By Matthew Ehret “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” -Abraham Lincoln It should be obvious that the world is being sucked into a new Cold War, with old school iron curtains, anti-communist rhetoric and even nuclear sabre rattling pushed by unipolar war hawks in the west. Unlike the first Cold…
WHY Russia Saved the United States
By Cynthia Chung “Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defences, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be…
Plato’s Fight Against Apollo’s Temple of Delphi and the Cult of Democracy
By Cynthia Chung Homer’s great poems that are left to us today, The Iliad and The Odyssey, describe the events of the Trojan War and its immediate aftermath, events which marked the descent of Greece into a Dark Age. Following the Trojan War, c.1190 BCE, the civilization of mainland Greece collapsed, written language was lost, and cities disappeared….
How to Conquer Tyranny: A Lesson from Plato
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Plato’s Letter VII Plato to Dion’s associates and friends wishes well-doing. You write to me that I must consider your views the same as those of Dion, and you urge me to aid your cause so far as I can…
Sparks of a New Renaissance in Painting Emerge from China
By Matthew Ehret It is rare to see new artistic movements arise. It is even rarer that such artistic revolutions manage to respect the best traditions of the past while at the same time infuse something new and improved into society. The fatal error made by many innovators attempting to break with the often stultifying…
Classics & Classics : The Three Kingdoms… Tempus, Kairos & Chronos
In this presentation delivered by the Rising Tide Foundation’s resident China expert Dr. Quan Le, the heart and soul of Chinese civilization is explored through the portal of the great Confucian classics and the deeper moral, philosophical and even geopolitical lessons contained in the 14th century historical novel by Luo Guanzhong titled ‘The Romance of…
The Poetic Principle in the World of the I Ching: Mankind’s Long Journey to Reason and Beauty
In this lecture Dr. Quan Le focuses on the I Ching, the first Confucian Classic (of five: Yi Jing, Shu Jing, Shi Jing, Chun Qiu and Zhou Li) which magnificently embodies the poetic principle famously outlined by Shelley, centuries later, in his Defense of Poetry which re-asserted that Poets are the true legislators of the world….
Virgil or Aristotle… Who is Contemplating the Bust of Homer?
By Gerald Therrien One of Rembrandt’s greatest paintings is known by some people as ‘Aristotle contemplating the Bust of Homer’. Since no surviving records exist from either Rembrandt’s hand nor the patron who commissioned this masterpiece in 1653 AD, speculation has run rampant for over 350 years as to the true identity of the mysterious…
The Pythagorean Revival Needed to Overthrow Today’s Standard Model Priesthood
By Matthew Ehret Today, I would like to say a few words about the suppressed Pythagorean Tradition both as a celebration of a lost art of thinking that gave rise to the greatest revolutions in science and even moral philosophy but also as an antidote to the impotent cult of scientism which has permeated every…
Book Review: The Nature of the Atom (An Introduction to the Structured Atom Model)
By Matthew Ehret It has been far too long that science has been constricted by the many absurd assumptions underlying the early 20th century trainwreck that came to be called “standard model quantum mechanics”, sometimes called “the Copenhagen Interpretation” after the birthplace of the school’s founding father Niels Bohr. The most destructive among the many…
Checkmate: How Iran is Spearheading a Geopolitical Sea Change in West Asia
By Matthew Ehret [originally published on the Cradle] Benjamin Franklin once famously wrote to his fellow colonials: “Either we hang together or we hang separately.” Those words are just as true today as they were 270 years ago, for empires have always controlled by dividing their victims into regional tribal interests in order to be…
Tomorrow’s Arctic: Theatre of War or Cooperation? The Real Story Behind the Alaska Purchase
By Matthew Ehret Today, the Arctic has increasingly become identified as a domain of great prosperity and cooperation amongst world civilizations on the one side and a domain of confrontation and war on the other. In 2007, the Russian government first voiced its support for the construction of the Bering Strait rail tunnel connecting the Americas with…
Rediscovering the Odyssey of Homer: Was it History or Myth?
Up until the late 19th century, humanity had presumed that the fantastical stories conveyed in the ancient works of Homer were little more than fiction. However, certain archaeologists choose to see in Homer’s work the metaphorical hand of truth, and following the author’s descriptions of lands contained in the Illiad, tracked down the exact locations…
Why the Study of Ancient History Must Be Reformed
Our understanding of humanity’s place in the universe and how it came to be is the result of centuries or even millennia of scholarship and dedicated inquiry. But what happens when an intellectual heretic arises, one whose ideas or theory threatens to undermine humanity’s most essential understanding of itself? Is the heretic and his or her…
Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic? Part Two
By Gerald Therrien At the end of the article – ‘Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic’ – we saw that reason obliged us to ban poetry from our republic, and that reason can admit poetry into our republic, but that it is our job to become the defenders of poetry, to keep it the…
We Need a Renaissance, Not a Reset: Why the Singularity Point Is Not Coming
By David Gosselin Humanity has always had a story and it always will. Depending on our understanding of that story, individuals, or humanity as a whole, can be lead down fundamentally different paths. As part of a new series, “What the World Needs Is a Renaissance, Not a Reset,” we will be looking at some…
Symposium: Earth’s Next Hundred Years
Date: Sunday September 26 at 7pm ESTTitle: Vol II: Cheikh Anta Diops dream of a United Africa – the economic vision for an African Belt and Road InitiativeLecturer: Nicholas JonesBio: Nicholas is a professional dancer with La Grande Ballet de Montreal who has performed around the world and recently founded the Artists Alliance for Africa as a non-profit devoted…
What Determines A Limit to Growth?
By Cynthia Chung This is an article version of a class Cynthia Chung gave for the symposium “The Earth Next 100 Years” which can be viewed here. What Determines a “Limit to Growth”? This might seem like a rather ignorant or simplistic question to some. Many will think the answer rather obvious, that the Limit…
The Curse of Game Theory: Why It’s in Your Self-Interest to Exit the Rules of the Game
By Cynthia Chung Game theory, the mathematical theory of games of strategy, was developed by John von Neumann in several successive stages in 1928 and 1940-41, according to his book “Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour” which he co-authored with Oskar Morgenstern. The crux of the theory is that an individuals’ behaviour will always be…
The Red Sky: A Parable
By Adam Sedia After crossing the Great Mountains, I saw before me, to the west, a vast and sprawling plain. Many great rivers crossed its fertile fields, teeming at that time of year with wheat and cotton. Yet it has no cities to speak of–only small villages scattered about. The simple folk of the foothills…
Towards An Age of Creative Reason Symposium
To register for upcoming RTF lecture series, please contact info@risingtidefoundation.net Today, perhaps more so than at any time in history, we are experiencing a divide between what is considered to be the “domain” or “confinement” of art as wholly separate from the domain of “politics.” The irony of such a perception is its failure to…
Benjamin Franklin and Chinese Civilization
Dave Wang is Manager of Hollis Library and Adjunct Professor of St. Johns University– Article originally published on Reset DOC (Dialogue of Civilizations) Prof. Wang has published over twenty groundbreaking articles on the topic of Chinese influences on the founding fathers of America. You can find more of his incredible work athttps://foundingfathersandchina.blogspot.com Scholarship on the study…
Who Benefits from Africa’s Poverty?
In this Rising Tide Foundation lecture, Africa Agenda editor in chief PD Lawton takes you through a definitive history of Africa with a look to the future. PD introduces ancient African renaissance traditions that have long been suppressed by colonial powers since the 19th century and takes the viewer through the calamitous 20th century with…
The 15th Century Renaissance and the Space Program Today
by Cynthia Chung Today, a new system of alliances is emerging centered around China’s Belt and Road Initiative which has brought together over 125 nations into a new paradigm of cooperation and long term thinking unseen for many generations. With the announcement of a Russia-China-European joint lunar base to be built in the coming decade,…
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia: A Phase Shift in Universal History
Today’s world is shaped by a tension caused by two opposing paradigms pulling humanity into two directions. Where one is unipolar and premised around an organizing principle of “Might makes Right”, the other is multi-polar and shaped by a principle of “win-win cooperation”. Where one is imperial- defining “value” around the material extraction of land…
Norman Rockwell & the Rediscovery of America’s Moral Compass
By Matthew Ehret A great poet once said that you can judge a nation by how it honors (or fails to honor) its artists. In many ways, the soul of a nation is entirely shaped by the artists which that society has produced. This makes perfectly good sense, as an artist is able to portray…
RTF Cinema Picks
Everyone loves a good story. The problem is that storytelling, like any branch of art, can sometimes be a double edged sword that can make us either better or worse. The factors that determine the power of art to do either improve or deteriorate an audience are many, acting simultaneously on the mind, body and…
Frank Capra’s Defense of Humanity: Cinema Considered as a Moral Institution
By Matthew Ehret For those who find themselves with excess time this holiday season which they would prefer not to squander with idleness or Netflix binges, then I’d like to offer this serving of Frank Capra films to uplift the soul. Frank Capra (1897-1991) stands as one of the most brilliant directors/producers of the 20th…
Who Killed Alfred Herrhausen in 1989- and Why (The Answer Revealed After 32 Years)
This Rising Tide Foundation lecture features investigative journalist, film maker and historian Dirk Pohlmann. Throughout this deep dive into history (premised on research that will be revealed in his upcoming book) Dirk sheds light on the truth of Deutschebank President Alfred Herrhausen’s 1989 murder in startling detail. This presentation takes an audience through a century…
Celebrate Beethoven, Composer of Freedom
By Nancy Spannaus Two hundred and fifty-one years ago, on December 16, 1770, the world welcomed the birth of the man I call the “Composer of Freedom,” Ludwig van Beethoven. Let us celebrate Beethoven today for his historical and ongoing contributions to liberating mankind from tyranny and ugliness, including in our own republic. Although Beethoven…
Alma Deutscher’s Plea for Harmony Strikes a Universal Chord
An incredible speech was given by the 14 year old composer Alma Deutscher upon receiving the European Culture Prize at the Vienna State Opera on October 20, 2019. At this prestigious ceremony, the young musician, whose works have sent shock waves through the musical world since she began composing at young age of 6 made…
On Optimism: A Chant of Darkness
By Cynthia Chung “So my optimism is no mild and unreasoning satisfaction. A poet once said I must be happy because I did not see the bare, cold present, but lived in a beautiful dream. I do live in a beautiful dream; but that dream is the actual, the present – not cold, but warm;…
Reviving the Lost Art of Pythagorean Thinking [RTF Lecture]
In this final presentation of the Rising Tide Foundation symposium ‘The Earth’s Next 100 Years’, Matthew Ehret introduces a potent method of thinking embodied in the figures of Plato, Pythagoras and Timaeus of Locri in Ancient Greece. We trace the work of Pythagorean thinking from the famous Timaeus dialogue, which introduced a rigorous hypothesis of…
The Discovery of the School of Athens Part 1: The Pre-Socratic Philosophers Explored
By Gerald Therrien “A little learning is a dang’rous thing;Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,And drinking largely sobers us again.”(from ‘An Essay on Criticism’, by Alexander Pope) The year 2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of the great Florentine artist Raffaello Sanzio. One of his most…
Why the Poetic Principle is Imperative for Statecraft
Cynthia Chung Today, perhaps more so than at any time in history, we are experiencing a divide between what is considered to be the “domain” or “confinement” of art as wholly separate from the domain of “politics.” The irony of such a perception is its failure to recognise that the root of our political system…
How To Conquer Tyranny and Avoid Tragedy: A Lesson on Defeating Systems of Empire
By Cynthia Chung This is a transcription of a lecture, which can be found here, given as part of the RTF series “Art, Science and Civilization: The Renaissance Principles Across the Ages.“ It is common today to be confronted with the belief that any country, any civilization that gains a certain degree of power, will…
All Possibilities Actualized, or The Dimensions of Time
By Dr. Michael Clarage Time has different dimensions, just like space. Words like “now”, “eternity”, “possibilities” refer to dimensions of time, just as “length”, “area”, and “volume” refer to dimensions of space. With this essay I hope to show how on the topic of TIME, Physics can re-join its historical siblings after too many years…
Beethoven’s Fidelio Plays out on a Modern Stage… in Belmarsh Prison
By Luc Trudel A recently posted video allows anyone to quietly visit the site where, a man, a good man, is prevented to live his life peacefully because he exercised one of his human rights. The video serves as a reminder of the disgraceful fact that Julian Assange has been held unjustly in UK’s Belmarsh…
An Introduction to Friedrich Schiller: Theater Considered as a Moral Institution
by Cynthia Chung I know of only one secret to guarding man against depravity, and that is: to arm his heart against weakness. – Friedrich Schiller’s Theater Considered as a Moral Institution As within any period of time, the question is repeatedly asked “What is the Role of the Artist?” That is, what is the…
Clash of the Two Americas in Russian Coming Soon (DenTV talks with Matt Ehret)
In this first of a series of interview’s with Russia’s DenTV, Matt Ehret discusses his new book The Clash of the Two Americas which will be translated and published in Russia in the early weeks of 2022. Purchase the english version of the Clash of the Two Americas vol 1 and 2 here (Russian edition…
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