The World Needs a Cultural and Moral Renaissance
by Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave the following presentation by telephone to the national conference of the Citizens Electoral Council (CEC), the Australian branch of the LaRouche Movement, on July 27, 2003.
Subheads have been added.
I want to say hello to you, members of the LaRouche movement in Australia. Let me start with, in the TV and newspapers the pictures of the two dead sons of Saddam Hussein. I think that everybody who's morally and emotionally still alive around the world, will understand that this demonstrates how close the world is to collapse into barbarism.
Remember that the whole Iraq war was started, if not for weapons of mass destruction, then for regime change, so that the dictator would be replaced and that human rights and democracy could be brought in Iraq. Now, with these pictures, the U.S. Administration discredits itself completely, because this is the method of Genghis Khan. This is the method of ruling your opponent by sheer terror, and to simply take any place that resists, slaughter the people, and it has been done many times in historythat they then take the cut-off heads and put them out on posts as a warning sign.
What this doesit's typical Nietzschean man, ruling a nation by doing a thing so terrible, it shocks people into submission. This is the typical Nietzschean, Synarchist tactic, and if this is continued, it's designed to prevent any peaceful resolution of the conflict, and to, indeed, really provoke the kind of clash of civilizations with the Islamic world, but also worldwide, in general.
These are the methods of religious warfare in the extreme. And, it's really to be noted that, if the so-called world leader in democracy, namely the United States, is doing this, this is giving democracy a very, very bad name, and a very bad image.
Now, I think what is happening around these kinds of things, underlines that Lyndon LaRouche is absolutely on the mark when he says that the danger is, that the world collapses into a New Dark Age, and even if you don't have World War III, which we are very much on the course towards, if you don't have Lyn's economic resolutions with the New Bretton Woods and the Eurasian Land-Bridge, as the basis for a global reconstruction, one can see how close the world is to collapse into barbarism, right now.
Now, I think that we should be very much aware, that if we're not successful in getting the impeachment of these peoplethe neo-cons, Cheney, Wolfowitz and so forththey will continue with their war against Iran, Syria, North Korea, and I can assure you that many countries of the world, already are calculating what the world will look like after World War III. And it is the absolute opinion of many people in the world, that the United States can start World War III, but under no circumstances can they win it.
I personally don't want to think about those scenarios after World War III, because that is not exactly the kind of solution I'm looking at, but I can assure you, many countries in the world are proceeding from the assumption that this is what is going to happen. I don't want to elaborate at this point, but that is the stark reality of the world picture.
Now, if this would occur, then the two pictures of Saddam Hussein's sons, probably will be what future generations, maybe after three-four generations, will put in the history books, as the image of the Bush-Cheney Administration and the reason why global civilization collapsed at this point.
Schiller's 'Aesthetical Letters'
So, this makes all the more important, why the world urgently needs a cultural and moral renaissance. Schiller, in his "Aesthetical Letters," had written, how come we are still barbarians? Now, if Schiller would be alive, 200 years later, he would say, "How come we are worse barbarians than 200 years ago?"
Now, Schiller askedafter the collapse of the French Revolution, when people initially had the hope that the American Revolution could be replicated in Europebut when the Jacobin Terror took over, Schiller was appalled: How come that a great moment had found a little people? And then he came to the conclusion, that the only way to improve the political situation, can occur through the ennoblement of the individual, through the aesthetical education of man. And Schiller was absolutely certain that it was not only the intellect which had to develop, but that you had to have an education of the emotions to the level of reason.
Schiller said that he thought the education of the Empfindungsvermogen, was the most urgent task of his time. Now I have not found a good translation of Empfindungsvermogen, so let me describe it, and unfortunately not exactly adequately, maybe we should just use the word Empfindungsvermogen. In English, it's the ability to take the world with your senses into account, but not in a brutish form, not on the level of simple sense-certainty, but to educate your ability to sense the world on the level of reason. In other words, educate your emotions and your senses so that there is no contradiction to the level of reason. And I think this is very important in terms of the debate Lyn is raising about the two geometries, about the world of sense-perception and sense-certainty, and the level of universally valid principles, where Schiller makes emphatically the point, that people can develop their senses and their emotions in the same way, like we can educate our reason.
So, Schiller was absolutely convinced that this Empfindungsvermogen, that which distinguishes man from the beast, that that was the key to a renaissance, and to liberate man to be truly free.
Now, the reason this is important is because the oligarchies have only one purpose, to brutalize the senses, to brutalize the emotions, and the two images or the two pictures of the sons of Saddam Hussein: They're like the metaphor for that kind of brutalization.
Now, if you want to change the world, you have to do exactly the opposite. You have to liberate people so that they become beautiful in their ability to emotionally grasp the world. And this has to be done, not just in one culture, but it has to occur worldwide. It has to occur in each culture. Each culture has to be on that level, and that is why, only through a dialogue of cultures, can we answer this threat of a clash of civilizations.
Now, this is a long time, my absolute, firm opinion, that we will only succeed to create a new, just world economic order, based on the worldwide extension of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, if we combine it with the dialogue of cultures.
The Peace of Faith
Now, I think that the best way to approach this, is still from the very beautiful dialogue of Nicholas of Cusa, De Pace Fidei (On the Peace of Faith), because this dialogue was written by Nicholas in 1453, after the fall of Constantinople. Now this was considered at the time, a gigantic clash of civilizations. When Mohammed II conquered Constantinople, there are reports about this, which came to Europe, to Western Europe at that time, which were those of murder, rape, blasphemy, and so forth. So people thought, really, that this terrible thing had happened. But on the other side, from the standpoint of the Islamic world, Mohammed II is not regarded as a butcher, but as somebody who actually pursued an ecumenical policy, and a peaceful solution among Christians, Muslims, and Jews. But that is a more complicated question.
In any case, Nicholas of Cusa had just returned from Constantinople at the time, where he had done original research in finding the documents of the early church councils, proving that the cause for the split among the churches, between the Roman and the Eastern Orthodox, was absolutely not valid, because the famous Creed, involving the Filioque, had been in the early church councils, and that was the debated point among the churches, before the split.
Anyway, this is just in parenthesis.
So, Nicholas had just come from Constantinople, where he led the delegation of the Patriarch to the Council of Florence, when the news about the fall of Constantinople hit. So, everybody was reacting to it as a clash of civilizations, but Nicholas, being the thinker of the Coincidentia Oppositorum, of the unity of the contradictions, had a completely different approach. And he wrote this beautiful dialogue called "On the Peace of Faith."
Now, in the dialogue, 17 representatives of different religions and nations send their emissaries to God, and they say, "We are all killing each other in Your name. This cannot be Your intention, so can You not help us?" So God says, "Well, you all are not only representing your different religions and nations, but you are also philosophers in your religions. You are sages in your nations. And, as such, as philosophers and sages, you know that there can be only one truth." And they all say, "Yes, as philosophers we can say, 'there can be only one truth.' " Then they say, "But why do we still kill each other in Your name?"
Then, God says, "Well, you make the mistake that you mistake the word of the One God, with the word of the Prophets. The word of God is One, but the words of the Prophets are many." So they say, "Yes, we can see that, but can You help us some more." And then God says, "You make the further mistake, that you mistake the One Truth with the many traditions. The Truth is One, the traditions are many." And they say, "Yes, we can see that, but how can You expect us to go to our people and teach them the new religion, when they have spilled so much blood for the sake of the old one?" And then God says, "I'm not expecting you to teach the new religion, but I want you to talk about the one religion which is above all the different religions, the One God which is before all differences."
Now, this comes from Nicholas of Cusa's thinking that the One has a higher quality than the many. And that is a very important methodological approach, because it helps you to solve conflicts, because if you're able to conceptualize the universal unifying principle before you go into the differentiation, then, that is a method that can be applied to both religious conflicts, but also political conflicts, social conflicts, personal conflicts, and so forth.
Now, when I read this very beautiful dialogue recently again, when I issued a call for a dialogue among cultures, just after the war against Afghanistan had started the clash of civilizations, I said, look, let's see if this same conception does exist in other religions as well. And I went to look again at the Rig Vedic writings, those writings which are the first writings of human civilization, and they are probably going back in the verbally transmitted form, many, many millennia, and they're probably 6,000 years old, or even longer, maybe 10,000 years old. And you find in these very beautiful Rig Vedic writings, also the idea that there is only one God, whom the sages have given different names. The One Truth which shows itself differently in the different souls. The One Truth which is looked at by people wearing different glasses, and therefore it looks different to different people, but it is still the same truth.
Then you find exactly the same conception in Islam, in the Koran; and then I recognized that that is indeed what we have to do: We have to establish that which is universally common to all religions and all cultures, first, and then be very happy about the differences. If you first establish the universal principle, then the differences are not a threat, but you are happy, and you recognize that these differences exist. Because according to the Rig Veda, God wanted them. God wanted a multiplicity in the world, because otherwise He would not have created it.
A New Movement Founded
Now, I find this a very beautiful idea, and that was essentially one of the concepts which we presented at the Bangalore [India] conference. The Bangalore conference was the continuation of the Bad Schwalbach [Germany] conference, trying to put together the forces of the Eurasian Land-Bridge. And one of the participants, Mr. [Chandrajit] Yadav, was so happy about what he saw of the seriousness of the participants in Bad Schwalbach, that on a very short-term basis, he decided to organize a conference in Bangalore in the state of Karnataka, and this was actually the founding of a new movement around these ideas. And especially, the idea that if you have a youth movement, internationally, of young people who dialogue among their different culturesfrom that standpoint, that will be the end of oligarchism and the end of racism. Because if you know what is universally the same in all other cultures, and you appreciate and actually love the difference and the beauty of the difference, then human civilization will really make a new step. You will not any longer feel threatened by foreigners, by things which you don't know, simply because you know it.
Now, it seems to me that if you start this dialogue among the high points of culture, that that is the basis for a new renaissance. Schiller, in his "Universal History," said that to explain our present existence, that we are all sitting in this roomas a matter of fact, that you are sitting in that room, and I'm talking over the telephone with you from the other side of the world (where people are not standing on their head by the way, but where we are walking on our feet)Schiller said, to explain our present existence, that we are together in this way. You need to explain what all the generations before you contributed, all the sacrifices they made, all the many contributions they made.
Then Schiller says, therefore, we have to have a noble desire that we take the gifts from the past, and add what we can do, so that our future generations have a more rich and more beautiful future for themselves.
Now, if we take from each culture their best experiencesand there are many high points, in Chinese culture, in Indian culture. As a matter of fact, China had many renaissances. The Confusianism/Mencius period, the Sung Dynasty, even in the 15th Century in the Ming Dynasty, there were incredible things, and many times, these high points occurred when other parts of European or other cultures had collapsed.
The same thing with Indian culture: You had the early Rig Veda, you had the Gupta period, and these were all high points when, for example, the Roman Empire collapsed. You had many renaissances in Egyptian history. Then you had the Greek Renaissance, building on the best traditions of the Egyptian and Asian cultures, the Italian Renaissance reviving the Greek Renaissance, the German Classical period going back to the best of the Greek, the Italian Renaissance and even then branching out to Indiathe Wilhelm von Humboldt studies on the Sanskrit language, and so forth.
Now, I think it is very important that we will only come out of this crisis, if we look at all of these different cultural periods and find the universal principle that combines them all, but nevertheless, learn what are the specifics in each cultural period which did represent a step forward in human knowledge.
Now, Lyn in his recent paper about the complex domain ["Visualizing the Complex Domain," 21st Century Science & Technology, Fall 2003], talked about the two geometries, the one belonging to the worldwide sensorium, as he called it, the world of sense perception, and the other one belonging to the world of the real universe, the world of the universally verifiable principles. And you can find that difference both in science, but also in Classical art. In art, you have the world of the Classical cultures, universally verifiable principles, and you have the world of the sensory domain which is the world of the Romantic, self-evident feelings.
Now, ideas are not found in the world of sense-certainty, but great Classical art is full of ideas which belong to the world of metaphor. In Schiller's Classical drama and poetry, you can study this. I heard that some of you are performing tomorrow, a scene from Joan of Arc, and there you have a total elaboration and celebration of the metaphor of both the Sublime, and the metaphor of immortality.
Now, some of you may know the little poem Schiller wrote about the Maiden of Orleans. If you have not planned it in your program, I would ask you that tomorrow, somebody should recite or read the Schiller poem, which Schiller wrote, in a certain sense, as a self-reflective memory of his writing the drama, Joan of Arc, because Schiller himself said, that the Joan of Arc was his personally most beloved drama, and that with which he identified the most. And one can actually say that Schiller, in the person of Joan of Arc, really makes a mirror image of himself.
Now, in this little poem, "The Maiden of Orleans," Schiller uses the very beautiful sentence, talking about Joan of Arc, "You were created by the heart, you shall live immortally." Now, the idea of immortality is exactly such an idea, a metaphor which lies beyond the world of sense-certainty, because the idea of metaphor, of immortality, you cannot grasp with the senses. There is no way the idea of immortality can be smelled, heard, or otherwise grasped with the senses.
Now, I want you to study this, because only if we locate our identity in the series of such ideas, can we fulfill what we have to do.
The Immortal Personality
Now, mankind can only come out of this crisis, if each civilization produces enough leaders, men and women, who locate their sense of identity in this series of universally valid principles in science and art, which are such ideas.
Lyn talked about that there are two methods from the standpoint of universal natural law, where people can locate their identity. If you know that your physical life is very short, and only encompasses a very short span, from conception to death, it is very clear, that for the developed person, the identity is in the immortal personality, which for a very short period inhabits the mortal body.
The lower possibility of the personal identity, places the identity within the limits of the sensuous experience. This is what we know as the Now Generation, the fun society, the aim to get the maximal lust out of every occasion, to live in the here and now, to avoid risk, because, you know, anything which is a risk to your physical existence is regarded as the most important. And these are people who are cowards, they're mediocre, they're people who are never any threat to the system, even if the system is becoming as it is now.
The second possibility is the true human identity, where people are locating their identity in the long series of principles in science and art, which are shared and contributed from generation to generation. And it is very clear that the existence and success of each civilization, depends on contributions of persons who are committed to the second, immortal identity. There must be an orientation in leaders, for the sake of those who are morally corrupted, and who have put their identity in the first kind of identity.
Now, another way of looking at the same question, is from the standpoint of Vernadsky, because Vernadsky, in the tradition of Plato and Nicholas of Cusa, basically developed this idea of the evolution of the universe, from the inorganic to the organic, to the noetic principle, and Vernadsky calls the cognitive realm, the noesis. And the noesis intervenes into the rest from the outside, like the noetic dominates the biosphere more and more.
Now, Nicholas of Cusa already had the same conception where he said, that the different levels of the inorganic, the organic, the level of reason, and the level of divine reason, are not developing, as Darwin would say, from the lower to the higher species, but Nicholas of Cusa actually had the idea that each species only develops its full potential, by participating at least in one point, in the next higher species. And this can be called truly the beginning of the law of evolution. Now, the jump from the inorganic to the organic, is what defines the qualitative leap, in the same way the leap from the organic to the noetical principle of cognition defines the division between the two species. And, in the same way, the level of cognition to the level of divine reason, which Cusa calls the ability of man of capax Dei, of participating in God, in one point.
However, the evolution does not occur from below to the higher, but Nicholas says that it is always the higher principle which almost violently pulls up the lower into the higher domain. And that's what Vernadsky taught, that the noetic principle becomes more and more dominant, and eventually will completely control and dominate the biosphere. It is coming from the higher to the lower, and not the other way around.
Now, if you understand that these levels all interact, and that the universe is first developing, that you have actually an in-built process of higher degrees of self-organization, then you really understand the law of evolution. And that the anti-entropic principle of noesis, is there from the beginning, but it only becomes efficient for man.
Now, it is very clear that if you understand the lawfulness of the universe in this way, that it is only man and woman, who locate their personal identity in cohesion with this view of the universe, and who are therefore efficient idea-givers of mankind in science and art, who are adequately addressing reality at each given point. Anybody who has any other feeling about the universeyou know, about ecology, about all kinds of emotional questions, and so forththey tend to fail as leaders, especially in moments of extraordinary crisis as we have it today.
Now, what I'm just referring to, is actually a discussion among many people around the world. Many people in many cultures are discussing that the present paradigm is one which will lead to the total destruction of civilization, and therefore, they are discussing the question: What should be the new paradigm? What are the ideas which will put the world in cohesion with the laws of the universe? And that is the only way out: that we put the political order in cohesion with the laws of the actual universe.
In some other civilizations, like in India for example, there is a debate among some intellectuals that the world must be put in cohesion with the cosmic order of creation. And as one philosopher recently put it, if you think about our wide, huge universe, our little planet, Earth, is just a tiny little planet in a very, very vast universe, and while the whole rest of the universe is governed by negentropic ideas, our little planet is ruled by the laws of the oligarchs which are entropic, and which are completely violating every law of the universe as such. And therefore, it is very clear, that unless we bring the political order on our planet into cohesion with the much larger laws of the universe, this planet will collapserather the life on this planet will collapse.
Now, from the standpoint of Nicholas of Cusa, that means we have to bring into cohesion the laws of the microcosm, with the laws of the macrocosm. The laws of the microcosm, being the laws of the mind, of cognition, which have, like Leibniz's Monad, all lawfulness of the large universe, the macrocosm. In Chinese culture, you would say, that the principle of Li, that every existence in the universe must find its rightful place and develop its fullest capacity, must be realized, together with the principle of Ren, which is the equivalent of the Christian principle of agape in European civilization.
The Beautiful Soul
Now, what that means is, that we must understand that the world will get out of this crisis only if we create a true renaissance movement, where each person defines it as their personal task to indeed become a better person, a beautiful soul. And I think this is very important, because with all the many goals and many objectives, and missions and so forth, the one which seems to be glaringly absent in our present culture is the idea that each individual desires to become a beautiful soul. People go to the fitness club to have a beautiful body. People have all kinds of goals, but people must care about the beauty of their soul.
And that is not an abstract question. This is a highly scientifically knowable question, because Schiller defines the beautiful soul as the person for whom beauty and necessity, passion and beauty, become one. So you are like the Good Samaritan, educating your emotions in such a way, that without thinking, you can always follow your emotions and they will never do something different than reason would dictate. And Schiller called that the great task of our existenceto bring the inner person into cohesion with that noble idea.
Now, I think the definition of the beautiful soul that Schiller gave, that it's only the genius who creates rules, and enlarges these rules in a lawful way, who can become a truly beautiful soul. A genius which enlarges the rules in a lawful way, coherent with this lawfulness of the universe, and locates his identity in this process, that is what Schiller calls a beautiful soul.
Now, I think when you look at the barbarism of the globalization, with all of its terrible values, which actually have led to a global moronizationmaking people idiots, morally and intellectuallythen it is very clear that we have to counter that with the absolute, passionate commitment to create a new worldwide renaissance, in which the human character of each individual is celebrated through new acts of creativity, and contribution to the future of mankind.
Now, I think this is what we will hear later when you do your musical and poetical performances, and I want to encourage you that this becomes, not some kind of entertainment, or a thing where you somehow retreat from the terrible world into some cushioned world, but that the kind of thinking, thinking like Schiller, thinking like Beethoven, all the time, is what will make you strong and gives the strength to come victorious out of this present crisis. And that is what I wanted to tell you.
Discussion
Question: My question is about Iraq. My concern is that the soldiers that are there, both Australian and American, are humiliated for being used as no more than mercenaries, to plunder the country, and my concern is that the country itself is in desperate need of leadership with the reconstruction. Could you consider that please?
Zepp-LaRouche: Yes. Look, the situation in Iraq is much, much worse than the media has admitted. We have talked to people who either have relatives on the ground, or who have some historical knowledge about the situation, and they are all telling us that the situation, that what you know from the media is about 5% of what really happens. That you have not just some Saddam Hussein loyalists, but you have the whole country in a guerrilla fight against what is perceived as an illegitimate occupying power. And it's complete chaos; it's a terrible situation with no infrastructure, no hospitals. I mean it's an absolutely horrendous situation, and the only way to solve that, is to as quickly as possible, immediately, give the responsibility for reconstruction to the leadership of the United Nations. Because nothing else would be considered as a legitimate way of reconstructing the country. And there has to be a very quick reestablishment of logistics, of health care, of electricity, of all of these questions of daily life, and then there has to be a quick conferring of power from the United Nations, to the Iraqi people itself. But it can only occur under the leadership of the United Nations, and not in the present form. So, if this would occur, I think the only way to really solve the problem, is to have a reconstruction with the kinds of programs which Lyn discussed many years ago in the Oasis Plan.
Now, the whole Gulf region [must become] part of the Eurasian Land-Bridge, and that is the only way. Only if you put such a perspective of hope, and true reconstruction on the table, can you have a hope of a peaceful region, and preventing it from plunging into a terrible collapse, into chaos as we see it now. So, I think the United States, and the Australians and others, must immediately accept the going back to the United Nations or else there is no solution to this problem.
Educating the Emotions
Question: Helga, in your presentation tonight, you spoke around the idea of the aesthetical education of man, and you were talking about the education of the emotions, so there is no distinction between them and your senses. I missed a bit before you said that, and I wonder if you could just elaborate on that idea, of the education of our emotions?
Zepp-LaRouche: You know, the problem is that a lot of rational people neglect their emotions, so you have the case of the very rational engineer, who does his work well, at his workplace, but then he goes home and he beats his wife and his children. Or you have the case of the persons who are very rational when they are doing their job, but then, when they have their so-called leisure, entertainment, they become completely bestial. I mean, that's the problem with a lot of people who think that recreation means you throw reason out of the window, and you have to go to a rave party, or some disco, or some other kind of just banal recreation, where people truly throw out of the window every kind of cognitive identity, the moment they think they have a vacation, holiday, or weekend.
And that is just a symptom, of this division between intellect and emotions. Now, a developed person will develop their emotions so that they find joy in whatever their cognitive conscience is doing. And true joy is not banal, it's not abandoning the idea of reason, but is actually a celebration of it.
Now, when Schiller says that what he regarded as the biggest problem of his time, and remember, 200 years agoin a certain sense, I find the brutality of 200 years ago, mild compared to what we see today: Just think about the perversions of pornography, of the Internet, child abuse, of all these things, of children soldiers, of all of thisthere is no question that our present world, in that sense, is much, much more barbaric than Schiller's time. I mean, there you had terrible things also, no question, but because of the mass media, and the modern communication and also the brutality of our time, the development of modern weapons and so forth, we have this same problem Schiller described for his time, on a much, much extended level. And when Schiller said, that the development of the Empfindungsvermogenand I can only ask you to try to understand the German word because there is no good English translationas the most urgent task of his time, I can only say this is an even much more urgent task today, given the fact that the barbarism has become much worse.
Now, if you read Schiller's "Aesthetical Letters," which is a very beautiful elaboration of how to deal with this problem, Schiller first describes the situation of: Where should the change come from when the state is corrupt and the masses are degenerated? So where should this change come from? And then, Schiller comes with the surprising answer that it can only come from great Classical art, because only there, do you have the highest ideas where the artist, who only deserves to be called an artist if he ennobles himself to the highest ideal of man, at least in the moment where he creates his art, or he performs it. And it only has a predictable effect on the audience, if he chooses to discuss a universal principle, because otherwise it's arbitrary and does not deserve to be called great Classical art. Schiller then, in the second part of these "Aesthetical Letters," goes through what to do, because, he says, there are three drives, one is the Formtrieb, (the forming drive), the Stofftrieb, (the material drive). Now these are not the exact notions, please forgive me, but I'm trying to describe it anyway.
He describes the Stofftrieb, the material drive, as the ability of man to, again and again, absorb new things, to be open to new things, for new experiences, for new ideas, for new developments. And then he calls the Formtrieb, the forming drive, that which enables man to conceptualize these new occurrences in the sensuous realm, in the realm of experience, and to give it a concept, to hypothesize what this new phenomenon is.
Schiller says, much damage has been done to human development by not having the Stofftrieb, the ability to absorb new things. You would call it, to be blocked psychologically. And as much damage has been done by using the Formtrieb too early, when you have an experience and you too quickly try to give it a name, a concept, some system, you try to put it into a system. And Schiller says, both things are devastating if you are not trying to absorb new things, and if you are trying to give the new things too quickly a name, in a new system.
These things are both devastating. You have to develop both sides of your existence, and the best way to do it, he says, is to unite and unify these two things, in what Schiller calls the play drive. And he says, man is only fully man, when he plays. And this is actually very interesting because, what is the act of creative discovery? What is the act of the mind when you indeed develop a new thing? And Schiller calls that ability, the play drive.
Lyn calls this, that facility in the human mind which enables man, in the field of natural science, to conceptualize an adequate new hypothesis, which solves a paradox and brings you to the new domain of understanding about the laws of the physical universe. In Classical art, that same faculty also exists, as that which enables the human mind to create a metaphor, which creates something beyond what was there before. And I think this is very important, for example, if you would sit down and write a good poema good poem, a poem organized according to Classical formyou have to have a poetical idea, then you have a thorough composition, and then you end with something which brings the mind to the higher plane of the metaphor, which is the real content of the poem, because the content of the poem is not in the prose content, because otherwise you could write a piece of prose. The content of the poem is that which is the unified whole above the prose text, as such.
The same thing happens in musical composition, where the composer has a musical idea, something which in germ form has the entire development of the musical piece in it. Then the composer develops the thorough-composition and the end in an absolute necessary way. And this is one of the big differences between Classical art and Romantic art, that Classical art has a necessary end, simply because the idea has been concluded, while in Romantic art, it goes on and on and on, and it could end almost never, because it doesn't matter.
The 'Talk Show' vs. Socratic Dialogue
Now, the reason why all of this is important, is because it has something to do with your emotions. Because, for example, the typical problem of today is that people have their identity in the realm of sense-certainty, and the Romantic way of looking at the world. The typical expression of this is the talk show. The talk show starts with somebody raising a subject, and then the next person takes one word out of the last sentence of what the previous speaker said, and says a new idea based on this one word. The third speaker again takes a word of the second speaker's sentence, and starts the new thing, and it goes on and on and on and on, and it never ends, it never concludes. And that's typical, that method of talking to each other, is typical for the world of sense-certainty.
Now, if you look at Plato's dialogues as opposite to that, you have an hypothesis or you have a thesis, and then the Socratic dialogue discusses that one issue, without changing the issue to all these new words and new sentences out of the new words, but it tries to come to the truth of that particular thesis by not accepting any assumptions which are not proven. And that method of truth-seeking, should be the way people talk to each other, because people should not talk to each other in the way people talk among themselves in talk shows, but they should try to exhaust one issue with the method of Socratic reasoning, until they have found the truth. And that is a big difference in terms of method, how people relate to each other, how people go about writing leaflets, or doing anything, and I think this is very much worth studying.
Now, I think the question of great art is also very relevant, because already Moses Mendelssohn, Lessing, Schiller, and so forththey all said that the reason that it is important to study great Classical art, especially drama, but also poetry, is because when you go into the theater, and you see how the heroes on the stage are confronted with questions which pertain to the life and death of their country, of their nation, of future generations to come, and on their ability to either act on the level of Sublime, and therefore make possible a positive solution to the conflict, or, act on the level of sense-certainty, and personal greed and other such motives, and then the drama on stage ends as a tragedythat for the little person, or the average person to go to the theater, and in a sense train how to react in such extraordinary circumstances, that to do that again and again in Classical art, somehow trains you to have the same kind of reaction in real life. Because as Lessing and Mendelssohn and Schiller said, real life sometimes comes too quickly, and if you are not prepared, and you have no reference point inside yourself of how to elevate your action to level of the Sublime, you may not be able to do it. And therefore you have to rehearse in a certain sense, conceptually, how to think in the Sublime, through Classical art.
And I think all of these things are perfect ways to educate your emotions, and eventually you will see that you can get rid of all these nasty little character aspects which prevent people from realizing their true self. So the more you do this, the more beautiful you will become.
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