The Lead
Reason, Immortality, and the Refusal To Be Small
by Jason Ross (EIRNS) — Dec. 25, 2025
When sanctions are imposed without trial, bank accounts closed without explanation, and political speech treated as a public danger, the issue is no longer this or that policy dispute. It is whether reason itself will be allowed to function. Ideas, which seem to have no physical force, yet can move mountains, end empires, and create entirely new fields of science—because the human mind is capable of discovering principles that govern the universe. That coherence between human creative thought and the reality of our developing universe is the true source of power.
A society that attacks this faculty cannot long survive. One cannot defend democracy by declaring that simply hearing the words of a political candidate might cause “serious harm,” or claim devotion to freedom of expression while enforcing ideological obedience through travel bans, sanctions, and financial exclusion. Such measures are not strength; they are admissions of intellectual bankruptcy.
What we are witnessing—particularly in Europe—goes beyond hypocrisy. It shows the absence of moral purpose. Officials who denounce restrictions imposed on themselves gleefully endorse far harsher penalties against journalists, judges, UN officials, and political opponents. The closure of bank accounts in Germany belonging to parties and reporters is not a technical matter. It announces that participation in civic life is now contingent on thinking the “right” thoughts.
This is precisely the degeneration Lyndon LaRouche addressed when he spoke of immortality, not as the preservation of the body, but as the measure of a life lived for humanity’s future:
All great leaders have the commitment to immortality. Not immortality in the sense of the flesh, but to say, I have only one life, how shall I spend that which is limited anyway? … We make the society better; therefore, I achieve a certain kind of immortality.
He contrasted this outlook with the prevailing mentality of modern politics:
The typical politician lacks that. He wants his satisfaction, now. He wants the success of his party faction. He wants good for his nation, but he wants to have it without having to give up his success.
LaRouche identified the deeper danger as a shrinking of the human spirit itself:
How do you expect the people, who are tied up in their concerns for their immediate family interests, their insecurities, their concern for this and that, their income problems; how do you expect them to come out of their littleness, if the leaders of society act like little people themselves? Act like little mannequins?
Against this moral smallness, he posed a higher standard:
What you need are true heroes. Not the heroes of the sword, but the heroes of the spirit. You need a combination of courage, like that of Jeanne d’Arc, but you also need the wisdom that goes with it, the wisdom of the soul.
The Dec. 26 meeting of the International Peace Coalition must be understood in this light. It embodies a refusal to accept a world governed by fear, sanctions, censorship, and permanent war. At a moment in history when military escalation is normalized, economic strangulation is just one form of diplomacy, and scientific breakthroughs such as laser fusion coexist with calls for endless conflict, the question is whether reason will again guide policy.
Immortality, in this sense, is not an abstract philosophical question.
It is the practical measure of whether leaders and citizens alike act for the benefit of generations they will never meet. A civilization that suppresses reason chooses to die in the present. One that cultivates it chooses to live in the future.
Contents
Collapsing Imperial System
- When It Comes to Sanctions, EU Wants It Both Ways (↓)
- German Banks Closing Accounts of Opposition Parties and Journalists (↓)
New World Paradigm
- Pope Calls for Christmas Peace (↓)
- Pope to the Curia: Must Be Missionaries, Not Tending Our Own Gardens (↓)
Science and Technology
Strategic War Danger
- Israel Signals Continued Regional Military Campaign (↓)
- U.S. Lawmakers Call for Pressure over Gaza Ceasefire (↓)
- U.S. Prefers Imposing Economic Blockade on Venezuela to Military Intervention (↓)
- Zelenskyy Christmas Wish: Putin Should Die (↓)
- The Pentagon's ‘China Military Power Report’ (↓)
U.S. and Canada
Harley Schlanger Update
Watch The Daily Update with Harley Schlanger, a short video update available every weekday morning from The LaRouche Organization.
