Understanding The Zeitgeist Movement Critics:
Malicious Intent or Innocent Ignorance?
Hello, my name is Peter Joseph and
this is a July 15th 2012 video essay.
I haven't done an essay in a while
so I decided it would be about time.
This video is going to quickly address some
persistent misinterpretations of the Movement
which originate from
researchers and reporters
which, frankly, should know better.
Please understand that there are many
people out there who oppose or object
to various issues brought
up by the Movement.
But at least they do so in a
way that actually has some basis
with respect to what the
Movement is and does.
I have nothing but respect
for those who oppose us with
general consideration and diligence
in the process of their criticism.
As the old saying goes: "If we all
agreed there would be no progress."
So this essay is not to denounce general
critics of the Zeitgeist Movement
who have done basic,
fundamental research of the Movement
and communicate their ideas and
objections in a mature, respectful way.
That's amazing and great.
In fact, I want to bring on
notable critics of the Movement
to The Zeitgeist Movement's
global radio show
to speak with me and others
directly about their objections.
Unfortunately a lot of people out there
prefer to just criticize from afar.
And I'm sorry to say, if any researcher
or reporter is not willing to interact
with those persons or groups
they choose to criticize,
being open to change their disposition
through new clarifying information,
their integrity is instantly void.
We live in a very different world
today with the age of the Internet
and now everyone has the
ability and freedom to present
their ideas and criticisms of the world.
However, as with all freedom
comes increased responsibility.
And one-sided closed attacks are
simply intellectually unjustifiable,
whether intended or not.
At any rate, if you would like to suggest
somebody for our global radio show
please email
media@thezeitgeistmovement.com
with the subject line 'TZM Objections'
and we will work to bring them on, so we
can understand their criticisms better.
Okay, back on point.
The trigger for this essay
was my recent discovery
of an apparently peer-review
style article published in 2011
in the 'Journal of Contemporary Religion'
called 'The Emergence of Conspirituality'
by Charlotte Ward and David Voas.
I discovered this article by
stumbling upon the current state
of The Zeitgeist Movement's Wikipedia page
which sadly undergoes constant
edit-wars by some very persistent
and clearly anti-Zeitgeist
Movement gatekeepers
that subtlely pollute and distort what
The Zeitgeist Movement actually does.
You know as much as I appreciate
Wikipedia's democratic platform
which is truly amazing in most cases,
when it comes to anything controversial
or seemingly subjective in interpretation,
you often end up with ongoing edit-wars,
and only the most persistent
and aggressive will win.
In such a context, Wikipedia is not
about truth and proper representation,
it is simply about
aggression and persistence
and those with the most time,
evidently, will win.
Anyway, while I never take Wikipedia
seriously as a source on that basic level,
I am still very much amused by what surfaces
in this sort of entertainment aspect
with respect to the ongoing debasing
of The Zeitgeist Movement there
through deliberate misinterpretation
and spin by its gatekeepers.
My favorite part is the
current Criticism section,
not only because none of the
criticisms actually have anything to do
with The Zeitgeist Movement's
interests and intents,
but also because of how
much it outweighs in focus
the other flimsy statements
that appear to express
what The Zeitgeist Movement is,
actually providing no real
information of relevance at all.
Just a hodge-podge of
prima facie and trajections
that ignore mostly everything
the Movement advocates,
harping instead on my personal
unrelated artistic expressions,
the Zeitgeist film series,
specifically my first film,
which was made years before
the Movement was even realized
and has no direct connection at all
with respect to the Movement's interests.
And for those familiar, it's nothing new,
we have endless 9/11
conspiracy relationships
from the first film highlighted,
which of course have nothing
to do with anything we promote.
We have this very odd
article by Michelle Goldberg
which suggests that the Movement
is some type of anti-Semitic cult
along with some dubious claim about
this German social network site
that banned evidently one of our
groups because of anti-Semitism
which is completely absurd,
since there's no evidence
that the group that was banned
had any official connection
to our chapter network
and was not just some
random page using our name
which has been prolific
across the Internet.
And not to mention of course,
The Zeitgeist Movement clearly
has no racial, religious or class bias,
and rather seeks human unification
and support in general, not division.
But my real interest here is the noted article
in the 'Journal of Contemporary Religion'
and the lapse - complete lapse - of academic
integrity put forward by the authors,
which paints not only an
incorrect picture of the Movement,
but an offensive and defaming one.
Let me ask you a question:
If you were a reporter wanting to learn
about The Zeitgeist Movement objectively,
and you wanted to understand what it was,
what it did,
what would YOU do?
Would you go to Wikipedia?
Would you go to some random blog or YouTube
video that comes up in a search engine?
Or would you go to the official site
that actually made its points very clear
regarding what the organization does,
its mission,
and review our official
materials and lectures?
The Zeitgeist Movement's
website has been up since 2009
with a very concise FAQ and enormous
number of lectures by our lecture team.
It's very difficult to miss in fact,
how obvious, what our mission is.
Sadly however, it appears the FAQ,
the pdf guides, the lectures,
and the enormous amount of work
put into this through radio shows,
and parallel websites, blogs and so forth,
our global event days,
our town hall lectures, our media project,
the entire educational
method and avocation,
apparently all of that is invalid
when it comes to the interests of some
of those that wish to report on us.
Of course,
to give credit where credit is due,
the New York Times and
the Huffington Post reviews of Z-Day,
along with many live interviews
and reports by Russia Today,
mostly got it right.
But the vast majority continue
to embarrass themselves
with what appears to be
simply lazy research,
or even worse, malicious intent.
In fact very quickly,
an amusing article,
at least in gesture produced by the
London Telegraph a few weeks ago,
without any noted evidence at all,
claims that an unfortunately
disillusioned boy,
insensitively labeled as
"Forest Boy" by the media,
was quote
"inspired by the Zeitgeist Movement"
with the author going on to make
some of the most egregious errors
I've ever seen in an article.
It said the boy
"was inspired to travel to Germany
by the teachings of the Zeitgeist Movement
that aims to destroy market capitalism."
The Zeitgeist Movement has
never published anything
about destroying anything, first of all.
Our disposition is simply that
capitalism will destroy itself, in fact;
we are simply watching it go
down and planning for the future
like any diligent group should.
As far as his traveling to Germany,
the author was forced to
actually retract and remove
a claimed that I
originated from Germany!
I, Peter Joseph apparently
am a German citizen,
uh which ...
of course I'm not,
amongst many amateur errors,
that I guess that might add in well
with the argument that
apparently I'm anti-Semitic
so I'm sure Michelle
Goldberg appreciated that.
Nevertheless,
it also refers to things like, it's a
"political movement that holds future
generations will view Christianity as a fraud."
Actually, no, the Zeitgeist Movement
respects all religions equally
as a course of human evolution
and has never published
anything making such statements.
This is once again a
deliberate misinterpretation
coming from my personal 2007 film
which had interests about
comparative religion
and has nothing to do
with the Movement itself.
If Michael Moore started
a social movement,
does that movement mean it's going to
have to be about say adolescent violence,
such as what was the context of his film
in part for 'Bowling for Columbine?'
What about his movie Fahrenheit 9/11?
Does that mean his movement would have to be
about 9/11 issues that was noted in the film?
No.
Even the premise that a whole non-profit
social movement could be based upon
merely a film series is idiotic.
Anyway, moving on.
The article also refers to
us as a protest movement,
which is really odd given that we've never
protested anything and do not intend to,
for we don't believe in the
efficacy of traditional protest.
Instead we work through
peaceful educational projects
in the hope to bring about
sound logic and reason regarding
new social possibilities.
So the public, once informed,
can make up their own mind.
And if we transition we do,
if we don't, then we don't.
In the words of Buckminster Fuller,
a strong influence on the
Zeitgeist Movement's intent,
"You never change things by
fighting the existing reality.
To change something,
build a new model that makes
the existing model obsolete."
Sadly, the Telegraph reporter is not alone
and this leads us to the noted article
in the Journal of Contemporary Religion.
The context of the Zeitgeist Movement's
inclusion in this article is presented
as related to a phenomenon
perceived by the authors
called "conspiratuality"
which is defined as
"a combination of New Age beliefs
and conspiracy culture" in effect.
Now, it isn't the scope of this essay
to discuss the rather abstract linkage
the authors are trying to draw,
but I will say that the entire paper
is based upon a series of self-defining
self-referring, extremely subjective,
circumstantial presuppositions
that haphazardly and crudely categorize
a large number of counter-culture
type groups in the world today.
Now, in some agreement regarding the
subject of conspiracies as a theme
I will admit that I personally have
lost a lot of patience with those
who rather than work to really consider the
root causes scientifically of human behavior
oriented in a system like ours that
rewards power consolidation and control,
they choose to just harp
upon the symptom itself,
referencing the unseen "they" as it were.
The human blame game,
no matter how exotic and creative,
simply bores me to death
as it actually isn't doing
anything progressive.
And on that level,
I can share in the frustration
of those who believe things
that really don't accomplish
anything or could be erroneous
because they're not related
directly to causality.
Yet, on the other hand,
to dismiss the very idea that
human society historically
is and has been controlled by
various power establishments-...
We can talk about traditional
ones like kings and monarchs
to the age of feudalism;
we could also extend that of course
to what the Occupy movement is fighting
today with regard to financial power.
Those that seek and to preserve
their self-interest over others
manipulating to their
advantage dishonestly,
is not a profound, out-there,
radical conspiracy nut-job notion, okay?
In a world today where 40% of the wealth
is owned by 1% of the world's population,
anyone who thinks there
is no structurally-based
self-interest oriented manipulation
for upper-class advantage
is in an enormous level of denial
about the nature of our reality today.
And the use of the term
"conspiracy theorist"
recently has served
those in power quite well
by making all of those who realize
such unfair social realities
simply appear like irrational lunatics.
So, as expected this article takes the
establishment perspective overall,
painting the picture that
any such realizations
are all irrational conspiracy theories
and is in turn painted, in their words,
as part of a
"politico-spiritual philosophy"
when combined with the "New Age"
which they define as
"mystical individual transformation;
an awareness of new,
non-material realities,
the imposition of personal
vision into society
and belief in universally invisible
but pervasive forms of energy."
Okay, all of that denoted
let's step back and see how
they fit the Zeitgeist
Movement into all of this.
On page 7 of the article extract,
a section entitled
"The emergence of conspiratuality,"
they begin to discuss the Zeitgeist
Movement by sourcing a singular statement,
very much out of context
and in a very misleading manner,
from an old obviously
cherry-picked introductory essay
called 'The Means is the End'
which can be found archived online.
They partially quote a paragraph which,
to one who is not read
anything else in the essay
provides absolutely no info about
what the Zeitgeist Movement is,
not to mention opening it up to
large-scale semantic misinterpretations
obviously fitting their agenda.
The quote is as follows.
Open quote.
"The elite power systems are
little affected in the long run
by traditional protest
and political movements.
We must move beyond these
'establishment rebellions'
and work with a tool much more powerful:
We will stop supporting the
system, while constantly advocating
knowledge, peace, unity and compassion.
We cannot 'fight the system.'
Hate, anger and 'war' mentalities
are failed means for change,
for they perpetuate the
same tools the corrupt
established power systems
use to maintain control with.
This could be called a
'spiritual' awakening." (unquote)
First, the end statement "this could
be called a spiritual awakening"
appears nowhere in the noted section
and is completely out of context,
only placed because they
felt it was convenient.
Not to mention that the
entire context of the quote
has nothing to do with
New Age free thought
and certainly devoid of anything
suggesting conspiracy theory,
outside of the obvious
acknowledgment I've already stated
with respect to abuse in power
which has been rampant
since the beginning of time.
Also, since I stated that quote,
for those that don't understand it
given my comments earlier,
this is depicting a Martin Luther King,
Gandhi-style non-participation
which is probably the strongest form of
peaceful activism anyone can be a part of.
And for those that don't understand
that please get out your history books
and understand what non-violent
non-participation activism actually is;
it's extremely important.
I suspect by the circumstances presented
here that Martin Luther King and Gandhi,
given their recognition of abuse
from power and oppression from power,
coupled with their interest
to see humanity work together,
I guess they would also be considered
"conspiratualitists" as well.
So given the nature of the quote
being truly absent of anything
New Age or conspiracy oriented,
they circumvent this problem
with the preceding paragraph,
stating the erroneous and
long-debunked intent association
regarding my 2007 film, Zeitgeist,
which again has nothing to do
with the Zeitgeist Movement.
They state quote:
"The second quote is weighted
towards conspiracy theory."
(This is by the way what they're
referring to, the quote I just read.)
"It was taken from the Zeitgeist Movement,
a website promoting global activism
connected to Zeitgeist the Movie,
a 2007 web movie.
Zeitgeist alleges among other things,
that organized religion is about social control
and that 9/11 was an inside job." (unquote)
And then that's when they actually
have the quote that I just read.
So you can see how this is framed.
You know I would like the authors of this
article to provide one piece of evidence
that the Zeitgeist Movement
officially promotes
anything denoted in my
film Zeitgeist the Movie.
How lazy can you be?
The 40+ hours of lectures, endless Q&A's,
townhalls, Zdays, media festivals.
Is there one official publication, lecture,
about 9/11 conspiracies that we denote?
9/11 truth?
by myself or other prominent individuals
representing the Zeitgeist Movement in talks?
Is it in any of our guides and pdfs?
And while the belief systems
in religion and their values
are always going to be subject
to scrutiny and interest
of any group that's thinking about
the broad ordering of society,
nothing in my film, the first film,
has anything to do with those contexts
regarding the Zeitgeist Movement,
which is extremely passive, and we have
always denoted being completely open
to all religions, seeing them
as evolutionary consequences.
Nevertheless, I do find it amusing that
in one of the sources they
have for those statements,
it goes back to my
zeitgeistmovie.com website,
which in the Q&A they source,
actually has the following
statement a few paragraphs down.
It says "The relationship of the films is
mainly in gesture to the Zeitgeist Movement.
While the films have served as
an inspiration for The Movement,
the subject matter in the
films is not to be confused
with the main materials/interests
of The Zeitgeist Movement itself,
which focus on values,
resource economics and sustainability.
For example, TZM is not about 9/11,
comparative religion,
central banking,
financial reform or the like.
In the world today, many are active in
these areas and work to resolve them
on a per case basis.
The Zeitgeist Movement is
not interested in this.
Its function is to find the source
of problematic social phenomenon
and act to resolve it at its core.
This is why a completely new social system
is expressed in the Movement's materials."
Obviously they read that and ignored it.
Nevertheless.
The article then goes on in general
to lump a number of subcultures
into this new obviously pejoratively-angled
conspirituality institution,
then leading up to a final
indication of the exceptional
academic fallibility of the authors.
It states, quotes:
"Providers have credentials
and appear credible to many
despite promoting beliefs that often
seem bizarre to non-subscribers.
Jacque Fresco, inventor of
'Zeitgeist the Movie' and the movement,
is an architect."
Hmm-... Does anyone else see
something wrong with this statement?
How could the authors, even visiting
my personal film project website,
zeitgeistmovie.com,
made by the director, ME!
I mean, how do you mess that up?
It sounds to me like they
took a bunch of stuff
and they didn't bother
to fact check anything,
and they probably had some
really bad intern or somebody
compile this conglomerate of subcultures,
and they just went in and
just threw this thing together
and it's really, really pathetic.
And by the way for those that don't know,
Jacque Fresco is the director of the Venus Project.
I have to tell you though, if this
is the state of our academia today,
peer review academia, I am terrified.
Okay, in conclusion.
If The Zeitgeist Movement
embodies this conspiratuality,
taking this seriously still,
it would have to fit the
criteria that they have denoted,
which is on page three of the extract,
or page 104 for the whole journal.
It says
"We argue that conspiratuality is
a politico-spiritual philosophy
based on two core convictions, the first
traditional to conspiracy theory and
the second rooted in the New Age:
(1) a secret group covertly controls, or is
trying to control, the political and social order,
and (2) humanity is undergoing a paradigm
shift in consciousness, or awareness,
so solutions to (1) (that denoted,
the secret group)
lie in acting in accordance with an
awakened new paradigm worldview."
Okay!
Criteria number 1:
Does the Zeitgeist Movement promote
that a secret group is
covertly trying to control,
or is controlling the
political and social order?
Not at all.
The Zeitgeist Movement expresses in part
the social system supports the
creation of power establishments
and those establishments have a
tendency to operate for their own
self-interest often in a
dishonest way against others.
And that is not a
far-fetched conspiracy theory
even though there might be
conspiracy-oriented by definition.
This is common knowledge,
commonly understood,
and our legal system today prosecutes
such active figures and institutions
almost on a daily basis.
There is no mystery.
Second criteria: does the Zeitgeist
Movement believe that quote
"humanity is undergoing a paradigm
shift in consciousness or awareness,
and solutions to the first issue
lie in acting in accordance with an
awakened 'new paradigm' worldview?"
Well. I don't know what the hell
that even means frankly
but the Zeitgeist Movement
simply recognizes and as
throughout all of our materials again,
that everything undergoes change
including our social system.
We promote tangible
scientifically-based proven solutions
to help solve current problems
and create prosperity; that's it.
Buzzwords like paradigm
shift or consciousness
means virtually anything frankly to those
who read it based on their background.
The Zeitgeist Movement does not promote
spacey intuitive etherial shifts,
indescriptive consciousness ideals,
that affect the ether and change
the world in some metaphysical way
which appears to be the nature of the
New Age argument by the definition
that the authors are choosing.
Now, I will admit that because of the
vast popularity of the Zeitgeist film,
the Zeitgeist movie and the
whole film series, excuse me,
you do have people that see this
and then through the grapevine
they hear about the Zeitgeist
Movement and they do instantly think
that there's some connection which
is obviously the point of this entire
video essay that I'm doing.
However the moment those people begin to
interact with anyone in the Zeitgeist Movement,
if they're trying to promote 9/11 truth,
comparative religious awareness,
or New Age things if you will, whatever,
they will find out very rapidly
that the Zeitgeist Movement has
nothing to do with any of them.
Doesn't mean that there aren't people
that might claim such things that are
in complete ignorance,
but we have no control over that.
The Zeitgeist Movement is one of most open
non-institutions on the face of the Earth.
Anyone can subscribe to these
ideas and claim to be a part of it,
which on one side is quite dangerous as
we're constantly being misrepresented,
as anybody and their mother
can go out and do whatever,
and then claim they're a part of the Zeitgeist Movement;
all they have to do is say it.
Of course the media loves that.
But the alternative is far too restrictive
and against the ethic of the Movement.
If you agree with the Movement,
and you understand it,
come into a group that supports it,
and our chapters,
and help make change.
If you don't agree with it
then don't agree with it
and don't volunteer.
However the Zeitgeist Movement
is the ultimate anti-institution,
it's based only on the train of thought,
no group identification.
We only use the group model because
we have to have something in structure
to keep some type of process
when it comes to our activities.
Now, in closing let me just express
a certain amount of frustration because
when these articles come out or when
they're recognized, people contact me
and they sent me this stuff and they
expect me to always be there to respond
as though I'm in that role of
representation when I'm really not.
And the more time goes on the less I'm
going to be representing the Movement,
expecting others to step forward.
Because I have other things I have
to do in my professional life,
the Movement exists on its
own as the train of thought.
I'm not leading anything
so you have to take it upon yourselves
but I will make some suggestions.
If you want to promote the Zeitgeist
Movement correctly on the Internet
(amongst all the noise) there
are four things you can do
which interconnect very easily and
easy to maintain, and they're all free.
1. Get a Word Press blog.
2. Get a twitter account.
3. Get a face book page only for
your representation of the Movement.
4. and get a YouTube account.
And post amongst all of these,
interconnecting them.
You can promote our articles,
you duplicate them,
you bring up conversations, you invite
other bloggers, and do something.
It does not take a lot of effort everyday
to maintain simple Internet activism
so when people come to the
Internet they actually understand
what we're doing in the general sphere.
Since as denoted in this article,
it appears a lot of our
supposed academic researchers
actually don't do any
tangible research at all;
they're sourcing bullshit.
And if you want to stop the bullshit
you're gonna have to come in
and begin to counter it.
So, that's all I have to say, this is
Peter Joseph, thank you for listening.
