The Zeitgeist Movement
| File:Zeitgeist Movement globe.jpg Movement logo | |
| Abbreviation | TZM or ZM |
|---|---|
| Formation | August 18, 2008[citation needed] |
| Type | Social movement |
Region served | Global |
Key people | Peter Joseph |
| Website | www |
The Zeitgeist Movement is a nonprofit organization founded in 2008. It advocates the abolition of money and private property and promotes a global socioeconomic system in which all resources would be equally shared. According to the movement, such a system would increase social equality and sustainability. The Zeitgeist Movement also believes resource allocation can be managed by computerized systems and most manual labor can be fully automated.
Philosophy and history
The Zeitgeist Movement describes itself as an educational group based on the belief that the "monetary-market" economy must be replaced with a system in which the Earth's resources are equally shared by its inhabitants in a moneyless and stateless system where debt, credit, exchange, barter, wage labor, private property and the profit motive would be eliminated.[1] Zeitgeist movement members say the current socioeconomic system is structurally corrupt and needs to be replaced with a system based on efficient and careful resource use through the technological potential of sustainable development.[2][3][4]
The movement believes humanity can employ renewable energy and computerized automatic systems on a global scale to provide free food and other necessities. It believes machines would perform almost all of the resource allocation and labor, and humans would oversee the computers and supervise the machines.[4][1]
The Zeitgeist Movement's origin was a reaction to Peter Joseph's film Zeitgeist: Addendum (2008).[5] Zeitgeist used to be the activist arm of The Venus Project (TVP), which featured in the films Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (January 2011) as a possible solution to Earth's cultural and ecological problems,[3] but in August 2011 the groups split and are no longer associated with each other.[6] [better source needed]
Zeitgeist Day (Z-Day)
The movement holds an annual event, Z-Day, in March.[1][3] It was first held in 2009 in New York City.[2] The 2010 event also took place in New York, with "337 sympathetic events occurring in over 70 countries worldwide."[1] London [citation needed] and Vancouver hosted the 2011 and 2012 main events respectively.[7] [better source needed]
Criticism of the Zeitgeist movement
The Huffington Post,[1] The New York Times,[2] The Palm Beach Post,[8] Globes,[4] TheMarker,[3] VC Reporter,[9] RT TV[10][11] and Reason magazine[12] criticized various aspects of the Zeitgeist movement, specifically: (a) utopianism, (b) reduced work incentives in their proposed economy, (c) practical difficulties in a transition to that economy, and (d) subscribing to 9/11 conspiracy theories in Zeitgeist: The Movie. Peter Joseph responded to the criticism by saying that practical difficulties could be overcome and that Zeitgeist does not believe in utopia but advocates updating society's notions of economics and politics continuously, re-aligning them with new scientific and technical discoveries, while keeping workers motivated. According to Mr. Joseph there is no direct association between the conspiracy theories in the first Zeitgeist documentary and the movement.[13]
An article in the Journal of Contemporary Religion described the movement as an example of a "conspirituality", a synthesis of New Age spirituality and conspiracy theory, asserting that Zeitgeist: The Movie claims that "organised religion is about social control and that 9/11 was an inside job."[14] The movement said that the article paints an "incorrect, misleading, offensive and defaming picture of the movement", and that the conspiracy narratives in the first movie are unrelated to the movement.[13]
In Tablet magazine, journalist Michelle Goldberg criticized Zeitgeist: The Movie as being "steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories", and called the Zeitgeist movement "the world's first Internet-based cult, with members who parrot the party line with cheerful, rote fidelity."[15] Zeitgeist said the accusations were "erroneous, pejorative, derogatory and intended to silence the movement's message", and that the movement does not blame international bankers, corporate leaders or politicians as individuals, but rather the global socioeconomic system that supports their values.[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e "The Zeitgeist Movement: Envisioning A Sustainable Future". Huffington Post. Mar 16, 2010.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b c "They've Seen the Future and Dislike the Present". New York Times. 2009-03-16.
- ^ a b c d e Quotations and citations in this Wikipedia article are based on the translation from Hebrew to English of The Filmmaker Who Helped Recruit Millions for the Global Protests of the Bottom 99%, original Hebrew article by Asher Schechter, TheMarker (Israel), January 19, 2012.
- ^ a b c Quotations and citations in this Wikipedia article are based on the translation from Hebrew to English of Imagine, original Hebrew article by Tzaela Kotler, Globes (Israel), March 18, 2010.
- ^ Bill Stamets (February 15, 2011). "Art-house films: 'Marwencol,' 'Zeitgeist'". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 7, 2011.
- ^ "The Zeitgeist Movement – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)".
- ^ "Zeitgeist Day 2012 - Vogue Theatre in Vancouver, BC". voguetheatre.com.
- ^ A dream worth having, Rhonda Swan, The Palm Beach Post, April 30, 2009
- ^ New world re-order: The Zeitgeist Movement spreads to Ventura County, Shane Cohn, VC Reporter (California), May 12, 2011
- ^ Zeitgeist Solutions: New World Re-Order, RT, Sept. 14, 2011
- ^ Zeitgeist Solutions: Money, Debt and RBE, RT, Dec. 2, 2011
- ^ http://spectator.org/archives/2011/01/17/jared-loughners-zeitgeist-obse Retrieval June-07-12
- ^ a b Understanding The Zeitgeist Movement Critics, The Zeitgeist Movement, July 15, 2012
- ^ Ward, Charlotte; Voas, David (2011). "The Emergence of Conspirituality". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 26 (1): 109. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
- ^ http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/57732/brave-new-world Retrieved June 9, 2012
