Rarely, but sometimes, the “contrapuntal” intersection of many different efforts in statecraft can converge in a tangible instance, and a perceptible “instant” in time. An “increasing density of singularities” might be one way of characterizing the results of the 24- hour interval of November 22-23, with respect to the work of the International Schiller Institute and its associates. In Italy, Yemen, the Netherlands, and the United States, the solution-driven perspective for the world’s severe conjunctural crisis was notably advanced in the form of statements that were calls to action addressed to the implicit anti-Malthusian resistance among nations and networks that has been significantly strengthened following the admitted failure of the Flop 26 conference.
Interestingly, these four interventions mirrored the four areas identified by Helga Zepp-LaRouche as a “four committees” approach to the present strategic crisis. This was suggested by Zepp-Larouche during the course of the two-day symposium/conference of the Schiller Institute, Nov. 13-14. Less than 10 days later, progress was registered in each area. First, Zepp-LaRouche, along with Jacques Cheminade, Marsha and Doug Mallouk, and Diane Sare, sent greetings to the nation of Yemen’s First BRICS Day, begun by Fouad Al-Ghaffari and the Yemen BRICS Youth (see slug.) (BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.) Second, “Operation Ibn Sina,” a “higher manifold” intervention into the intractable crisis in Afghanistan, both the short-term threat of famine and the long-term challenge of Southwest Asian stability and self-government, was officially endorsed by Alessia Ruggeri, trade unionist and chairman of UPI Italia, in a press release entitled “Helga Zepp-LaRouche Launches Operation Ibn Sin to Save the Afghan People.” The release was covered in the Sicilian newspaper Il Corriere di Sicilia. Third, Dr. Jocelyn Elders, former Surgeon General of the United States, issued, on behalf of the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites, a statement entitled “Open Letter to Virologists and Medical Experts Around the World to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic. Fourth, Dr. Guus Berkhout of CLINTEL published a polemic in the de Telegraaf newspaper in the Netherlands entitled ”Help! What Is Happening With Our Universities?" which once again advanced the fight for truth in science, and the triumph of ideas over superstition.
The “Four Committees” refers to the four areas of tactical-strategic intervention that emerged from the deliberative sessions of the Schiller conference, a result of the airing and higher resolution of the sometimes widely diverging views of the conference speakers, interlocutors, and questions from the virtual assembly. At times the panels had as many as 3,000 people viewing. This “systems of conferences” approach to “higher-order deliberation,” is a process that is unique to the organizations that LaRouche founded or co-founded, and was designed by the late economist and statesman to foster a deliberate examination and improvement in the very method of inquiry that people bring to ideas, to thinking, and to changing their ideas through problem-solving. The method of inquiry LaRouche used to become the foremost economist in the world, is now being employed for the purpose of applying, heuristically, the “higher statecraft” of Classical thinkers such as Ibn Sina, Nicholas of Cusa, Gottfried Leibniz, and Friedrich Schiller, all viewed from the advanced vantage point of LaRouche’s unique discoveries in physical economy, to arrive at approaches for immediate strategic action, addressing what might otherwise appear to be insoluble problems “respecting man and nature” presently confronting humanity at the close of 2021.
The bankrupt geopolitics which is seen in the latest antics from Washington’s State Department, NATO headquarters in Brussels, and Ukraine’s Kiev, toward seeking military, economic, and financial provocation of Russia, has a fatal flaw: it offers nothing, no benefit, to the very populations of the trans-Atlantic sector it purports to defend. Sanctions are thrown up against Russia, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s commissioning is delayed, even as it is demanded that Russia make more natural gas available. The people making the demand are the very ones actively preventing it from happening. Claims are made about Russia massing 90-100,000 troops along the Ukraine border, while Ukraine makes threats to use American Javelin missiles in the Donbas region, and the United States, as reported by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, deploys multiple sorties by American strategic bombers, armed with nuclear weapons, to within 15 miles of the Russian border. Consider, apart from its being irresponsible war-provocation: how does any of this contribute to the well-being of the population of the United States or Europe—both of which, as Global Times partially points out, face the very real threat of dire financial, economic, and medical conditions this very winter, in a month or less?
Something more is needed in this global instance of time. As John F. Kennedy remarked on the occasion of eulogizing the death of poet Robert Frost on October 26, 1963, less than one month before his own: “Robert Frost coupled poetry and power, for he saw poetry as the means of saving power from itself. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.”
The “poetic principle” is what the Schiller Institute believes works best; it provides a means for revealing, and re-imparting that “basic human truth” to nations, governments, and people that have lost or are in danger of losing their humanity. For example, the notion of geopolitics has always been wrong, and will always be wrong, because the dignity of man, not the integrity of land, is the basis for human negotiations between human beings. If instead of geopolitics, an actual discussion of “Operation Ibn Sina’s” namesake, not merely his contributions to medicine, but to metaphysics and other areas of knowledge, were successfully introduced as a topic, even as food relief, medical care, release of funds and the easing of sanctions were implemented, a higher plane, a higher manifold of discourse would uplift the participants, turning them from opponents into collaborators. That is the advanced, contrapuntal, multi-voiced “resolution of dissonances” that as a method—the coincidence of opposites—must be the singular standard which, if used, can produce an increasing density of singularities in statecraft over the next weeks, without which it is possible that civilization might not survive.