Question: I would like to ask what would be the sublime state which a young person should have as a concept to face the challenge in front of us, and not to be like Sancho Panza in Don Quixote, as you say? And I would like to hear your opinions about this.

LaRouche: Very good. I like the question, because it goes to the essence of the matter. It's something which I address in part in this paper on the  "Visualization of the Complex Domain.”

The essence of leadership of civilization, depends upon a long legacy, which in European civilization, runs notably from Plato, Plato's Dialogues. It became a social-political movement, in effect, through the influence of Christianity, such as the Apostles John and Paul, most notably. So, this conception of Plato's, of Platonic politics and science, and so forth, became integral to the role of Christianity, with the immediate apostles of Christ, such as John and Paul. Since that time, the struggle throughout European civilization, as it became globally extended, in particular, was for this conception of man, the special nature of man which is typified first by Christ, and a conception of man which spilled back into Judaism, through people like Philo of Alexandria, whose attacks on Aristotle are typical of this. And spilled, in a very significant way, also into Islam.

For example, in the case of the history of Spain, the Andalusian movement among Christians, Moors, and Jews in Spain, was one of the great positive cultural forces in the emergence of Europe, especially from the time of, say, Frederick II Hohenstaufen in Italy, in the 13th Century on. So, this was a great movement, but it's an expression of the role of Christianity, within an extended Hellenistic civilization, in creating what became the motion of a globally extended European civilization, both in respect to Christians, as well as Jews, and also Muslims. The Andalusian case is an example of this great fusion, which was a keystone for the development in the 15th Century, of the great Renaissance in modern civilization.

Now, the crucial thing here is this. Do we conceive man as an animal, as Thomas Huxley or Frederick Engels does? Engels says man is nothing but a beast, and the beastly behavior of some Marxists corresponds to Engels' stupid opinion on this subject. Or do we consider man as having a quality which is absent in the animals? A quality which is sublime, a quality which is divine.

The evidence for the latter, is that mankind is capable of making discoveries of universal physical principles, that is, discovering principles which are not visible to the senses, but which we can not only prove to exist as controlling the universe, but we can also willfully act on this knowledge of these principles, to change the universe. No other living creature can do that. Therefore, man, the individual, is both a creature of the flesh, as an animal is, but he's also a creature of something else, which is called spiritual: the power of discovery, of universal physical principles, typified by science, and typified by great examples of Classical artistic composition. This is it.

Now, therefore, how would you view your role in life? What makes a leader as opposed to somebody who is less than a leader, or less than a qualified leader? The qualified leader, like Jeanne d'Arc, is able to see their individual life as a talent, as a

 period of mortality which is given to them. Their concern is not what they get out of directly, in a sensory sense, out of that life--what they eat, what they wear, what they feel, their sexual experiences, and so forth--but what's important, is what their life means for humanity.

Mortal life is a brief gift, a talent. How do you spend a talent, for the future of all humanity, and the past as well? People who, like Jeanne d'Arc, are able to consider their life an expendable talent, to be spent for some great cause which makes their existence necessary in the scheme of eternity, these people are the source of leadership. They're the source of leadership in science, in creative art, and in politics.

There are other people who will see that, and say, "Yes, I guess you're right, I guess I should be like that, but gee, I don't feel like that. I have to worry about my community, my neighborhood, my family,” this or that. They can't come up to the standard of Christianity, as Christ posed it to his people, who said, "What do I do? What do I do?” You have to give up everything, that is, your attachment to all kinds of mortal gratifications. Make them purely secondary, incidental, in order to focus on that thing which gives your life eternal meaning. What you are contributing to mankind, how you are honoring the contributions, and preserving the contributions of the past, and passing these on, improved, to the future. Such people, with such conceptions, are leaders. Those who can see this, can be influenced by it but can not actually commit themselves to that kind of position, personally, are lesser leaders. They are useful, but lesser leaders.

Unfortunately, in the history of mankind, there are very few people, so far, who can make that kind of decision, as typified by the case of Jeanne d'Arc. Because remember, it was her sacrifice, her willing, conscious sacrifice, which made possible the emergence of the first modern nation-state, that of Louis XI in France. The first state in which the general welfare of the population as a whole, was the primary obligation and raison d'être for the existence of the state.

This idea, of course, is already in Plato. It's in the mouth of Socrates in the Republic, the concept of agapè, the general welfare--the posterity of mankind and its general welfare. It's a law of society. But Jeanne d'Arc made possible that kind of state by her sacrifice. She was crucial in it. She also inspired the great reform of a shattered papacy, and helped its reorganization and restoration during the course of the 15th Century.

So, what we need, primarily, are people who can become such leaders. Not that I'm recommending immolation, or torture by the Inquisition, which many had to do, as she did, but the point is, we need those kind of people who can make that kind of personal decision, to commit themselves to the cause of humanity, to the cause of their nation within humanity, above all else. We also need people who have, shall we say, less character, less strongly-developed character, weaklings who compromise between the sense of being an animal and being a true human being.

Thus, the role of the Youth Movement is to produce from itself as large a ration as possible of true leaders. That's why I focus on this Gauss 1799 paper, because it poses--and I detail this in my paper on "Visualizing the Complex Domain”--it poses the question, the question inside you, of what is a true leader. How can I know that I'm a true leader? How do I know that I have within me, the capacity to provide the kind of leadership that society requires of me? And that does it, and that's the way I approach this.

So, therefore, we need everybody, either to support the idea of the distinction between the man and the beast, or to go to a higher step, of embodying that quality, that sense of immortality, which is the mark of a true leader.

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