Question: Usually, I get someone else to ask my question, but I guess I'll stand up today and do it. I'm Erin from the Baltimore office. One of the thing that me and my fellow-cadres from the Baltimore office have been thinking about and discussing, is: How do we, collectively, give women an intellectual identity in this society, where women are objectified? I mean, this is even a difficult thing for me, actually think about, even though I am a woman. So, I wanted to know, what kind of insight you have. I know you always talk about looking at things from the higher principle, and not focusing on single issues. But, I mean, however, when you're talking about re-creating a culture, or actually fixing a degenerate culture, when it seems like half of culture or the population is--I don't want to say "left out," but, kind of, in a sense left out. So, what can we do about that? How do you inspire women, to give them an intellectual identity? Inspire them toward ideas?

LaRouche: Well, what happens is, is that, in this society, if you're a woman, and you feel like nothing, the name of the game is "sex." Right? Huh? That's what the problem is. Because the idea of an intellectual identity, as a person--.

See, the problem that women have, is when they make this dichotomy of thinking of women, rather than persons. You have to think of yourself as a person, primarily. And, the needs of a person. Human relations, if they're not based on this, then become a kind of game, a kind of pleasure-pain game. In which, instead of the relations being emotionally based on ideas, on personal development, are based on: "You give me pleasure; do I give you pleasure?" You do services for me, I do services for you. Do I need you, because I don't have anybody else? Or, I'd be afraid, or I'd feel abandoned.

So, the problem is, is the sense of existential insecurity about one's position in society. Remember, this society, the corruption of this society, is essentially existentialist in its philosophical character. Look, the teaching of Sartre, the teaching of Heidegger, the teaching of Arendt, the teaching of Adorno--all these kinds of things, which are the standard lectures in the university today, and the high school today. Sociology course; philosophy course; what is it? It's this existentialist garbage. What's the characteristic of entertainment? Existentialist garbage. What is violence on the screen? The violence is not the problem. The violence is a problem, but that's not the problem. The problem is the violence occurs, in an existentialist way.

See, for example, let's take an historical drama. A drama involving, say, war, murder, things like that. If it's a Classical form of drama, does the violence in itself, cause a problem, as violence in entertainment? No! Only if the idea of the violence is used as an exploitative factor, in entertainment. [laughing]

Go to plot: You have various kinds of plots, in drama. And this culture is largely based on dramatic entertainment, and similar kinds of things. That's where people's identities tend to get a little bit messed up, huh? In Classical drama, the purpose of Classical drama, is not to write fiction, to give sensual entertainment. Classical drama's purpose, is to educate people in history, by putting real-life history, in a condensed form, on stage, in a way, in which people will have insight into tragedy and the sublime. That is, to see that a society is destroying itself, and to see the process by which the society is destroying itself, and the relationship of that process of self-destruction to key individuals in that society; or to an individual, in that society. And then, to pose, implicitly, the question of a solution to that crisis.

Now, violence, other things, may be a part such dramas, if they're real. And therefore, to present as much violence as is necessary to convey the idea of the drama, will not hurt. The question is, are you involved in the sensual experiencing of violence, per se, as opposed to engaging in the sublime effort to find a solution to the problem which the drama poses. In order to have insight into society. If you come out that, with a Classical drama, you come out with a sense of greater power to deal with problems. Therefore, you have a sense of the sublime.

In a society, in which this idea of pleasure and sense experience, especially intense sense experience, for its own sake, is the dominant characteristic of social relations, as attested by the conditioning by video, by what you see on the television screen, and so forth. This is a violent society, of the worst type. It's an existentialist society, of meaningless violence, meaningless killings, eh? The random killing. "You're going to be struck down by meaningless killers! Like the sniper!" This is what destroys people.

And thus, the problem that we have is, we are not protecting one another, adequately, by dealing with these problems. See, if you're conscious of these kinds of problems, and other people you're working with are conscious of these kinds of problems, you can deal with them. They don't affect you. Your relationship with other people will be based on this, on people who are useful to you--not in the sense of being "usable"; but, useful to you, because their relationship to you, helps to make you a stronger person, in dealing with these kinds of problems.

And therefore, people who help each other, actually tend to go together, or collaborate in various ways, more frequently. Because, they have an active interchange of development, which is beneficial to them. They feel better about themselves, because of this kind of collaboration. And, I would hope that, in a youth movement, we would be attempting to create that kind of environment, within the youth movement, where things are not "man," "woman," etc., etc., but things are on this basis. And the man-woman questions just sort themselves out, not easily, because it's a very sick society, and there's a lot of garbage hung over, which keep popping into places, as a result of family and other relations in the past.

But the sense that you're conquering it, resisting it, overcoming it, gives you a good feeling about yourself. I've gone through a lot in life, and I can tell you: Life is really enjoyable. As you may perceive, I enjoy living. I enjoy doing what I'm doing. I have no complaints about that. I'm perfectly satisfied. I know what I'm supposed to do. I'm only dissatisfied when I don't have the energy or resources to do more, that's all. And you should feel the same way. [applause]

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