The artistic trend in East/West exchange for the last ten years has focused on the Silk Road, a metaphor that captures the imagination and dares humankind to dream of a time when the exchange of ideas and goods between East and West was not a necessity, but a desirable and enriching experience between friends. Unfortunately, where this metaphor is most valuable, business and academics, old paradigms of a zero-sum economics and the game of market domination still hold sway, focusing on competition rather than cooperation. This leads to the kinds of trade deficits, imbalances and divisive rhetoric that negatively affected the friendship of the world’s two biggest economies – China and the US.

The Seres Institute is calling the world to end this self-defeating cycle of reaction and rhetoric between our two giant civilizations, to usher in a new stage of international growth that is not dependent on debt, cheap labor and abusive business practices, but rather upon friendship, collaboration, creativity and a shared culture of appreciation. A new method for facilitating exchange must be found, and this paradigm must inevitably return to the “win-win” economics of the Old Silk Road, where everyone got everything they wanted through the trade of what the others needed – Silk and Gold – without losing their own cultural identities. This is why learning and appreciating each others’ cultures, values, histories and philosophies will be increasingly important moving forward into the 21st century.

Rome and the Han Empire coexisted peacefully, two of the greatest artistic and military civilizations in the world, and yet they supported each other, because what Rome wanted it got from Han, and what Han wanted it got from Rome. This system of exchange worked because the two ancient cultures of East and West wanted complementary things but worked in opposite ways. Their systems and cultures being different actually facilitated positive exchange, rather than being a cause for concern and a call for uniformity. This kept the balance and allowed two empires to be great without confrontation. There was no trade deficit sinking the world in debt or inadvertently auctioning off national sovereignty, just a mutually beneficial model of international trade, coupled with strategic isolation. History shows us that peaceful and creative coexistence is not impossible.

Seres is the Latin word for the “Land of Silk”, which is actually the Chinese word for silk, “si”, changed through its long inland journey in the mouths of traders and tacked with a Latin ending for “Land”. In many ways, this word represents the process with which it became associated, and that we hold as our central goal – beneficial exchange between East and West that is a combination of both cultures. The Seres Institute is dedicated to researching ways in which silken policies can form, that will enable everyone to get together, compromise, and get what everyone wants – resulting in a commodity greater than silk or gold, because “peace is what truly makes the world go ‘round!”