zeitgeist addendum: Does it really add anything?
Zeitgeist: Addendum is the sequel to the internet film sensation, zeitgeist. Both films created controversy and call into question some of our most basic assumptions about religion and government. Appealing to those who have a penchant for conspiracy, Zeitgeist: Addendum focuses its critique primarily on the U.S. banking system and the Federal Reserve/Central Bank. The film's main assertion is that we are slaves to these corrupt organizations and the sooner we realize our own slavery the better. The film proposes an alternative, and utopist vision for the world called a "resource based" system where developments in technology and the creation of machines eliminate the need for human labor, money, and will provide an endless supply from the earth's resources, for all people.
The film fails to answer many significant questions raised by its proposed solutions. If this technology is available, why isn't it being used now? Is money necessary to fund the development of this new technology? Who will fund the technology to be developed? Moreover, who will oversee the distribution of the world's endless supply of resources? And if, as the film asserts, all of this is available right now - the elimination of our dependence on money, freedom from repetitive, boring work, and the endless supply of resources - why wouldn't people be jumping head-long into this new system, especially in light of the recent economic collapse? Indeed, if a select group of international bankers control everything, and want to maintain control, why would they allow their own banks to fail and to fall into bankruptcy? Why wouldn't now be the perfect time to implement this resource-based utopia given that our financial system is in serious trouble and people are suffering? The film simply never addresses these questions.
Perhaps the most disturbing notion proposed by the makers of zeitgeist: addendum is that human nature is not definable, only human behavior. Human behavior can be shaped and molded in any way because there is no such thing as human nature. Yet, it is a group of humans who make up the technocracy - rule by technological specialists - and their machines, that will oversee our future behavior modification to be directed towards sharing and using resources wisely. But, this vision fails to take into account the long history of human behavior for thousands of years. Human nature is revealed by our behavior. How have humans used resources? How have they handled power? How good a record do we have of sharing - anything? Again, what does it indicate about human nature if the technology is available right now for us to be free of work, money, and scarcity -as the film suggests - that we haven't already made this vision a reality? If human behavior is all that needs to be changed, why haven't we figured out how to change it?
Without answering any of these questions, the filmmakers suggest two principles should guide this future into being: emergent and symbiotic principles. The first suggests that everything is always changing - change is inevitable, and the second suggests that all systems are fragments, but nature is unified as a whole. Of course, if everything is always changing, even their vision of a resource-based economy would by their own definition change and give way to something else...what that something else would be is never indicated. This possibility is not discussed. Instead, the narrator boldly suggests that the human ability to create continually is the recognition of our divine status. Our recognition that we are all one and that we all share the same unified, divine nature enables us to want to share with everyone else. Doesn't this sound like a statement about human nature? Yet, the film asserts that humans do not have a defined nature? The film defines human nature as emergent, symbiotic and divine, whille at the same time asserting that only human behavior exists. Despite this clear contradiction, the filmmakers assert that we are all one and that we are all divine, reiterating the central ideas of much of new age thinking.
Despite denying a defineable, human nature, the film nevertheless presents an optimistic vision of human nature in it's proposal that human intelligence is the answer to our problems. The film speaks of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project and asks what would have happened if these scientists had put their super-intelligence together and created something good, rather than creating the atomic bomb? They miss the irony of their own example. If human intelligence is the answer, why didn't these scientists devise the resource-based economy in the 1930's and 1940's, when clearly they were smart enough to develop atomic and nuclear technology? Again, the film misses the obvious in its attempts at intelligence.
Sadly, while correctly identifying many abuses in our financial systems, the makers of the zeitgeist films speak out of both sides of their mouths with regards to solutions. While praising the unifying notion of all human life, they suggest division and protest as ways to "fight the system" just like Neo in the film The Matrix. Yet, if we are truly all one, as they suggest, how would a boycott of banks, gas stations, the military, and politics help to unite us? Don't these individuals who work at these institutions share the same divine nature? While arguing that there is no such thing as human nature, only human behavior, the film ironically demonstrates the existence of human nature, and that human nature has not changed over millennia. Human intelligence is just as prone to create havoc as it is to create beauty and meaning. Indeed, the film never explains how the very same humans who cannot use their intelligence to do good will somehow manage the development of technological machines for the benefit of all. If even our best and brightest can't find a way to do good with their intelligence, why do the authors believe it will be any different in their resource-based economy?
In addition, the film naively assumes that the earth's natural resources and the power of the sun have infinite and limitless potential. This goes against the most basic science - the sun, for example, just like every other star in the universe, will eventually burn itself out. Without the sun, the earth will experience cataclysmic events, not endless resources for humans to use. While warning about a "one world government" in the first film, the authors seem to have reversed course and argue for a "one world" system of resource allocation and the "unity of all things" through the principle of symbiosis. How can they fear a one-world government in the first film, and advocate for a similar system in the second film, albeit run in their way, by their select group of technocrats?
Interestingly enough, the very principle of fear and control that the makers of the zeitgeist films argue is at work in our current systems of religion, economics and politics, underlies all of their assertions. You really don't have the true information, the film suggests. You really are a slave. You really aren't smart enough to figure all of this out on your own - they've got to be the ones to tell you. In the end, Zeitgeist: addendum doesn't add anything to the conversation about our global concerns. Instead it simply adds more fear. The film appeals to those who live by fear, and who want to use fear to influence others. This is not the vision of the Christian God who is Alpha and Omega, who was at the beginning, and who will guide us till the end.
In contrast to what the film asserts, the whole discipline of science, and the technology that flows from science, arose from the Christian worldview. A simple look at a history of science textbook will demonstrate this point. Science and faith walked hand in hand for many generations, and those who use science to discover God's creative ways in the world still hold faith and science together. In contrast to what the film asserts, a Christian worldview takes human nature very seriously arguing that while we are created in the very image of God, we often choose independence from our God. As such, we go our own way and fall into all kinds of sin and evil. Our distorted nature leads to distorted behavior. But, God does not leave us to that fate, and provides a living, breathing picture of the way our lives ought to look in the person of Jesus Christ. He presents a life of self-giving love - a life of abundance: "I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full." He presents a life based in intelligent faith, and not fear: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free." While we can agree, more or less, with some of the film's diagnoses of our current financial malaise, a debt-based society, and global resource scarcity, as Christians we must disagree with the film's solutions, which do not provide real answers to the real questions of human nature, purpose, and our ultimate destiny. Abiding in the teaching of Jesus would add much more to our understanding than watching either of the zeitgeist films.
If you are interested in reading more, there is an excellent critique of the zeitgeist film at Dr. John Stackhouse's blog.
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na,
bahadir
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3/9/2009 10:33:45 PM
"Abiding in the teaching of Jesus would add much more to our understanding than watching either of the zeitgeist films."
lol, If you could just write this at the top; so we wouldn't have to read all of your bullshit.
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Agreed,
Daniel
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3/11/2009 4:30:28 AM
As a devout Christian and one who is trying to understand more about the government, I am in full agreement with the last statement, "Abiding in the teaching of Jesus would add much more to our understanding than watching either of the <i>zeitgeist</i> films. I have watched both of them, and after discovering a few of the fallacies already mentioned here, decided to disregard them as untrustworthy. It also bothered me more that the information they gave was not sourced so I could cross-reference. Instead huge claims were made and just assumed to be true. It's an insult to any person seeking to understand more.
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who will fund it,
Jesus Christ
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6/15/2009 3:33:30 PM
watch the damn movie again.. then you'll answer your own questions. If u still have trouble, check out the venus project. Jesus would appreciate it and so will you :)
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Oh yea,
Jesus Christ
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6/15/2009 3:36:16 PM
oh yea, i have checked out Dr. John Stackhouse's blog... really? It didn't take me long to realize he missed the point and so did you. E D U C A T I O N ...
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Hahaha,
Hobgoblin
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8/4/2009 4:45:59 PM
This is a ridiculous article that criticizes Zeitgeist and nothing else.
Utter crap.
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Funding??,
Aragorn
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8/4/2009 4:49:07 PM
What is he talking about 'who will fund it'? He's missing the point. No one needs to fund it. We just need to do it.
The problem with our civilization and society is that it revolves around money and more importantly profit. The Zeitgeist movement eliminates this 'root of all evil'.
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