this process, of the attempt to destroy the Renaissance's effect on Europe, Europe was divided into two general groupings, which were induced to engage in war against one another. This is typified between 1511 and 1648, by a series of religious wars, out of which emerged two major factions, which came to a rather crucial point in the 18th Century. On the one side, you have the Hapsburgs. The Hapsburgs represented the idea of a one-world empire. (They called themselves Catholics: They weren't even human, so there's a little difference problem there.) On the other side, there developed a Venetian model in the north: This was the Anglo-Dutch liberal model. Now, Anglo-Dutch liberalism is nothing but a copy of ancient Venice, but a copy in different territory, and with somewhat different cultural antecedents.

But, Venice had emerged, from the fall of Charlemagne--actually from the accession to power of Otto III, as Emperor--Venice emerged dominant imperial, maritime power of the Mediterranean region and most of Europe, a power held by a financier-oligarchy, of the Venetian financier families. As Venice's power waned, as a state, after the Treaty of Westphalia--particularly in the last quarter of the 17th Century--power shifted significantly, with a dwindling Hapsburg power--toward an Anglo-Dutch liberalism, based upon the sea trade, the maritime trade, first from the Netherlands, and then from England, as England grew as a maritime power.

In due course, through that parent, William of Orange, and the India Companies, which he led, and the takeover of England, which consolidated this power, you had the emergence in the 18th Century, of the Anglo-Dutch liberal model, which included Copenhagen and other places in the North Sea, and so forth, which were all part of this former Hansa League, which had been taken over from the Netherlands. And this was then spread to England.

England is, by nature, as attested by the existence of what is called "central banking" systems. Now, central banking systems are noting but a consortium of private power, of financier interests--not necessarily "banking interests," but "financier interests." These financier interests control an institution, of central banking, which is relatively independent of government, and which even able to dictate terms, to governments. Now, that is the liberal system. That is the Anglo-Dutch liberal system, which is what the United States was founded to avoid; even though they get an infestation of this kind of nonsense, from time to time, as we have now.

So, the result of that is, you have European governments never really worked. Because European governments were never truly sovereign, with very rare exceptions, momentary exceptions. Because they were always conditioned, as they had been under the Lombard bankers, they had been conditioned into submission of political authority, to conditionalities imposed by what we call today "central banking" systems: Financier blocs, which were able dictate terms, including political terms, to governments. And therefore, European parliamentary systems, which had been more or less consistently based on so-called "central banking" system, or "independent central banking" systems, are not truly sovereign governments but are rather, a kind of peculiar partnership, in which the government is often the junior partner, and the financier interest controlling the central banking system, are the senior partners. They dictate money, issue of money; they dictate exchange rates; they dictate collection policies, bankruptcy policies, so forth and so on; and investment policies. So, actually, governments in Europe, at present, are essentially toys, playthings of central banking systems, of those financier interests, which are based on the Venetian model of imperial, maritime power by financier-oligarchical interests.

Now, the power of Europe, the economic power of Europe: Europe's domination of the world--and its domination by leadership, not domination by conquest--has been based on the Renaissance, on the emergence of truly sovereign nation-states, based on the principle of truthfulness, the Platonic principle of truthfulness, which is called "agape"; it is known in English usage, as "general welfare" or "common good." So, therefore, governments are obliged to rule, in the interest of the general welfare, the common good; and that includes their rule over financier and banking systems, in order keep these systems functioning within the bounds of the interest of the general welfare and the common good.

What happened during the post-war period, with the oligarchical system rising again, after the death of Roosevelt: In the middle of the 1960s, a drive was made to rid the world the world of the influence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidency. The result was, the post-industrial society, or the shift toward a consumer society, an imperial thrust, which was played out between the Soviet system and the Anglo-American system, until 1989-1991, when the Soviet system died, effectively.

At that point, the Anglo-American Utopian system saw itself emerging, spreading its wings--its wet wings, which like vultures, were hanging out in the Sun to dry, before flying--and these vultures were determined to set up their Bertrand Russell-style, nuclear weapons-dominated, dominant world empire; regulating world population; conducting perpetual wars against Islamic and other populations, and so forth and so on.

So, that's the situation we face.

Now, we come to the point, that the fact that this system, the liberal system, the Anglo-Dutch liberal system, inherently does not work: Because the failure to increase the physical productive powers, the labor per capita, results in a collapse of society. What is seen as result of the change, especially in 1964, is that, increasingly, especially after 1971, the rate of monetary value attached to physical objects has increased; whereas the physical value produced per capita, has decreased. This system of speculation has reached the point, that it's no longer impossible to maintain the system.

However, all social values and ordinary "success" and "lifestyle" values, within the populations, are based on the assumption, that the post-industrial, ecologist, liberal system, that is defined recently, is the way things work! Their credit-card lifestyle is based on the assumption--which is really more extensive in the United States, than in Europe--but this kind of mentality has so corrupted the population, that neither the parliamentary parties, nor the population in general--especially the upper 20% of income brackets (or those who define themselves, ideologically, part of the upper 20%) are capable of rational thoughts, about the crises which confront us now. They're in a state of quasi-schizophrenic denial, as a mass-psychotic phenomenon of denial, which is based on the attempt to maintain a system, that does not work.

It's like the fellow, who's trying to--you know, he's down in the Titanic, and sinking. And he's sitting down there, under the bulkheads, sticking oars out in the water, to try to paddle the Titanic to safety. That is the spectacle, of your typical so-called "upper middle-class" mentality, through Europe and much of the United States today.

And it's for that reason that parliaments and similar institutions tend not to work. Because, neither popular opinion, as merely popular opinion, nor the system, works. But, they're trying desperately, to find solutions within the framework of the system. They're trying to say, "Let's cut, cut, cut! Austerity will save us! We must have more austerity. We must have more austerity! We must have more austerity!! We must have more austerity!!!" Meanwhile, the system gets worse and worse, with each dose of this poison, , for some strange reason.

Okay. On the other hand, you have a program of survival, which began to emerge largely at my suggestion, out of the Summer and early Fall of 1998, with the collapse of the GKO bond speculation in Russia. At that point, I proposed, that we had to put up a counterbalance, to the collapsing of the economies of Western Europe and the Americas, by building up the economies of the Eastern Eurasia. And this buildup must occur, based on a strategic agreement, among Russia, China, and India, which are quite dissimilar cultures, but, if they could agree on a common principle of cooperation, this would be a framework, within which our nations--with still different cultural antecedents--could join and work.

What you're seeing now, is that. You're seeing, as recently restated again and again from Russia, and elsewhere. You're seeing the emergence of, what I called, backed in 1998, the "Strategic Triangle." The Strategic Triangle can not work by itself. It is a component, it is a phase-space, of the global system which is essential for a global system which works. The immediate implication for Europe, is that--Europe is dying, Western Europe. The economies of Western Europe are dying: Germany is dying; all of Western Europe is dying, economically. The only way you can save it, is an increase in its return to conventional European export trade: which means, essentially, producing for high-technology capital-goods export, primarily. This would save Germany, which already depends upon China, as its only significant growth customer. This is essential for Italy. It's essential for all of Europe.

Only a stable Strategic Triangle system, as a partner of Europe, represents a normal baseline, sufficient for a revival, of an otherwise doomed world economy. And, one would assume that the United States would, with the Americas as a whole, would cooperate and would participate in that kind of new, international monetary system, financial system, economic system.

So, the point is, the resistance to that, is what the problem is. But, the resistance comes, not only from the opposition by the parliamentary parties; opposition by the upper 20% of the populations, who are clinically insane, in Europe and the Americas; but also, the pure inertia of popular opinion. You have the Classical case of a true tragedy on a global scale: You have a society, which is morally incapable of surviving, as long as it clings to what is considers its presently adopted values; its presently adopted assumptions, axiomatic assumptions. This is tragedy: Tragedies are never caused by leaders of society. They're caused by the lack of leadership in society, leadership for change, for necessary change--which is what I'm doing: providing the leadership for necessary change, because, around the world, there is no other such leadership. Other people who are echoing what we are doing, as you see in the spread of the Strategic Triangle, which I proposed in 1998, is now a hegemonic tendency, among the leading nations of that part of Eurasia. Well, that's not exactly the lack of influence, and we're doing some good. We have influence in other parts of the world.

But, those who resist what I represent, represent policies of governments, and nations, which are doomed, if they continue with their present policies.

This is often the case in history. This is the true case of the fall of empires. This is the true meaning of all Classical tragedy. Don't believe any other interpretation of any Classical tragedy than the one I just gave you: They're all incompetent. And they're the babbling of fools.

These are the true elements to consider, from Europe. We must have the policies I've proposed, which are the only existing, feasible alternative, to the suicidal destruction, which is inhereing in the present parliamentary systems, and in popular opinion. Especially popular opinion, deeply embedded, in those ideologically self-identified with the upper 20% of family-income brackets, in Europe, the Americas, and so forth.

These people are insane. Therefore, we have to change them. Now, even a few among us would say, "You have to go and influence them, by appealing to their existing values." That's like trying to give advice to a guy, who absolutely refuses to discuss getting out of the Titanic, when it's sinking. What you may have to do, is clobber the guy, put an arm-lock on him, take him up to the bridge, and throw him overboard! Otherwise, he will not possibly survive. And even that's precarious. But, that's your problem.

And, my problem is, I have to do that, despite the reluctance among many of you, among us, to do what I say what must be done. Despite the fact the evidence is all in: I've been right; those who have opposed me on this, have been wrong. But, they're still clinging, out of fear, to popular opinion, and trying to ingratiate themselves with leading institutions, which are themselves morally and intellectually bankrupt. And, thus, as many cultures in the past, plunge into a tragic demise, which is what faces us unless we change things.

So, that's where we stand. So, you're in a very interesting period in history. Times have existed like this before: The empires, like Mesopotamia, have collapsed repeatedly; other empires have collapsed. We're now at the point, that the present world system is on the verge of an early, rapid collapse, into a generalized Dark Age of the planet -- unless we succeed.

In order to succeed, you have to be clear. You've got to be uncompromising, when it comes to dealing with clinical insanity of the type very prevalent today. You have to recognize the problems of governments, is not that this party is not that good; or this party is not that good. The problem is, all the parties stink. They all stink! They stink for one reason: Because popular opinion stinks! And the stink is elected to parliament. And the parliament spreads the stink--which is what it's elected to do! And, if the stink doesn't work, therefore the governments don't work, and the people find that, they too, don't work!

So, that's a very interesting situation. To me, as a person of an historical bent, it is extremely interesting. I sit back, and I'm very sad about what's happening to the human race; but I'm very happy, that, in this best of all possible worlds, as Leibniz defined it: Stupidity will not prevail.

Have fun!

DIALOGUE WITH LAROUCHE

LaRouche: You guys still there?

Michelle: Yes, yes.

Poul: So, we'll see if we can get anybody to ask questions here.

LaRouche: I don't have any influence with them.

Poul: You weren't speaking about Hamlet, this time, Lyn. I expected to hear the modern Hamlet.

LaRouche: Well, you've seen Hamlet. You see him all over the place. Everybody in power in Europe, is trying to be Hamlet! It's a bad performance, too--that makes it worse! [laughter] I don't think Hamlet's to blame. You said that: Denmark was to blame.

Q: Hi, I want to ask whether we can survive. What are the answers? What are the answers, that we can survive somehow?

LaRouche: Well, I'm trying to do that, exactly. It's time for humanity to grow up. And it's to stop thinking about which popular opinion is right, and to recognize that all popular opinion is wrong, because it is popular opinion.

So, rather than quarrelling about what popular opinion should be, why not say, "It shouldn't be"? Hmm? "To be or not to be." And, it shouldn't be! Reason has to prevail. And reason means, in a sense, a Platonic standard of reason, as I've done a great deal to define this. That's why I've emphasized among the youth, the importance of using Gauss's 1799 exposure of the intrinsically fraudulent character of the argument of d'Alembert, Euler, and Lagrange, which many people, who study science today believe in, the damned fools. That, one has to free oneself of this popular opinion, this cult of popular opinion, and instead, understand that reason, the ability to know the truth in the Socratic way, must be the standard of leadership in political behavior.

We must, also, as I've emphasized in addressing this question of youth and leadership; we have to recognize that one of the great problems, of the presently incumbent generation in power, is that they have created for their children a no-future society. They insist on gratitude, that what they've give their children is no future. But, they cling desperately to their pleasure, in what they are, and insist that society admire what they are: "You must learn from us! You must earn your laurels! You can't question us, yet! You have to learn from us, first!"

"Learn to do what? To destroy society? You already perfected that. We don't need to learn that any more. We have to replace what you represent. We have to have a society, in which we, and our children, can live. Not the doom, which inheres in what you bequeathed to us."

And therefore, what's lacking, the moral deficiency of the presently hegemonic generation, in power in most parts of the world, especially in Europe and the Americas, is, they have no concern for the effects of what they do, on coming generations of the world as a whole--not even their own nations.

So, therefore, what we have is a moral breakdown. And what we have to do, is recognize, first of all: That that is a moral breakdown; that that is the problem; and that some people, like the Christians having to face Nero and so forth, sometimes have to stand up for truth, and not try to accommodate popular opinion, as tends to be the case today. And, then you have a question--everybody faces the question: If we adapt to popular opinion, on the presumption that you must influence popular opinion, to succeed, then we shall all fail. It's only if we stand up to know, that our problem is, essentially, the moral and intellectual rottenness of popular opinion, that must be replaced, then we have a chance of surviving.

Q: Hi Lyn, this is Feride. We had some fun here, with the student meetings. We began this around seven, eight weeks ago, and this is very exciting. So, I wanted to say something about the question of leadership, because I think it's sometimes difficult, you know. I want the young people to take leadership. What does it mean?

LaRouche: It means, essentially, developing one's mind. And, what I try to do, is set the model for it. That's why I do these long, two-hour, four-hour, discussions with groups of youth. And I particularly like--I mean, a hundred in a meeting is sometimes necessary, but it's not the best mechanism for pedagogical work. Actually, about 20, 25 is your optimal level for pedagogical work, in terms of discussion among youth; leadership discussion, scientific discussion. Because, it's not so small, that one or two personalities dominate the entire discussion, and it's not so large, that very few have a chance to intervene actively, into the discussion. So, the usual thing, a class size in a secondary school or a university, should be between 15 and 25, generally; except for general lectures. But most of the class work should be in that 15-25 participant range.

Because, in that, you have this intense kind of Platonic-Socratic dialogue, which is necessary, to bring forth a round of intellectual development among the participants. As a matter of fact, the model to be studied, is to take the set of Plato's Socratic dialogues as a whole, and adding in The Laws, which is another kind of--it's not a dialogue, but it has many of the qualities of dialogue--and take these as an example of pedagogical model. That is, what should happen, in a good classroom, a Classical-humanist classroom, which has not less than, say, 15 pupils, and not more than, say, 25: What kind of experience should that be?

Now, look at the participants in any Platonic dialogue, among the characters in the dialogue. See how it looks. And by studying all of Plato's dialogues from this standpoint, you get a sense of how the discussion, how the pedagogy has to go, to make it work. When people try to teach at people--"learn after me"--that really does not change people. It's only when people go through their own cognitive experience.

Now, you'll find, in the youth work, we're having in the United States--and I pulled much of the youth work away from the older members, away from their control. Because they were killing it! They couldn't help but kill it. You see it in Germany: The predominant tendency among the leadership in Germany, is to kill the youth work. And it's a result of precisely that pathological phenomenon that I referred to in my remarks today: You have a generation, which represents the incumbency of power, by that generation, which causes people in that generation, for reasons that they themselves don't understand, to try to impose what they think are their values, and their prejudgments, upon young people. And they're wrong! And therefore, if you let them get their hands on the youth movement, they will destroy it! Because, everyone says, "The youth must do as we tell them."

I say, "I don't worry about the youth doing what I tell them. That doesn't get you anywhere, because I'm not going to be here forever." So, I'm not going to sit around on a cloud someplace, issuing manifestos, which will tell the youth movement when to blow their noses. That's not the way the world is going to work! I have to develop among young people, the self-starting capability, of doing a better job, than their parents' generation did. And, there's only one way to do that: And that's to bring out their inner potential, which means, an active, dialogue type of process--a Socratic dialogue type of process--among themselves.

And, at the same time, to take this kind of process, and approach the population in general, that way. The population is sick, mentally ill. They need help! How do you help them? By yelling at them? That's not exactly likely to succeed. How do you do that? You get their attention. What do you do? You're trying to get them in a Socratic dialogue, focussed on the leading issues of the moment; but also, responding on other things that they drag in. Because these are things that have to be resolved in their mind, if they're going to function effectively.

So, you have to go out to recruit people, with a Platonic dialogue, as a method. And, to recruit from various parts of the population. And, what will happen is, if you do a good job, you will find the youth will tend to respond most actively--not all of them, but enough of them. Those who respond to what you're doing, will then see what is happening, and they will say, "Hey! You've got a movement going here." And then, they will respond.

So, if you want to recruit the people who are in the older generation, or the younger part of the older generation, you have to demonstrate to them, that you're able to organize people from the younger generation, that is, the 18- to 25-year-old generation. You can only do that, succeed in both purposes, by using the method of the Socratic dialogue, in which the development of ideas, not the teaching of doctrine, is the basis of the process.

That's why we have--with what I've done in the U.S.--we've had success. Well, yes, we have problems, but you expect problems. That the problems are no reason to quit. The problems are a reason to continue: Because, what you're doing, is, you're trying to solve precisely those problems, and you have to keep working at it.

So, what I did, is, I pulled the youth movement, out from under the influence of the "old fogeys": Old fogeys is almost anybody older than 30 and under 55--that's an old fogey. I pulled the thing out from under their control, and put the leadership under direction of people who are more sensitive to principled Platonic dialogue, who are less "screwed up" (as they say), by this Baby Boomer ideology. And then, let the young people, themselves, develop in their movement, develop an organic leadership around this process of task-oriented, Platonic-Socratic dialogue. I don't know of any other way to do it. And the way I administer and intervene in this process, the way I've been protecting it for the past three years--protecting it from older people--is just that: Is knowing that, if you could create the right environment, that the young people out there, who know that their parents' generation has destroyed society, who know that they have to introduce a change, they're also intelligent enough to know, that they don't know how to make the change, yet. And, they'd run fast, and learn how to do it. And, they know that colleges won't give it to them; they know that textbooks won't give it to them; they know the Internet won't give it them--that is, the so-called "information society."

So, you offer them the one thing that can give them the quality they need: an organized process of Socratic, focussed upon the crucial issues of this time, as Plato, in his dialogues, focussed on the crucial issues of his time. And let people assimilate that method, that idea. And from that, you produce a generation, which knowing that it has no future, under a continuation of the leading generation's policies, will struggle for survival. They have a very strong motive. But, if you bring in garbage, and you start to give the same old garbage as the schools, and the parental generation's into them, you destroy them and demoralize them.

That's the issue. That's the problem.

Q: Hello.... I don't know if you heard about it: We've been calling up the Danish parliamentarians, over here (God help us!). We've managed to get at least one of the parties to have a debate of this New Bretton Woods call. But, their answer, their reply back to us, was that they thought the ideas were sympathetic, but they fundamentally disagreed with us, on the issue of the environment. And, as you say, the stink of the parties is the stink of popular opinion, because this is exactly one of the main issues that we confront, when we're in the streets.

I mean, when you talk to people, you can typically tell, whether their intentions are good, even in spite their opinions, they can have good intentions. But, you often end up in this problem, that you disagree about what the crucial issues actually are. And I've never really managed to find a good way around that problem. I mean, when you have a disagreement about what the crucial issues are, whether it's the fact that you have millions of people dying from underdevelopment, or whether it's the fact that you have the rain forests losing their leaves, or whatever. How do you get around that particular form of lunacy?

LaRouche: Well, that's exactly where you first understand, "Well, this is some lunacy. Now, we come here, not to try to dictate to you, but just to free you from your lunacy. And this ecology stuff, which has been widely induced, is lunacy.

"You will not survive, if you cling to this. You have a choice, because, if you cling to this ecology doctrine, as a start, you will not survive. And, if you don't accept that, after reasonably considering what the evidence is, then you are not capable--you are insane!" By every functional standard of sanity.

A population, or layer of the population, which is incapable of facing a truth, on which its continued existence depends, is like the fabled lemmings: They're determined to go to where they're headed, over the cliff, no matter what anyone says. And, they will screech and shriek in ecstasy, as they fly from the brink of the cliff, down to the sea and rocks below. And, the only thing I know that works, is to actually present that image to people, and say, "Well. You have a right to an opinion? Does the lemming have the right--the legendary lemming--I don't think that lemmings are actually that stupid, but the legendary lemmings do jump off the cliff, and shriek in ecstasy all the way to the sea and rocks below. And, if you want to do that, I suppose you have a right to do that, and I suppose we're not to interfere, right? Hey, buddy: It's nuts!"

I think that's the only way you can deal with it.

Q: Hello Lyndon? This is Simon, and I've got a question for you.

LaRouche: Yes.

Q: Actually, first I wanted to remind you about Plato, saying in a dialogue, that the worst destiny you can have, is having a leader who's less capable than yourself; and that, that you have to enforce the people who are more capable yourself to become leaders. And that's what I think we should do with you!

So, you've been devoted to the Roosevelt solution, or program. And, my question is--because after he was in office, things were corrupted again. My question is, what measures do we need to make, to ensure that this wouldn't happen again? Is there anything we can do?

LaRouche: Well, that's what I keep worrying about. There's not much understanding of Roosevelt among Europeans, in general--and even Americans--because you get these things: "But, what was Roosevelt's position on this?" "What was Roosevelt's position on this?" And so forth. That's all nonsense. History is not a sequence of votes on positions. History is a process, in which certain characteristic development is morally positive, and the lack of that development is morally negative.

Now, Roosevelt inherited a destruction of the United States, which occurred under the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, a very, very distant cousin--distant morally, intellectually, as well as biologically; Woodrow Wilson, who was the co-founder of the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States; Calvin Coolidge, who was a complete wretch. And, so you have, from 1901, with the successful assassination of President McKinley, who was a human President, as opposed to Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, or Coolidge. You had in 1929, a collapse of the international monetary system, in what something between a cyclical and systemic collapse--it had the qualities of both: It was cyclical in form, but it was systemic in the sense, that what had happened leading into World War I and its aftermath, essentially Versailles, had introduced a systemic feature of doom, into the international monetary-financial economic system.

So, Roosevelt came to power, in 1932-33, in the election of 1932, on the basis of a Hoover, who had refused, like many of today's politicians, to face--. Hoover knew what the reality was. But Hoover refused to face, and tried to adapt to prevailing opinion of his party and institutions. It wasn't because he was stupid; it was because he was morally weak, and didn't have the ability to step over his predecessors.

Roosevelt did.

Now, Roosevelt was a man, who had deeply embedded in him, the legacy of the American Revolution, which is distinctly American, and it's not European. The ideas were European. But there's nothing in the American Revolution, which was a copy or reflection of European political government institutions, which many Europeans don't understand that. They don't understand, that the European model--put aside the Hapsburg model, which is obviously garbage; the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs: Forget them. But, look at the model which came to the fore in Europe, over successive periods, the Anglo-Dutch liberal model, which emerged successfully, triumphantly, in the aftermath of the Treaty of Westphalia.

This was inherently a failure, from the beginning, for reasons which I gave in my presentation, just shortly before, here. The United States was founded on a rejection of the Anglo-Dutch liberal model. Now, the idea of the American Revolution came from Leibniz, or came through Leibniz, and reflected the 15th-Century Renaissance. It did reflect the influence of Mazarin, the influence in forming the Treaty of Westphalia, in 1648; these things were reflect. But the governmental model of Europe, the disintegration of the Hapsburg system, over the century or so, emerged as triumphant as the Anglo-Dutch liberal model--which Denmark and Sweden know very well. That's what you've been subjected to--see how your grandparents' and great-grandparents' lives, and so forth--ever since Baring [ph?].

So, we were distinct. And we were distinct in the sense, that we did not believe, did not accept the idea of a financier-oligarchical rule. And, we were opposed to setting up what we would call today, the equivalent of an independent central banking system. We believed that the government had to have the authority, the power, and responsibility, to shape financial, monetary, and economic policy, to conform to the requirements of the principle of the general welfare. And, we believed that we had to promote the creative impulses of the individual, the cognitive impulses of the individual, to that end. We had to provide the basic economic infrastructure; we had to promote the individual and his freedom, to make the innovations, which would make the system work. That was our system.

So, Europeans do not know that system. Some don't as a matter of information, as a matter of education. But, in terms of the parties, in terms of the policies, they don't know it. And therefore, they're very confused about this kind of thing. And therefore, their judgment on Roosevelt is often mistaken, because their conception of history is completely absurd. It's contrary to actual reality: Because they try to impose an arbitrary model, of opinions, and do's and don't's, and of specific issues, on history, rather than understanding history as a process of development.

Roosevelt did understand it as a process of development. And he unleashed a series of revolutionary changes, to save the U.S. economy, under the guidance of principles which would restore it, to its original intention, original Constitutional intention: the principle of the general welfare. All of the fights, that Roosevelt had, in the United States, against his internal opponents, and his fights with Churchill up to the last moment of his life, were based on that single issue: the general welfare. His opponents inside the United States, which are the so-called "free traders"--or we used to call them the "free traitors"; not "traders," "traitors"--always expressed that.

Now, Roosevelt's power was based partly upon the support he got. But, also, was conditional, because the population in general was still rotten. Generations of the population in the 20th-Century, prior to his Presidency, had been corrupted, turned rotten, by what had happened inside the United States. And therefore, the reason Roosevelt's power, in part, lay in the fact that he was saving the nation, from a catastrophe, which was the experience of the people. That the opposition to him was there: in the people, in popular opinion, as well as in certain financier circles.

Now, Roosevelt was indispensable, in getting the United States out of the Depression, and getting it through the war. But, after June 1944, when the Anglo-American breakthrough, in Normandy, indicated the final defeat of Nazi Germany was now inevitable; at that point, in the Summer of 1944, Roosevelt's enemies moved to install a pig as the Vice Presidential nominee, in the hope that Roosevelt would die soon, and their pig would become President. That pig was Harry Truman. And, that is the essential pivot in the history of the United States after Roosevelt.

So therefore, to understand Roosevelt, you have to understand him as representing a certain body of principle, not a set of issues, but a principle: The principle was to restore the American System, and to free the world from the grip, of the imperial maritime power of Anglo-Dutch liberalism. So, if you look at the thing as a process, in those terms, and realize that Roosevelt did not have a population which was intellectually developed to the point, that it heeded commitment to its own best interest; but that the American population was a fickle population, which loved Roosevelt when he saved them from poverty and defeat; and when he saved the world from Hitler: They loved him for that. But the minute Hitler was doomed, they said, "Get rid of this guy!" And, that's what happened.

And, it took a generation, to get that legacy of Roosevelt out of the system, and the American people. Until Kennedy's assassination, the missile crisis, and the launching of the Indochina War, the American people were still enough committed to the Roosevelt legacy, they would not tolerate fascism. But, with the missile crisis, with the assassination of Kennedy, with the launching of the war, the American people became pigs, opportunist pigs. And, their children were educated to be pigs. And the rock-drug-sex youth counterculture, as it was reflected, for example, by environmentalism, is a reflection of the moral degeneracy, which spread around the world, over the past 35 years. And, that's the way to understand Roosevelt.

So, what am I doing? Today, I know this, what I just said to you. Okay. Am I going to fail, as Roosevelt, in one sense, failed? That's my concern, that I shall not fail. I can not pre-determine what the result will be. But I can pre-determine what I will do about shaping the result. And therefore, you will see, in all my writings, I do something that Roosevelt never did: Roosevelt expressed ideas, but he was not a man of ideas. He was a man who acted on ideas, who had ideas, who developed his understanding to use them, with good executive power, with leadership capability. But, he was not a creator of ideas. He was not a scientific discoverer, as I am.

So, I know everything Roosevelt knew, in terms of how to govern and how to lead. But, I, also, am a creative personality, a scientific discoverer. And recognize, that you must have, as Plato emphasized, with the idea of the philosopher-king, that a world in crisis needs the leadership of a philosopher-king, not merely a good President, under the present circumstances. And my job is provide to that necessary quality of leadership, of a philosopher-king.

Q: I was interested in how you think art and religion--I don't know--a part of your vision for the future?

LaRouche: Well, I'm very simple on religion, you know. I don't believe in all these complicated interpretations and doctrinal assumptions. I have great fun. I say only what I know, and I'm very clear on this, I think. And I find no inconsistency whatsoever, between what I know, and what I do politically.

So, the Mosaic doctrine, the nature of man and I Genesis: that's fine. The Gospels of John and Paul: I know them to be true. And I know what Christ is, as they portray him, and I know that. And for me, that's enough.

The question is, what's my obligation, as a result of that knowledge? That's also clear enough to me. I could be clearer, but in principle, it's clear enough to me. I can only, shall we say, perfect it a bit more.

Q: [follow-up] The question about art? I don't know, what your view is on art.

LaRouche: Same thing. I am probably one of the most important discoverers of the principle of art in modern history. And, the most crucial of my achievements, relative to what I discovered from the work of others, was largely accomplished on that basis, during the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which I recognized that the principles of Classical artistic composition, have two qualities: First of all, if they are true principles, like Bach's principle of well-tempered composition--if they are true principles, then they are universal principles with the same efficiency of universality as other universal physical principles. They have universal value. Secondly, that these, as such, such as the Classical sculpture developed from Greece; the Classical artistic composition, as typified by the work of Bach, and his successors through Brahms; Classical drama, as exemplified in part by the work of--Francois Rabelais, actually, or Cervantes, in a lesser degree, but the similar principle; or Shakespeare's compositions; or the work of Lessing; the work of, similarly, of Moses Mendelssohn, and the work of Schiller.

As Schiller said, in his Jena lectures on history, that art is not merely a beautiful exercise. But art is a way of generalizing, for the human mind, the principles which underlie human history. And thus, a people which really participates in a successful form of Classical artistic composition, as an audience, with a great performance of drama or music, that people is experience, through art, a strengthening of the power of insight into actual history, and are able to understand their own times (as well as other times), from that standpoint.

You see, there are two things about economic progress: One is, that the physical side of economic progress depends upon discover of certain universal principles, which increases man's potential power in and over nature--the power to exist. But, the effectiveness of these principles, depends upon forms of social cooperation, which are consistent with the principles themselves. And those Classical artistic compositions' principles are the exemplification of the methods of political thinking of a people, which are necessary for a good society.

So, that, in the sense, that I look at Christianity--as I indicated in the question of Moses: Well, I know that the Mosaic doctrine of man, is true. It's a scientific truth. So, that thing from I Genesis 1, is not a question of "received doctrine," of "revealed religion" to me. It's truth, and I know it personally, to be true, scientifically. The same thing, in terms of the Gospels of John and Paul, respective Christ: I know that person to be true, as a scientific fact, not as a point of revealed religion or doctrine.

The same thing with art. I just art the same way. I know that Franz Liszt is a fraud! That all the Romantics of the 19th Century were frauds, as opposed to the Classical composers. Those who call Heine a Romantic, are committing an obvious fraud. That, the Romantics of the 19th Century, tried to imitate, to caricature, to parody Classical composition. For example: Liszt, in his famous piano sonata, where he attempted to do a "commentary," so to speak, on Mozart's K. 475--it's a failure! Absolute failure! Whereas Chopin's attempt, with his famous piano sonata, to deal with the same subject, was a success, [inaud], the first one was an excellent success. But, Liszt was a complete failure. Liszt was trying to parody Classical composers; there's no content to him. As Clara Schumann said of her husband's work: "My husband never wrote passage-work." The difference between Romanticism and Classicism. In Classicism, the principle of rigorous standard of truthfulness is there. And, that's the point.

People get confused on art, because they say, "But, isn't that art?" "Isn't that art?" If does not have rigorous standard of truthfulness, it is not Classical artistic composition.

Thus, on those terms? Yes, as the Bach St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion, for example, exemplify: There is no separation between Classical artistic composition and performance, and a Classical religious conception.

Q: My name is Magnus, and I study Russian at the University of Stockholm. Some of the education--it's purely propaganda, and some is not. But, I was wondering: I now take lectures in this course, "all you want to know about economy." And, I have found pure, simple things--how to measure the state of an individual's economy, and how the society really is. For instance, the pensions, in the future, they will get worse; and for instance, what people buy, what kind of food people buy. Can we tell some more about this pure, simple things? How to really measure how it's the economy? And I have also told people, that these two things, about the pensions and about the what people buy--what kind of food, yeah?--and, I have seen a big relief in people's faces, because they suspect something's wrong.

For instance, you really say these two simple things, and they realize that all what the leading economists say, and all the politicians, it's just a lie. So, can you tell us some more about how to measure one individual's economy?

LaRouche: I've approached this from many aspects, and many fora, at different occasions in the past, and I've recognized that people will look at you, when you tell them something; and, they may grasp some of the things you say--what I say, for example--but, then they miss it; they miss the essential point. They come up to the edge, and they slip away.

The problem is this, and that's why I--with the youth movement--emphasize so many years ago, and they asked me: "What do we do, for our education?" And so, I said, "We should start with Gauss's 1799 statement of the fundamental theorem of algebra." Now, the reason for that, which should be obvious from things that I've written, particularly recently on this question of the "Historical Individual" and "The Next Generations," which are now in publication: Is that, the basic problem, in modern civilization, is the problem of Aristotelianism, and its derivatives, such as its copies, such as empiricism, cartesianism, and so forth. That, just as Gauss attack d'Alembert, Euler, and Lagrange, for committing fraud on the issue of the complex domain, that this goes to the very heart, of the essential cultural incompetence prevailing in modern European civilization.

What was already demonstrated by Archytas and Plato, and their followers, in Classical Greek work, is that the doubling of a line, the doubling of a square, or the doubling of a cube, are not operations, which can be explained arithmetically, or by simple geometry. And the minute, somebody says, "No, no, no! I can show you how to double a line," you recognize immediately, that they don't understand the problem. And, when you see them failing, again and again, as Plato deals with this in the Meno and Theaetetus dialogues, for example--you see this repeated. And, you see that the [crass?] school of modern mathematics is derived, largely, from the authority of Lagrange's affirmation, of this mechanical system of mathematics, as opposed to physics.

You recognize, the key problem is cultural, in that sense. People do not understand what an idea is. This is the problem of Immanuel Kant. This is the problem of the empiricists, the positivists, the existentialists, the Cartesians, and so forth. They all introduce purely arbitrary axioms, or axiomatic assumptions, which are pure arbitrary, ivory-tower fantasies, and try to explain the important things by use of these fantasies, as axioms of a system. For example, doubling a line: Look at Gauss's demonstration of the fallacy of this thin--the doubling of a line. Or, you can see the entirety of Gauss's Disquisitiones, as his doctoral dissertation, in which his number theoretical questions are laid out. And you see that numbers are not simply counting numbers. That the number system has characteristics, which include the complex domain, as in the case of biquadratic residues, as Gauss's second paper on that shows.

That there are concepts here, which lie beyond, the accepted standards of teaching, of modern textbooks in universities. And, when I explain to people, how my understanding of economy works, I will get blank faces, at the time their mind comes up against these kinds of assumptions in the existing curriculum. So, to me, it was totally clear what the problem was! All my life's work has been based on understanding the fallacy of that kind of thinking.

But, nonetheless, most people have it. They say, "Well, I learned this in school. I learned this in university." "I got my degrees in this," and so forth. "Whaddya mean? You telling me my university didn't know what they were doing? Telling me I was a victim of false education?!" "Yep!" And, they just look at me (sometimes angrily), and that's the way it goes.

But, that's why I emphasize this, because what Gauss does, is to restate, essentially, what was argued by the Platonic mathematicians, from Archytas and Plato, through Eratosthenes and Archimedes, in the Classical Greek, pre-Roman civilization, pre-Roman culture; anti-Aristotelian culture. And, most of the corruption of modern society comes either from the acceptance of Aristotle, or the empiricists.

So, that's where the problem lies. The key thing here, is to understand what an idea is. Then, you have a second problem, which comes out of the root. As I pointed out--or discovered, in a sense, in 1952-53: It is impossible, having discovered how the economy works, and having proven, in a sense, how it works in terms of action, the question is, how do you represent an economy as a whole. At that point, I took a second reading, more seriously, at Riemann's 1854 habilitation dissertation, in which I understood what he meant, by a generalized, anti-Euclidean--not non-Euclidean, but anti-Euclidean--physical geometry. And, I recognized immediately, that that is the only way you can describe the way in which a physical economy works. You can say things about physical economy, which are true, as I had done before; you can make discoveries about this, which are true, as before. But, you can not say, what is a physical economy, in the large, as an historical process, without using Riemann's work, and what goes into it. Which means also, starting from things like Gauss's fundamental theorem of algebra on the complex domain.

So, that's where I put the emphasis, and that's where the difficulty lies.

The other way I put it is this: I've used Vernadsky, and my other work did not come out of Vernadsky; but, I found it very useful, despite the fact there are certain differences of my view and those of Vernadsky (but, they're not really significant, with respect to Vernadsky's competence). Vernadsky lays out what is actually a Riemannian phase-space system, of three phase-spaces: abiotic systems, as defined experimentally; living systems, as distinct from abiotic systems, also defined as a principle of life experimentally; thirdly, the Noosphere, as the transformation of the Biosphere, introduced externally by a phase-space of cognition: that is, human intervention to transform the physical effects, performed upon the Biosphere.

Therefore, what we're doing, as man, can be situated in a Riemannian recapitulation of Vernadsky's conception of the Noosphere: That we, as man, by making individual discoveries of principle--like those made by Archytas, for example, on the question of the doubling of the cube--that, by these kinds of discoveries of universal principles, by the human mind, we change the universe, by giving ourselves the power to intervene in the universe, by newly discovered universal laws.

The purpose of economy is actually based on that. So therefore, that which is essential in the nourishment and the development of the individual, and the population, and the nation, to maintain that process of growth, through technological and scientific progress, that is where growth generates. Growth is not an expression, can not be measured in terms of energy, even though growth is reflected by increases of the energy flux-density of processes. But, that's only a descriptive view of the microcosm. In fact, growth comes only from an increase of power: power which means the same thing it meant to Plato, in discussing the doubling of the line, the square, and the cube, or power as expressed by his discussion and that of others, of the five Platonic solids; power as described by Leibniz, in his definition as Kraft; and economy.

So, the point is, yes, you can find many examples of the type you refer to in this kind of problem, which illustrate, in a fairly simple way things which are useful, as opposed to those which are not. But, to generalize that, one has to have this conception I've used, of a Riemannian type of manifold of economy, which is approximated simply by looking at the work of Vernadsky on the Noosphere, from the standpoint of Riemann's actual conception, which--again, Riemann's conception is one which is derived, most immediately, from the work of Gauss, as typified by this one 1799 attack on by Gauss, on Legendre, Euler, and d'Alembert.

Q: Hi, I'm Janos. I want to rewind to a less abstract part of this discussion, about people being delivered, what you would say, a more sensible way of looking at life, in order to expand this organization. And, I propose the thesis, that if people are somehow presented with a new way of thinking, they are so addicted to the insensitive, that they're currently thinking, that they'll start to suffer from withdrawal, and not really absorb what you're trying to tell them. I want you to comment on that dilemma.

LaRouche: Ah! There's not really a dilemma! It's only a dilemma, if you're talking to decadent people, not to young people.

See the way this youth movement works, is, there are very few people in society, who are developed sufficiently that they are rational. Most people, in society, up to the present, are irrational. They don't like to hear that, but that's the truth. I know it. I'm an old man, I've been around the world, a few times, and I know that people generally, including people in powerful positions, especially academic positions, are generally, highly irrational. They cling to arbitrary assumptions, and will climb the walls, screeching like banshees, if you attack one of their purely foolish, arbitrary assumptions, on which their reputation had been based, eh?

What happens, then, is: You come along to a great crisis, like now. It is apparent to every young person, especially in Europe and in the Americas, that the present system is a catastrophic failure. It is emotionally clear, to these young people, or at least a great number of them, that their parents are immoral! Because, their parents, who complacently say, "This is the system you have to learn within"--that their parents, themselves, have created a system, in which they can not live!

So, the way you'd get ideas, generally, in human experience, as Plato exemplifies this, is through paradoxes of that type: experimental paradoxes. You find something doesn't work! Take the case of Pasteur and his followers, on the question of the proof of the existence of a principle of life. Now, Pasteur implicitly did insist upon the independent existence of a principle of life. He said one famous lecture: that the future would say, that we would see non-biotic behavior from the standpoint of a higher set of living principles, rather than trying to discover living principles from study of abiotic processes. In that degree, we know that Pasteur actually had a conception of life, as a separate principle, as we see this expressed by Vernadsky later in his definition of the Biosphere, (which, again, I think very few people today, would attempt to contest, unless they were some kind of religious nuts).

But, also, you see the same thing in other ways; you see in life generally, in every kind of physical experiment. Take the case of, simply, Fermat: Fermat--or the classic case of Kepler. Kepler demonstrated--the Aristotelians taught, and the empiricists copied them, that you must interpret the facts of sensation, of sense-perception, in such a way as to adduce a regularity of action, which is running the universe. And thus, they insisted, everything must be reduced to circular actions in astrophysics. And thus, you had, in the 16th Century, you had three leading influences: one long dead, Claudius Ptolemy, the Roman forger of a doctrine of astronomy; you had Copernicus, who apparently revived the pre-ancient Greek astronomy of Aristarchus, on the heliocentric model; and Tycho Brahe, who was a collaborator of younger Kepler.

And Kepler showed that all three of these latter, were absurd, by observing one thing: That the orbit of Mars, and other planets, first of all was not circular; and secondly, that the motion of the planet within the orbit, was not uniform--was constantly non-uniform. So therefore, Aristotle's concept of method went out of the window, because of a paradox.

Now, Kepler went further, by showing what was the underlying the principle, which must govern this elliptical, non-uniform motion of the planetary system: Which he called an intention, built into the universe, a universal physical principle. That is, Kepler's definition of a universal physical principle, which is the foundation of all competent, modern mathematical physics. That is, Kepler's definition of a universal physical principle, as in his 1609 New Astronomy, is the foundation of all knowledge, of modern, universal physical principle.

Then, you have, shortly after that, the work of Fermat, who demonstrates, by simple refraction/reflection contrast, that the universe has to be governed, not by a principle of shortest distance in action, but, again, by quickest time. Now, in both cases, clearly by Fermat: Fermat introduced the issue of physical principles, as opposed to a Euclidean/Cartesian geometry into the definition of mathematical physics. This was continued by Fermat, [inaud] by Huyghens, who continued the error of Gallileo (Gallileo is a fraud, but he was somewhat influential in that time), in his first attempt to define time, in respect to the clock business, isochronic behavior--isochronism.

But then, later, Leibniz, in collaboration with Jean Bernouilli, demonstrated that the cycloid, which had been the [virtual?] argument of Huyghens was wrong: That the pathway of least action, or quickest time, in the universe, is the catenary form, not the cycloid form. And the catenary's a very interesting form: Because Lebniz showed that the natural logarithms--he was the first to define the natural logarithms, and he defined them in terms of this catenoid definition of least action, which is something that Euler tried to fake with his construction of the natural logarithms, and so forth. And also, that this was a principle of universal [least action?], which became known as the geodesic principle of curvature, in the work of Gauss, such as in his (I think it's 1925-26) Copenhagen lectures, the prize lectures. And is the generalized basis for physical economy--or, physical science, in general, physical geometry in Riemann's system of geometry.

So, in all these cases, the discovery is made, by recognizing a paradox, in what sense-perception indicates to be consistency; and it's in the inconsistencies demonstrated by the paradoxes of perception, that the human mind is capable of adducing the footprint of a principle--not the principle, but the footprint of a principle--and to follow those footprints to find out the creature that made it, called "the universal physical principle."

So, that's the difference here. And also, therefore in life, as faced by the youth today. The youth of today are looking at a system, which is disintegrating. They're looking at what their parents are babbling, their parents generation is babbling, and they're saying, "Our parents generation is babbling! They tell us they gave us everything, but they gave us a society with no future." Therefore: These youth, who perceive that, are the ones who recognize the truth, and their parents don't.

Therefore, it's not a question of how do you convince the parents? You don't have to worry about that: The youth will convince the parents.

So therefore, instead of wasting your time, arguing with silly parents, you say, "The youth will teach you." And you teach the youth. And, you have to help the youth, not to "learn" a doctrine, but you have to inspire them, to make the discovery for themselves. Then, the youth, as has been always the case, in every revolutionary period in history (at least, known history), will educate the adult generation, their parents, to save society.

That's the way success comes about. [applause]