Question: My specific question is what can be salvaged from traditional popular cultures that might be of use in rectifying certain situations that we're going through in our culture's present crisis, our present culture? What needs to be corrected, or improved, so as to develop an even more perfect culture for future generations?

LaRouche: My dear friend Lopez Portillo, the former president of Mexico, who has had some problems with his health, nonetheless represents a person who struggled for his nation in a noble way. For example, his address to the United Nations at a point where Mexico was being crushed, typifies great leadership. Now, we got a source of inspiration and strength, as the case of Jeanne d'Arc typifies this, from those whose courage and competence has led great struggles.

Now. Jeanne d'Arc did not bring about directly, she did not see, experience the birth of modern France, but without her actions, it would not have been possible. Lopez Portillo in his time did not succeed in conquering the problem which Mexico faced at that point, but he set a standard of courage in leadership which, for future generations, is crucial. If there are people in Mexico in the future who show the same kind of qualities he showed, or the kind of qualities he hoped to evoke by his courage, then it will be partly because someone looked at and remembered what he did.

The same thing is true when we look at the work of great leaders in history: great artists, great scientists. Whatever we get from them by studying their work, one of the most important things we learn is that it happened. We develop optimism, because we realize how the human mind not only produces great things, but that sometimes causes which seemed to have been defeated, succeed, even long after the time that the effort was made. This was true of most human history.

Let's take the case of the progress of science. Since Ancient Greece, the progress of science was virtually destroyed with the rise of Roman culture. Roman culture is a disaster, compared to preceding Greek science. But do we therefore say the preceding Greek science failed? No, it didn't! What happened is that people who studied it later, made the greatest revolution in the political life of humanity to date: the birth of the modern nation-state. So therefore, we study what they did. We're not merely looking at whether they were a success or failure, and trying to imitate it. We are realizing and recognizing, being inspired by, the fact that people who lived so made possible the great things that happened later. And what we take from them is not so much what they did. What we take from them, above all else, is what they represent-that they made a better future possible by the example of the way in which they worked. And when we study the example of their accomplishments. The particular thing they contributed to us is important, but even more important is the fact of their devotion to producing that result, a result which we may realize as a continuity of modern science thousands of years after. And that's the thing we should concentrate on.

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