The Zeitgeist Movement is rapidly gaining popularity and momentum around the globe. I've heard about it in Sweden, Greece and the US. So, of course, I had to check out the newest film, Zeitgeist Addendum. If you'd like to watch it, click here.
I first watched the movie a few months ago and have watched it once more since. The first time I watched it, most of its main points rang true for me. But at the end, I had this nagging feeling that something about it wasn't quite right. What exactly was missing wasn't clear to me until I watched it the second time.
Many of the points in the Zeitgeist Addendum movie are very nicely articulated truths about the monetary system, economy, politics and society. However, where it goes wrong for me is that the Venus Project (the active body of the Zeitgeist Movement) says “Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture. No one is born with greed, prejudice, bigotry, patriotism and hatred; these are all learned behavior patterns.” (taken from the Venus Project website). They don’t take the essential step further and ask, “Where does our culture come from?” Now, that’s the interesting stuff!
It is my understanding that the system with all of its greed, corruption and deceit, is merely an external expression of the stage of development that we, as a society, are at. It is just an outer reflection of what is happening within us, as individuals, as well as a collective. Elites definitely lead how this expression manifests. However, everybody else is a part of that, too. If we are participating in it, then we must be at the same level, or even a lower level, of internal development as the elites. Voila, the economy.
Our economy, guided by corruption, greed and deceit, is merely an expression of the fear that we, as a species, are still governed by internally. This shows up often in our individual behavior as well as in the collective behavior. On an individual level, this manifests in the forms of abusive/toxic relationships, suspicion of others, self-medication (with anything from drugs to food to sex to exercise)... these are all fear-driven. On the collective level, it manifests as a profit-driven economy, corrupt politics, self-destructive social norms, etc.
The Zeitgeist Movement/Venus Project might reply to this with, "Yes, but the fear is due to a false sense of scarcity that's kept intact by the system." Yes, but take that a step deeper and we can see that the system, itself, is nothing more than a reflection of us, as a collective, as a species.
In my humble opinion, we need to deal with that fear. In some cases, as in the developing world, it is a legitimate fear. People are starving to death every day. Which ties directly to people in the "developed" nations having too much. They are taking too much in order to reassure themselves that they won't have scarcity. In fact, I have a sneaky suspicion that "luxury" is just an inadequate response to this fear of scarcity. So, we create over-abundance in order to pacify our fears, at the cost of others' livelihoods, creating real scarcity for them. This has been going on (on the global level) for the last few hundred years.
How can we deal with this fear? Well, it's obvious that we do have enough to fulfill and even surpass our basic needs in the "developed" nations. So, it's time to look at the psychological roots of this fear. Yep, that means looking into ourselves. It means doing some self-analysis in order to raise our self-awareness. Only then, can we know our fears, examine them and deal with them in healthy ways.
For more, read my article about self-analysis.
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