From Geopolitics to the Noösphere: Can Mankind Govern Itself?
“If we, as the human species, want to prevent this tumultuous transition period from ending up in a new world war, we have to replace geopolitical confrontation with a completely new paradigm, the vision of ONE humanity. It is the same question which was discussed during the time of the young American Republic, in the Federalist Papers: Can mankind govern itself?”
That question was posed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her open letter to delegates attending the UN General Assembly in New York, which organizers of the LaRouche Organization circulated by the thousands throughout this week and the previous week.
[In a different sense, that question was also asked by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in an open letter directed to the American people on Sept. 29, which asked them to consider the costly wars of recent decades, which the letter says, “have brought nothing but misery to the US economy and the American people.” Later in the letter, Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi observes that “if the US spent at least 10% or 5% of all its expenditure on its military campaigns against other countries or put the money into development in these countries, the US would be a favorite.”
An entirely new paradigm is on the table, one which was proposed to President Trump by Chinese President Xi Jinping in his recent state visit. President Xi expressed optimistically that the “Thucydides Trap” could finally be overcome, and that the U.S.-China relationship could be strengthened, in order that the world’s two largest economies could work with each other to solve the world’s problems. From that meeting, it was announced that China and the United States would support each other in hosting the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Shenzhen, China and the G20 Summit in Doral, Florida, with the two heads of state intending to attend each other’s meetings.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in her international webcast on Sept. 30, noted that a transition period has been reached, where the epoch of 500 years of colonialism has reached an end. “China has reached out to the countries of the Global South, offering them cooperation based on win-win cooperation. Now, that has completely changed the international landscape. And now everything depends on the fact, will the countries of the West—that means Europe, but also the United States—adjust to that change, and just leave the idea of dominance, that they have to be the rules-based order, kings of the valley, and agree that they should be equal partners? If the countries of Europe and the United States would just say, we agree this is a transition, we are no longer the dominant power in the world, we are reaching out to the Global Majority and agree to be partners, all problems could vanish in no time. It’s so much within reach that it is absolutely amazing that some people don’t want to see that.
“So, that is why I think that everybody who wants to have peace and avoid a total catastrophe of a global nuclear war—the danger which is still very, very high—should work towards convincing institutions and individuals of goodwill to just turn the paradigm on its head. That’s all that is required.”
Whether we, as citizens of our countries and the world, have the capacity, reason and initiative required to overcome the disease that is geopolitics and zero-sum thinking, depends on whether we understand anything about universal natural law itself. We can only choose to be human, when we work to discover what the mission and purpose of the human species is. That will only come to us in the context of our evolving an understanding of the distinct nature of life as a whole, in the universe as a whole. Through that mission of discovery—what scientist Kraft Ehricke called “the extra-terrestrial imperative,” we can build, instead of a “space battle force” designed for new kinds of murder, a new “Grand Design” of relation among the nations and peoples of the one human race.
That matter will be taken up on tonight’s Fireside Chat by Bill Jones, former EIR White House correspondent, who will give a presentation on Ukrainian-Russian biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and his unique conception of life as a principle unto itself. Vernadsky observed that there are three distinct phase-spaces which define the planet: the abiotic, or non-living; the living substance of what Vernadsky termed the Biosphere; and the Noösphere. With the appearance of human civilization, the self-development of the biosphere transforms into the Noösphere, with Man exerting the greatest geological force. That capacity lies in Mankind’s ability to create ideas, which have no weight, smell, or physical form; they are unseen.
The greatest power known to us in the universe is, in that sense, the power of ideas.