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Zeitgeist

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For other uses, see Zeitgeist (disambiguation).

Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ⓘ) is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." [1] Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals and mood associated with the current era.

The term is a loanword from German: Zeit (cognate with "tide") meaning "time" and Geist (cognate with "ghost") meaning "spirit".

Origins

The concept of Zeitgeist goes back to Johann Gottfried Herder and other German Romanticists, such as Cornelius Jagdmann, but is best known in relation to Hegel's philosophy of history. In 1769 Herder wrote a critique of the work Genius saeculi by the philologist Christian Adolph Klotz and introduced the word Zeitgeist into German as a translation of genius saeculi (Latin: genius - "guardian spirit" and saeculi - "of the age").

Usage in modern English

The Guardian.co.uk and Instructables.com have features showing popular and trending news, topics, and articles, called Zeitgeist.[2] In addition, The Japan Times runs a feature titled "The Zeit Geist" every Tuesday, which covers community issues particularly relevant to the foreign community within Japan.

Google releases categorized lists of the most searched keywords annually called "Google Zeitgeist".[3][4]

American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins had produced an album which they titled Zeitgeist.

The Unity in Ubuntu, GNOME 3.x and many other Linux/BSD based operating systems use a logging application named the "zeitgeist-daemon". It logs recently opened and most used documents, applications and many other things, but it can be easily disabled or removed.

The Zeitgeist Movement is a sustainability advocacy organization. The movement campaigns against the monetary-market economy which they argue should be replaced with a resource-based economy in which money would serve no purpose. Members of the movement focus on raising awareness of the issues discussed in the documentary films Zeitgeist: Addendum (released in 2008) and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011). [5][6][7] Zeitgeist: Moving Forward has been categorised by many as outright propaganda with a review in The Irish Times entitled "Zeitgeist: the Nonsense" writing that "these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates". Michelle Goldberg has said that the movement "even seems like the world’s first Internet-based cult, with members who parrot the party line with cheerful, rote fidelity"[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Zeitgeist". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2003). August 7, 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  2. ^ Guardian|date=2011
  3. ^ Google Zeitgist: a year in review or 'what the world searched'
  4. ^ "Zeitgeist 2009". Google. Retrieved 2012-08-02.
  5. ^ "They've Seen the Future and Dislike the Present". New York Times. 2009-03-16.
  6. ^ Bill Stamets (February 15, 2011). "Art-house films: 'Marwencol,' 'Zeitgeist'". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
  7. ^ The Filmmaker Who Helped Recruit Millions of People for the Global Protests of the Bottom 99%, Asher Shechter, TheMarker (Israel), January 19, 2012.
  8. ^ Hoffman, Allison. "Brave New World - by Michelle Goldberg - Tablet Magazine – Jewish News and Politics, Jewish Arts and Culture, Jewish Life and Religion". Tabletmag.com. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
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