Question: 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.

Question: [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.

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