The Coincidence of Opposites: The True Basis for Successful Diplomacy

In her international webcast, Schiller Institute Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche referenced the importance of Pope Leo XIV’s speech on Oct. 25, in front of thousands assembled at St. Peter’s Square, where he talked about the founder of modern science and great Renaissance thinker, Nicholas of Cusa. Pope Leo XIV had said that during the fifteenth century, in Cusa’s time, many people lived in fear, took up arms against each other, and looked at their neighbors with general distrust and suspicion, while Cusa, “believed in humanity.” Pope Leo XIV said that Cusa “understood that there are opposites which must be held together.”

Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophical breakthrough, which he developed throughout the course of the Council of Florence from 1431-1445, was his method of the Coincidence of Opposites. Helga Zepp-LaRouche described this method in-depth on her international webcast. The Coincidence of Opposites is, “a method of thinking [of] how you [can avoid getting] get stuck in the nitty-gritties of this problem or that problem, but how you can train your mind to think the one. This is extremely important. The Pope applies it very clearly to the political situation, because, obviously, If you look at every conflict in the world today, if you look at the situation in the Middle East or Ukraine or the Caribbean, if you only look at the facts, the history of the crisis, the tensions and the personalities involved, you will never find an adequate solution. But if you start totally the other way around, if you think the one first, in this case the one humanity—that which unites us all—and then from that elevated point of view look at the concrete crisis, you can always find a solution…. You can apply that method to any problem, to politics, economics, military issues, social issues, cultural issues, because it is a way of conflict resolution which does exactly that: that the hope of synthesizing the next step of the evolution of the development of mankind, you can see something that does not exist but which can be brought about by people of good will by concerted efforts. So, this is a very beautiful intervention…"

The revival of Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophy is one of the most profound questions which will determine the durable survival of all of humanity, during a time when geopolitical divisions are at their height, and when the prospect of thermonuclear war is incredibly high. While a step back from the brink has taken place today, with the meeting of President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC Summit in South Korea, what is needed is a move towards durable survival between nations.

Civilizations have collapsed, not out of fate, but based on whether a culture was capable of rejecting its flawed axiomatic beliefs, and proceeding to a higher solution which seemed impossible before. This is what Nicholas of Cusa pioneered, when he engineered the successful Council of Florence which resolved the schism between both the Western and Eastern Churches. We can do the same today, following the approach of Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and Nicholas of Cusa.

Speakers: Bill Jones and Dennis Speed