A Zeitgeist weekend: Reviews and views of the films and movement

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

Peter Joseph, Writer/Composer/Director, Zeitgeist Films

But today, the word Zeitgeist is more commonly associated with a 2007 film by Peter Joseph that, in three parts, 1) Debunks all world religious theory and iconography down to simple mythology and compelling storytelling, 2) Illuminates the events of 911 and throws strong support for it being a staged event - and not by Osama bin Laden, and 3) explains the world monetary system is debilitating to society as a whole and advocates the dismantling of the FED in the United States.

And for that big plate of subject matter, I have one word for Mr. Joseph: 

Editing.

The first film, Zeitgeist, has a total running time of  2 hours. The second, Zeitgeist Addendum, another 2 hours. And the third film in the series, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, clocks in at a hefty two hours and forty one minutes. With YouTube views in the high tens of millions for all three films, the one thing Internet success has not brought to Peter Joseph is a shortness of breath. But if he wants to get his message across, he'd better start distilling that message into more digestible chunks.

For this weekend I was most interested to see the third film - and having now seen all three, I can honestly say, in terms of content, the second film, can be easily passed on.

Zeitgeist: Moving forward is a captivating 90 minutes of thought provoking insight about our society and it's ills followed by a less than scintillating hour or so of a solution that substitutes money with science and technology and comes to a plausibly improbable conclusion - because the logistics and psychology shifts involved are simply mathematically impossible in short of thousands of years. With all due respect to Jacque Fresco, Industrial and Social Engineer, who at 94 is still full of life and passion, you're no Bucky Fuller :) (R. Buckminster Fuller was a Social Engineer as well, the designer of the geodesic dome and Professor Emeritus at my alma mater). But a mass-mutually agreeable conclusion aside, the film stills offers a great number of clear facts and good ideas.

The film begins with studies regarding genetics and the idea that people are born into society with diseases and psychological malfunctions that lead to crime, addictions and societal violence but settles more logically on the idea that we are all pure at birth but then formed by society - even from our time in the womb. There is a short discussion of adoption and how adopted people have an implicit or emotional memory of prenatal events that happened to the mother while they were just forming - though they had no real life experience to 'remember' with their birth-mother. I, of course, found that interesting. But the point was that people, in general, are not born bad. They can be born with tendencies, but they are not predisposed by any genetic or psychological coding to replicate society's ills. Those traits are learned.

So the question the film asks at this point, is, "How can we create a better environment for our children to grow up in?" Because, God knows, we're not going to see this shit fixed in our lifetime.

The idea of a Resource Based Economy (RBE) is introduced - one where the amount of resources the world can produced is measured and appropriated exactly with what society needs. A needs based method as opposed to market based one. In the film scientists claim that there is no shortage at all of world resources (ie. food, water, shelter, minerals, etc.) but that 1/3rd of the planet is starving because of market-based distribution methods and governmental meddling. If the American military budget could be diverted to solving world hunger, it would be a thing of the past in a number of years, the film argues. And that's a valid point. But how do we make that happen?

In the end, the film comes to ground with the idea that a very small money cartel controls the tides of all human affairs and perpetuates the ills of society (wars, famine, crime, drugs, etc.) because it's profitable. If everyone were happy, Utopian, pastoral and well educated, there'd be no money to be made. And technology or science is ever going to change that? Not if the money cartel has the ability to simply buy and suppress that technology (wind/solar) in favour of the technologies they own (oil/fossil). A societal Catch 22.

But what Zeitgeist does best is to raise questions and make us think and discuss. And I think it does that across generations if not quite yet across cultures.

Somehow, in explaining to my son (no, I don't have one yet) about historical events, I'd rather explain that the President was killed by a very complicated set of reasons, rather than a lone gunman in the Texas Book Depository. I'd rather have him see all the conspiracy videos on 911 and whatever since and make his own judgement. I'd like to teach him when not to engage his suspension of disbelief. Not in many generations (barring a cataclysmic disaster) will the money class be abolished - but if the sheep just change one little bit of behavior for the positive, one little bit at a time, over and over again - maybe the ruling class won't notice and things will improve. Over time.

Watch the film. It's thought provoking.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Enter Bill Gates - The Al Gore of American Education?

I understood that Santa Claus was not real at a fairly early age, but not too early. Not so early to not have enjoyed the fantasy, joy and magic that that sort of parable creates. Fantasy is good, and suspension of disbelief is good, so long as those things are temporary and in pursuit of relaxation and a different view of reality. But when they are used to deceive and manipulate, that where I start to take issue.

And the past few years have given us all enough to take pause and ask, just how many magic bullet theories can their be? And now many can we believe? The film Zeitgeist and the whole unsolved 9/11 story is almost old news, but maybe getting louder again as we start to examine the real reasons behind the recent recession and financial crisis. That, and the fact that the Federal Reserve (FED) is a actually a privately held corporation yet few people know. Have we had enough? Well, not if Michael Moore hasn't made a film about it.

So enter Bill Gates. And just when you thought I was going all conspiracy theory on you I bring in the straightest guy in the room, talking about what? Not so much conspiracies, but more deception of the people amongst the 50 states in the US with their education budgets - and what's wrong with them.

This talk is courtesy of TED2011 and I hope it makes everyone think. The last few days, the Internet has been out at my house due to some construction issues and I've been sworn to HBO and Star TV. Films like the more recent The International and even Sneakers from the 90s have made me think that sometimes fiction has more truth than what is sold as fact on the television news. With Journalism currently, it seems we need most to suspend our belief instead of our disbelief - and there's something very, very wrong with that.

D a v i d E v e r i t t - C a r l s o n

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Find me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Read my blog: The Wild Wild East Dailies and keep up on our efforts with aSaigon/CreativeMorning.

So a woman who wants to get pregnant talks to her friend about why she can't...

...and her friend says, "why not? You're beautiful!"

"I know", the woman explains, "But, the first man I married was absolutely gorgeous, and nice as well. Only on our wedding night, he couldn't get it up because he was worried he was gay."

"Oh dear", her friend says. "Pity - and what about your second husband?" she asks...

"Well", the woman said, "I was very wary after husband #1 and so I waited to find a man who was sure of himself and comfortable with his sexuality. So I married an older man.", she explained.

"And on our wedding night, when I came out in my best Victoria's Secret outfit, he had a heart attack and died."

"Oh my dear", her friend says again. "So what about your third husband?"

And the woman says, "Well, he was sweet too, and promised me everything. He was a managing director for an advertising agency - but on our wedding night, all he could do was sit on the edge of the bed and tell me how good it was going to be."

I can't count the number of people/companies who want free stuff!

In Vietnam, everybody loves my work. But the minute I ask them to pay, anything at all, they all back off. Why? Because the expat people are all working on a budget that doesn't include money (except what they get paid) and the Vietnamese are all working on a budget that doesn't include money (except what they get paid). So what up? I can't help them because there is no money. Simple. But not their best choice. I spoke with a DJ and a rapper who said the same thing about his business. People want him to work for 'exposure'. Geez. If I get any more exposure my butt will get sunburned.

And this is not coming from nobodies. This is coming from graduates of Wesleyan University, The University of Chicago, American University, Ivy League schools and too many East Coast prep schools. These are people with educations that cost upwards of a quarter of a million dollars, yet they come to Vietnam and deal in pennies - except when it comes to their houses, and their cars, and certainly their salaries.

Back at Leo Burnett in Chicago we had plenty of people like that. People from the North Shore with MBA's from Northwestern, mostly in marketing. We called those people, 'Hobbyists'. They were trust fund babies that didn't so much need a real job, but needed a job that looked to others like they had a real job, so they could go to the office every day and the symphony every weekend and to their country club events whenever needed. People from 'good' families - as the Koreans might say of their top tier. It took me a while to understand people like this. If I didn't have to work for my money, I certainly couldn't understand people who did. But I understand people like that now.

Recently, I saw a magazine launch and their big news was that the editor was the wife of the ambassador of a reasonably exotic sounding European country. A hobbyist for sure. But it looks great on the mag's sales pitch - and god knows, she doesn't need the money.

Count the Bentleys in town town amongst the locals who are most definitely making a buck. Watch another expat high-rise go up in Anh Phu or Phu My Hyun. In Vietnam we're beginning to witness one of the most surreal states of suspension of disbelief that we've seen outside of China in recent times. The one that makes people believe, that so long as they are doing well, that things are truly going well. And that's a worry. Oops, there's another boatload of expensively educated foreign NGO workers come to help Vietnam. Good. They work cheap. Mom and dad think they're saving poor people.

On the art of the favour

On graduation from university my father and a number of other fathers rented out the top floor of our favourite pub, Das Fas, for our graduation party. Dinner finished at a nice hotel in town, the dads sent the moms back to their respective rooms and took the boys out for a beer - the imparting of wisdom from one generation to the next.

Bob Kirkhart, father of my roommate Tom had the best advice of the entire evening as I remember.

"The secret to being a successful businessman is simple", he told us. Mr. Kirkhart had sold industrial pipe his entire career and had been extremely successful as a pipe salesman.

"For the first twenty years of your career", he said, "Do people favours. And for the second twenty?", he continued, "Collect em'".

I'm a few years or so over the first 20 year period of my career, and wondering if somehow I had forgotten to do enough favours for people on my way up the ladder. I don't have people chasing me on Facebook or any of the other places I can be found by people I might have screwed over. But I've decided for sure, that I am definitely in the second have of that 40 year career Mr. Kirkhart spoke about - and would like to start living the way he described.

On 'Declaring' Bankruptcy

I hated the post below, because it's true. "Perhaps it's time to stop fighting a losing fight and start creating value doing something else instead.", says Seth Godin. Many times he's right.

"Declaring Chapter 11"

"What a poetic phrase, starting with 'declaring'. Not sighing or announcing or admitting, but Declaring!

Chapter 11 refers to part of the bankruptcy code that covers reorganizations. In Chapter 11, you don't shut down your business. Instead, faced with failure, you suspend certain agreements and debts and negotiate in a way that permits you to continue. Chapter 7 is very different. It means "I give up." You shut down, it's over.

Metaphorically, we have the chance to declare either kind of bankruptcy whenever we work on a project or consider a habit, a social media addiction or even a job.Teetering on the edge of bankruptcy is painful. Declaring is often a relief. Acknowledging that you're stuck is the very first step in getting unstuck...

Perhaps it's time to stop fighting a losing fight and start creating value doing something else instead. Bankruptcy is never fun, but when you give up something that wasn't getting you where you needed to go, sometimes you discover a future better than you ever expected."

This week I face a choice like this. There are some options and there are some ways that the situation could alleviate itself, but if they don't happen, perhaps it's indeed time to stop loosing this particular fight. Let's see. I could be convinced to just file Chapter 11 and go into re-org. Let's see if the right angels show up at the right time...this time.

A New Commandment?

Blogger, John Rachel, makes a suggestion here that we replace the 10th commandment (That's the one about coveting your neighbors wife and stuff) with a much more sensible and executable one. Worth a thought.