Friday 1 October 2010

Zeitgeist Movement

Many are familiar with Peter Joseph’s debunked conspiracy theory movie[1][2][3] Zeitgeist, which begat the fledgling blatantly utopianist American social movement known as the Zeitgeist Movement, shortly thereafter. The size or relevance of this movement is difficult to ascertain, although their membership email list was cited at over 400,000[4][5] in 2010 (although I was one of them). The growing circulation of their ideas (mainly on the Internet) makes it wise to assess these ideas with a critical lens. The Zeitgeist Movement considered itself a “grassroots” social movement in March 2010[6]. It appears to have eliminated this word from its definition in other accounts[7], clearly highlighting ambiguity about its own nature and purpose. However, one constant feature is its bold proclaimed goal of nothing less than the wholesale social and economic elevation of the entirety of mankind[8]. The Movement operates on the premise that no politicians can effectively govern, due to their lack of specialist knowledge[9] (in whatever particular decision being made). Current forms of governance, according to the Zeitgeist Movement, prevent any ability to develop the cure for a ravaged environment[10] and an impoverished mankind[11]; two shocking global ills that are becoming increasingly substantive in the eyes of a nonetheless badly-informed Western public. The Movement consistently preaches that the only possible architects of solutions to these problems will be scientists and engineers[12], who are effectively qualified to make the necessary decisions.
  
Firstly, note how the Zeitgeist Movement immediately ascribes all blame for the world’s social and economic problems to two principle fields: politics[13] and monetary[14] economics. The politician is only motivated by endless power, and so he lies to his constituents. The businessman is only motivated by endless profit, so he lies to his customers. When they are not con artists, they are still responsible for global ills, simply because they all have bad intent. While these criticisms of the World-System are fair, the Zeitgeist Movement employs no others, and boldly supposes that it does not have these shortcomings itself, because it is based on science[15] and true wisdom[16], and has the priority of benefiting the vast majority of mankind[17]. Since the Zeitgeist Movement and the Venus Project profess to be conceived by neither the politician nor the businessman, their proponents presume themselves invulnerable to any kind of criticism, within the framework that they have applied to themselves and expect anyone to confront them via. They are the “specialists”. As you are about to learn in the course of this article, the sense of rhetorical invulnerability that runs throughout their Movement is a severe falsehood, and anyone prepared to focus and compile the faults and outright follies of the Zeitgeist Movement will have an unsurprisingly easy (but perhaps lengthy) task.

Let us consider the principle figures involved in the Zeitgeist Movement. Although I will do my best to be perceptive, rather than simply slandering the organisation as a personality cult revolving around the blind devotion to supposed prophets, the reader will probably come to that deduction by way of his own logic. In spite of the Zeitgeist Movement’s commitment to the perceived superiority of the engineer and scientist[18], rather than the politician, its own leading proponents are not scientists, engineers or any other kind of qualified specialist, which is why they identify as “self-educated”. Why, then, do they appoint themselves for the task of putting the specialists on a pedestal, if they neither are nor consult with specialists? The qualified elements of society are too busy with enterprises, which appear to be their exclusive motivation (and are the central things that the Zeitgeist Movement so foolishly appoints itself to destroy).

The “futurist” con artist, Jacque Fresco, undoubtedly a multi-millionaire with countless ties to corrupt quasi-monopolising firms, is the creator of an already debunked scam known as the Venus Project[19], and is a leading figure in the Zeitgeist Movement[20], accompanied by Roxanne Meadows, former portrait artist[21] turned president of the Venus Project Inc[22]. Fresco and Meadows are, themselves, construction entrepreneurs, and the Venus Project is actually profit-oriented[23]. The Zeitgeist Movement’s dependence on them is nothing less than a mind-numbing declaration of hypocrisy, and an insult to the intelligence of the movement’s followers. We are given two reasons to put our faith in Fresco’s intellectual authority. Firstly, he is extremely old[24]. Secondly, he witnessed the Great Depression[25]. In other words, Fresco possesses no particular credibility as an intellectual beacon, and is simply not worth lending our ears to. This would not be the case if Fresco was acting as a bridge to the ideas of specified intellectual giants, rather than concocting a wild, utopianist ideology of his own. Fresco has only his age, his personal experience and his rhetoric to sway various people (with a blatantly false sense of academic backing) into supporting his programmes. It is obvious that Fresco’s ideas will only lose their credibility if they come to the attention of a better-informed audience. The perplexing question is how such an obvious lunatic attained any aura of credibility in the first place. This would probably have scandalous answers (particular to the United States), if we looked, and have to do with his carefully hushed up business ties. To cite Fresco as being called a latter-day Einstein by conspiracy theorist nutcase William Gazecki[26] is surely defamatory. The founder and leader of the Zeitgeist Movement is Peter Joseph, who is a filmmaker with a limited education in any field outside of entertainment. Once again, the sole basis of his supposed intellect is his ability to manipulate an audience’s emotions through media. More and more, the Zeitgeist Movement appears to be an ecstatic movement, and certainly not the agent of a latter-day enlightenment that it places itself to be.

By all academic standards, the Zeitgeist Movement is disreputable, closed-minded and cultish, in terms of its theoretic origins. As explained in the above paragraph, the Zeitgeist Movement largely revolves around the ideas of Jacque Fresco, concocted by his own amateurish research[27], from the drawing board. Nothing could be further from science and rationality than to support Fresco and his Movement, which is purely defined in relation to its own membership base. There was never any science or rationality involved in the Zeitgeist Movement, and there never will be. This Movement feeds on the entirely false sense of enlightenment that its customers gain when certain vacuous words are said to them. While telling everyone that they have been brainwashed and require the Zeitgeist Movement to liberate them, the Zeitgeist Movement accomplishes a remarkable form of brainwashing, through erecting a barrier between its adherents and all non-Zeitgeist Movement sources of knowledge. This is a typical method employed by formative cults[28].

An essential theoretic basis of the Zeitgeist Movement is the belief in popular conspiracy theories. The Movement is more affiliated with the disreputable “Truther” Movement[29] than it is with any credible political camp. The usual absurd fixation on the suicide plane attacks of September 11th 2001[30] circulates among the followers of the Zeitgeist Movement (which somehow “proves” their position, along with that of many other ludicrous American movements claiming to preach “the truth”). It is worth bearing in mind that the belief in bizarre conspiracy theories is common among citizens of the United States[31]; the exclusive product of their Hollywood-warped imaginations, when addressing the plain and unremarkable fact that their government is devoid of any care for them. In their despair over this bald fact, Americans use their warped imaginations to create a spectacle from nothing, and a conspiracy theory is born. Americans are known to possess very little knowledge about international politics, and conspiracy theorists clearly possess the least, as we can discover through any degree of dialogue with them. Despite the fact that Zeitgeist: the Movie was a deceitful film intending to maximise an emotional response, and departed from any rational argument[32], the Zeitgeist Movement’s followers are completely intoxicated by the seductive promises of entertainers and poets, insisting that only their misguided emotional agency can birth a substantively rational world.

The idea of a “Resource-based Economy” is as ill-conceived as the term itself, which encountered trademark issues[33] as a result of its prior use, which Fresco was clearly unaware of. Besides the fact the Zeitgeist Movement’s “Resource-based Economy” is simply not articulated in any degree of detail, to label enterprise as the cause of all global ills is a malignant message that can only engineer disastrous results. It has never been done, even by the most daring radicals. Giving “exclusive priority to the endless accumulation of capital” is a diagnosed ill, by World-Systems Analysis[34]. Most enterprises involve this, but not all. To label all enterprise as a crime is a recipe for the disintegration of all economic life; it will only make the redistribution of wealth far less likely. Enterprise must exist in one form or another, because it is payment; it has nothing to do with the endless accumulation of capital. When scientists develop remedies for diseases, it is their enterprise. When transportation systems make the delivery of food easier, it is the engineer’s enterprise. The “resources” do not simply fall into one’s hands, as a scientist or engineer. They access them through some other party, in the form of money and services (whether a state initiative or private means). There must be “contracts”, of one kind or another, in order for resources to become available to anyone. Currency merely assists this operation. Proposing otherwise would be the pinnacle of stupidity and ignorance.

To immediately label the existence of a monetary system as the cause of global ills is to diagnose its destruction as an exclusive priority, and this is a serious error. If we suppose that the above paragraph’s argument is flawed, the question of priority still kicks in and slams the fevered call for Resource-based Economy. Should the monetary system’s destruction occur, so fast, it will not erase the systemically unequal distributions of capital in any way. It will worsen the situation, as it will permanently ingrain the axial division of labour into the World-System and make its subversion more difficult. Weaker actors will become entirely dependent upon the holders of technology, turning the global order into an iron pyramid that will never be destroyed.

In spite of its facade of extensive beliefs and purposes[35], the Zeitgeist Movement is overwhelmingly simplistic and “dumbed-down”, and has only two substantive objectives. Beyond these, it might as well not exist. Firstly, it vainly proclaims that it will minimise all bad decisions by placing scientists and engineers on a pedestal that they never enjoyed before (since political science, political philosophy and governance are utter lies that should never be consulted). This involves total ignorance of the extensive existing fields of law and governance, which are specialist fields. Not according to the Zeitgeist Movement. Secondly, it believes that the destruction of money, and the extensive rehabilitation of all minds supposedly damaged by its evils, will exterminate all greed (i.e. exclusive priority of the endless accumulation of capital). The means by which these two objectives might be accomplished has never been discussed. Being specific and comprehensive has never been an attribute of the Zeitgeist Movement, as they prefer vacuous utopian rhetoric as opposed to the scientific practicality that they so vehemently preach to stand for.

Finally, and most significantly, the cultish nature of the Zeitgeist Movement is expressed in its lack of association with existing forums that address the same issues as their own. The World Social Forum offers a place for the Alter-Globalisation Movement to discuss ideas. So far, the Zeitgeist Movement has never even addressed or discussed the World Social Forum. Conversely, the World Social Forum and Alter-Globalisation Movement have no affiliation with the Zeitgeist Movement and appear to ignore it (and rightfully so) as much as the Zeitgeist Movement ignores them. The éminence grises of the World Social Forum and Alter-Globalisation Movement, such as Noam Chomsky and Immanuel Wallerstein, have no association with the Zeitgeist Movement. The Zeitgeist Movement does not associate itself with them, clearly through its embarrassment at the fact they would demolish the ludicrous cult through their slightest contact with it.

It is probably an accurate assessment that the Zeitgeist Movement is currently motivated by the exclusive priority of maximising its membership base. If it can establish enough members, it will likely reassess its organisational ineptitude, and subsequently deem that it ought to have some sort of hierarchic structure after all. This would be consistent with the fluidic nature of its nevertheless ecstatic claims. Technocracy is an inherently hierarchic idea, already fundamental to the exploitative division of labour that is the overarching source of the worldwide deprivation of many peoples. The idea of socially rehabilitating the whole of mankind and place them in specified city complexes cannot do anything but alienate the vast majority of mankind. And the fact that only a limited amount of resources exist on the planet renders the Venus Project as an exclusively First World project, which would guarantee the exclusion of the vast majority of mankind from any kind of bounty that it generated. Even if they succeeded and established their techno-utopia, it is certainly not the kind of utopia I would like to see.

“The degree to which a person contributes is based simply on that person’s education and ability to create and problem solve. This is why expanded education is critical. In society today, the public is always kept uninformed and as dumbed-down as possible”[36]. A suitable addendum to this claim is as follows: the Zeitgeist Movement has capitalised on this very lack of education, as have a great number of similar movements based on vacuous assertions of “truth”. The Zeitgeist Movement accomplishes nothing more than adding to an ever-growing diversity of profit/power-oriented scams and fraudulent theses circulating on the Internet. We do not need ecstatic movements. We need forums. It is your responsibility to rise above the tempest of social ecstasy, and arm yourself with the cryptic fire of Prometheus: study the best works of social theory for yourself, and become the servant of their fire.

[1] Chapman, Jane (2009). Issues in Contemporary Documentary. Polity Press. pp. 171–173
[9] http://thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project-introduction/aims-proposals
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] http://thevenusproject.com/the-venus-project-introduction/aims-proposals
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[28] Psychology 101, Carole Wade et al., 2005
[32] Chapman, Jane (2009). Issues in Contemporary Documentary. Polity Press. pp. 171–173
[34] World-Systems Analysis: An introduction (Wallerstein, I. M.)
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