“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”
-Rudyard Kipling
The British imperial poet Rudyard Kipling’s famous lines showcase a pervasive belief of all oligarchist systems that the world— with its diverse cultures, languages, races and creeds- can never work together in brotherhood. Said otherwise, the differences of the parts making up the whole cannot be resolved in any way unless those differences can be destroyed through purgative violence, or cultural homogenisation. Outside of death or Borg-like assimilation, no resolution to the paradox of the ‘One and the Many’ or ‘East vs West’ exists in the mind of a Kipling, Rhodes, Mackinder, Kissinger, Schwab or Huntington.
Sadly, due to the dominance of the British Empire since Kipling wrote those words, which has shaped so much of our recent history (and academic systems), these assumptions have trickled down into the minds of most citizens living in the western world.
It is my hope that in the course of the following short essay, that Kipling’s racist, ignorant, and outright wrong-headed belief in both the “white man’s burden’ as well as the incompatibility of eastern and western thinking will be resolved in your mind.
BUT, before getting into the thick of things, I wanted to say a few words about an important technique of epistemological warfare used by oligarchists for millenia… The creation of false opposites.
False Dualisms (or How to Keep Your Mind in an Invisible Box)
Here’s how the game of herding humanity with false mental models of reality works:
1) Create a theorum-lattice grounded in a limited set of intentionally wrong fundamental axioms and assumptions. That then creates a “school of thought” controlled by a priesthood.
2) Then encourage a nearly infinite array of disputes within that school over time giving off the false impression of free choice, but none of the substance as those limited axioms and typically un-examined assumptions are preserved in all the apparently opposing sub-schools.
(For a fuller treatment of theorum-lattices, I highly encourage everyone to dive into the challenging yet rewarding 1995 essay by Lyndon LaRouche ‘Non-Newtonian Mathematics for Economists’)
All infinite possible statements that emerge out of those limited sets of axioms– even the factually true statements– are thence contaminated by the fallacy of the rotten unexamined axiomatic roots. From this moment onward, controversy may be unleashed between rival sub-schools that appear to differ in various ways but which are, in fact united in their common adherence to that limited set of core assumptions that forms an invisible cage in which the infinite possible array of choices, and disagreements emerges.
Are you a follower of bottom up Austrian School thinking or are you a follower of the top down Keynesian school? Are you a Marxist collectivist or a free market individualist? Pick a side and fight.
Yet while this fighting is happening, the dupes in either camp (which may take on a republican/conservative vs democrat/liberal appearance) will not recognize how Keynes and von Hayek both shared identical views of human nature (expressed through their admiration of British hedonists like Jeremy Bentham and Bernard Mandeville), both believed equally in the intrinsic value of money due to people wanting it, and both equally admired world government (with Hayek devoting a chapter to its necessity at the end of Road to Serfdom).
The Neocon perversion that has taken over major sections of America’s republican party over the past 60 years is another example of a false opposition group to their rival ‘liberal imperialists’ of a Fabian branding that took over the Democratic Party since the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945.
Neocons vs Neolibs (aka: The Uniparty)
One grouping portrays itself as ‘nationalist-brand imperialists projecting Pax America onto the world (while cultivating the support of Christian Zionists aching for end times prophecy) while the other group portrays itself as ‘internationalist-brand imperialists’ seeking to subdue the USA’s interests to technocratic high priests of Davos, NATO and the UN as arbiters of global order.
The Clinton Rhodes Scholars, and Blair-Obama Fabians who represent this ‘team blue’ share the exact same Nietzschean elitist worldview as their Nietzschean rivals among the neo-con elitists like Wolfowitz, Nuland, Kagan, Cheney, etc.
Perhaps, one group has a less overtly religious hue than the other, but both are shaped by doctrines of ‘will to power’ of ‘ubermenschen’ master-slave relations, and the belief in purgative violence requisite to subdue humanity under some form of Hobbesian Leviathan.
Both equally share an eschatological self-image of destiny with one version shaped by variations of Bible prophecy, and the other by transhumanist beliefs in a future ‘singularity’ where machines supposedly become self-conscious and a priesthood of social engineers take control of the levers of evolution.
While one group passes itself off as ‘religious’, and the other ‘scientific’- they are in truth simply different shades of evil.
Factions representing either group (with countless sub-groups in between) debate endlessly at seminars hosted by the World Economic Forum, or Council on Foreign Relations, and yell at each other in Congress— YET all apparent schools are united in the belief in a very sick universe.
Like polarized lenses that cut planes of light, these polarized intellectual lenses (with topography shaped by false axioms pertaining to the nature of humanity, space, time, matter, and other general articles of supposed reality) then block out unwanted spectrums of reality that would threaten the organizational structure of the oligarchy and bring humanity into greater voluntary accord with their own powers of true reason/true understanding (vs academic opinions wearing the costume of understanding) and the universal principles shaping both their mind, human history and the universe itself.
From a historian’s perspective, which should involve epistemology, and a sensitivity to political intelligence, you’ve gotta hold this in mind always when looking at history as a chimera of reality when filtered through acceptable “models” that are shaped by controlling agencies of the oligarchy.
The Strange Case of Two Fighting Keynesians
Keynesians like Jeffrey Sachs and pseudo-Keynesians like Isabella M Weber (editor of the Journal of Keynesian economics, Keynes prize winner and ‘critic of Jeffrey Sachs) are perfect examples of this phenomenon.
Both figures are promoted by such think tanks as the Fabian Society’s London School of Economics, and Roundtable Movement’s Council on Foreign Relations… YET both figures dispute publicly with one another over a variety of details about pricing, mechanisms of capital controls, interest etc. Due to their common criticisms of the obvious failures of neoliberalism, both Sachs and Weber have led in charm offences targeting the Chinese intelligentsia from varying angles while simultaneously promoting “Green New Deal” programs across the west and east alike.
Both Sachs and Isabella M Weber are not only united in their adherence to Keynes’ general worldview, but they additionally share other common characteristics in regards to promoting the dual lie that:
- Plato’s philosophy was ‘advanced’ by Aristotle with both men equally founding the thing falsely labelled ‘western civilization’.
and
- Asian philosophy exists in another universe completely separate and removed from western ‘logical’ civilization of the imagined Plato-Aristotle hybrid.
While Isabella Weber developed this fallacious thesis in her best selling book ‘How China Escaped Shock Therapy’, Jeffrey Sachs recently played the role of Aristotle in a terribly stage-managed debate with Ban Ki-Moon who played the role of an incompetent Confucius at a recent Athens Democracy Forum.
The fact is that, the assumption that Plato’s philosophy is not opposed to Aristotle and the assumption that ‘western logical thinking’ exists in an opposing universe to eastern sensibilities are among two of the most virulent lies at the heart of imperial mental controls of humanity.
Plato’s Republic (on the organization of the soul and the state around a pursuit of Justice) and especially his Laws feature alot of material on the practical management of society around practical principles- very much in harmony with the principles of the Guanxi that have animated Chinese economic thinking for over four millenia.
Additionally, the Confucian concepts of Tian Ming (aka: the Mandate of Heaven) and the notions of Natural Law developed by Plato and Christian Platonists like St. Augustine and Thomas More represent identical universal principles expressed through western and eastern garbs in both theory and forms of practice.
Dr. Quan Le’s recent presentation on this topic provides a wonderful gateway to begin to think about this concept:
Throughout their many writings, Jeffrey Sachs and Isabella Weber are correct to identify Aristotle’s worldview as more prescriptive than Plato’s, but Aristotle’s system is also devoid of honesty, and presumes axioms like the blank slate in contrast to the presumption of a pre-existent harmony expressed in creation or the soul of Plato’s worldview. Aristotle’s system additionally presupposes an impotent God as “prime mover” while Plato’s system presumes an active living creator and Aristotle’s God found it reasonable to create a world of born masters and born slaves with different sets of “Justice” applied to each caste.
These are notions which both Plato and Confucius entirely reject.
Just to be clear: I don’t disagree that there are different points of emphasis from Chinese or Platonic/Christian western ideas, but the core universal principles are the same and the principle of striving to strike a balance between broad universal principles and practical action (tied intimately to the freedom-duty/ destiny-free will/change-no change paradox) is the same in both worlds.
The works of Confucius’ student Mencius provides an excellent gateway into this topic:
Similarly the same defects of thinking that encourage unexamined assumptions, blind faith in mysticism and belief in irrationalist universes are also found with common attributes in both Western and Eastern worlds with trails of wars, depopulation, dark ages and occult priesthoods littering the historic experiences of both worlds.
EIR researcher Michael Billington’s work on this topic is of most profound interest. His work on The Deconstructionist Assault on China’s Cultural Optimism and The Taoist Perversion of 20th Century Science are two of the most potent treatments this author has seen on this issue.
Guiding prescriptions for philosopher kings (or even lower level managers who are not at that higher level) are expressed beautifully in ancient Chinese ethical texts like the Guanxi, Analects and Five Classics.
It is also found within the corpus of writings of all true Platonists of the western world.
I say “true Platonists” in order to differentiate from the infinitely divisible schools of neo-Platonist occultists and Aristotelians-acting-like Platonists which have carried out immense damage to humanity (and Plato’s name) for over 2300 years. These counterfeit Platonists are, in many ways, similar to the worst of China’s legalists who have portrayed themselves as Confucians- yet who merely justified tyranny instead of cultivating the love of humanity as Confucius espoused.
The priesthoods of mystery religions have always organized these false schools with their infinitely divisible controversies and creations of new innovative models that are not dissimilar to the modern incarnation of the occult mystery school techniques shaping Cambridge where ‘apostles’ like Lords John Maynard Keynes, and Bertrand Russell served as high priests of the Empire.
How China is Reviving the American System
A couple of years ago, I composed a presentation on the roots of the Westphalian system from Plato’s Republic to the American Revolution.
In this lecture (which also makes up a chunk of my Clash of the Two Americas volume 3), I attempted to demonstrate the evolution of the American System of Political Economy from Solon and Plato through Cicero’s Commonwealth, St. Augustine, Charlemagne (who created a dynamic with Haroun Al Rashid and the Tang Dynasty), to the Cameralist school of Germany, and the Dirigiste school of France’s Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
I additionally sought to illustrate how these same Dirigistes emerged in England around Erasmus, Cardinal Thomas Morton and Thomas More (who’s book “Utopia” offers both practical and ideal lessons for rulers).
This school of political-economic theory had a powerful expression in Florence and Spain as well, and it flowed into the work of the great scientist Gottfried Leibniz (On Society and Economy 1671, and Emmerich de Vattel, James Logan, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton, etc.
In reviewing the writings of leading representatives of this school of political economy, I was struck that they are always authentic Platonists… without exception. These figures were proponents of both the theory (realm of ideals) and also the practical material application of national programs that gave rise to the American System of Political Economy. Despite the name ‘American System’, leading representatives of this school before and after the American revolution included German industrialists like Otto von Bismarck and Friedrich List as well as French, Russian and Asian nationalists like Sadi Carnot, Sergei Witte and President Sun Yatsen.
All of this is investigable as an unbroken continuity in both theory and practice within universal history.
This school’s very existence is entirely rejected by Marxist collectivists and Adam Smith Free Trading individualists… as well as Keynesians and Austrian School libertarians.
The reason for the rejection of this school’s unbroken existence from Solon and Confucius to our current age may have something to do with the fact that it is characterised by the rejection of any notion of value premised on the belief in either pleasure-pain principles or cold utilitarianism. The pleasure-pain principle and cold utilitarian principle of ‘what is useful is good’ serve as the basis of all functional false oppositions from ancient times to our present confused age, so it is no wonder that an entire school of thought built upon creative discovery, moral virtue and Natural Law would be seen as a grave threat to those puppet masters controlling the shadows on the cave wall entrapping most of humanity, for most of the time.
In the American system of political economy, theory (the transcendental realm of Ideas/Being) and practice (the material realm of Action/Becoming) are co-developed with a look to creating a society where all men and women could attain the qualifications of being truly aristocratic (ie: the best cultural expression of themselves as beings animated by the pursuit of knowledge, love of wisdom, devotion to humanity and playful exploration).
Geopolitical analysts Glenn Diesen and Pepe Escobar have both demonstrated a solid comprehension of this history and Glenn even wrote a book on the topic which was reviewed by Escobar in an article titled Will The Hegemon Ever Accept A New Westphalian World Order?
In his review of Diesen’s book, Escobar writes:
“With a lovely on the road formulation, Diesen shows how ‘Russia can be considered the successor of the Mongolian nomads as the last custodian of the Eurasian land corridor’, while China revives the Ancient Silk Roads ‘with economic connectivity’. In consequence, ‘a powerful Eurasian gravitational pull is thus reorganizing the supercontinent and the wider world.’
Providing context, Diesen needs to engage in an obligatory detour to the basics of the Great Game between the Russian and British empires. What stands out is how Moscow already was pivoting to Asia all the way to the late 19th century, when Russian Finance Minister Sergei Witte started to develop a groundbreaking road map for a Eurasia political economy, ‘borrowing from Alexander Hamilton and Friedrich List.’
Witte ‘wanted to end Russia’s role as an exporter of natural resources to Europe as it resembled ‘the relations of colonial countries with their metropolises’.”
The Fatal Imbalance of Individualism vs Collectivism
The problem in the west is tied, in my view to the volatility caused by the powerful (but also powerfully destructive) insight into the Promethean nature of humanity expressed in Christianity which resulted in the concept of the sacredness of the individual and associated notion that we are all equally made in the image of a living loving, reasonable Creator.
While the sacredness of the individual is found within Chinese, and Indian texts, it never emerged as explicitly and loudly as it had within the west- and like they say, with great power comes great responsibilities. In this case the freedom of the individual must accompany the maturation of reason and conscious of the individual such that each sovereign citizen becomes willfully obedient to discovered truths about moral laws- uniting the sense of individual liberty and happiness with the liberty and happiness of the whole nation.
If that doesn’t happen, then that power can cause the extreme damage in the hands of an oligarchical high priest class of Satanists.
This imbalance appears to be the cause of the Golden Renaissance’s decadence and the perversion of that beautiful potential for Goodness which decayed into the empiricist enlightenment, with accompanying wars, pride in the self, emergence of god-less perversions of science, and Hobbesian systems of empire to which both Keynes, von Hayek, Jeffrey Sachs and Isabella Weber have devoted themselves.
Also watch for free our RTF Docu-Series “Escaping Calypso’s Island: A Journey Out of Our Green Delusion” and our CP Docu-Series “The Hidden Hand Behind UFOs”.
