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Title: The Problem with “Zeitgeist” Author: Anonymous Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: conspiracy, futurist, Peter Joseph, science, Utopia, Zeitgeist Source: Retrieved on August 9, 2009 from http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/9161
The Zeitgeist Movement is now ubiquitous. Everywhere I turn, I hear
alienated youth having dialogue about this phenomenon, and I opened a
local free newspaper recently to find an article about college dropouts
who drive a bus around the country promoting the movement’s ideas.
There is a of course a great irony in this movement: “Zeitgeist” has all
but replaced the fringe-groups discussing September 11^(th) being an
inside-job and other irrelevant “conspiracies” (of course the conspiracy
industry is reluctant to acknowledge the two greatest public
conspiracies: capital and the State). In other words, the anti-political
fiction du-jour has had quite the metamorphosis. Alex Jones, one of the
entrepreneurs of the conspiracy industry and proponents of “New World
Order” “theory” (if ever a word was so bastardized), has been dethroned
by Peter Joseph and his hypothetical technological utopia.
Joseph, too, has drastically changed his tune. The first Zeitgeist film
was cliché conspiracism, i.e., the Federal Reserve, September 11^(th),
and the New World Order are discussed in intricate, albeit fabricated,
detail. These are all favorites in the conspiracist milieus.
“Zeitgeist” has changed this, however. The mostly anglo-saxon,
(previously) politically right-leaning constituency that praised Ron
Paul as the new savior, has (kind of) done a 180. What do I mean by
this? Well, for the uninitiated, the Zeitgeist Movement has now claimed
to be the “activist arm” of the Venus Project, a strange organization
spearheaded by social engineer and architect Jaque Fresco. Without
digressing into an abyss, a brief overview of the Venus Project would be
relevant to the discussion: a technologically advanced city blueprint
that did away with money, war, environmental degradation, and
eventually, they claim, government. Jaque Fresco and Zeitgeist leader
Peter Joseph describe these sustainable cities as encompassing a
“resource-based economy.”
What would be relevant to anti-authoritarians about such a movement?
What should be relevant is the fact that many are co-opting, connoting,
or merely associating the movement with anarchism.
An overview of “Zeitgeist” sounds good, and anti-authoritarian. What’s
the problem, you may ask? The main problem is that it’s a utopian
vision, i.e., the Zeitgeist Movement goes in depth on how the new world
will look, but it offers no vision on how to create the new world within
the shell of the old. The second problem is essentially an extension of
the former: people should not be told what kind of society they should
have. It is highly doubtful that anti-authoritarian theory can come from
an authority, academic or otherwise. Anti-authoritarian theory is
participatory, and if meaningful, is created by a majority. Wherein
“revolution” is needed, to remain anti-authoritarian and relevant to a
majority of the population, it requires the majority. Otherwise, it
risks the danger of becoming a vanguard. But “Zeitgeist” has no mention
of how to get from here-to- there.
Troublesome in the dialogue I have heard, as mentioned, is the idea that
“Zeitgeist” is anarchism (Johnson, 2009). Anarchism has never preached
one way, as does “Zeitgeist” (save for the anarcho-dogmatists). The lack
of plurality within the movement and acceptance, of say, primitivists,
syndicalists, communists, or other socialists, is not known because it
is omitted. “Zeitgeist” also immediately connotes hierarchy since it
puts all of its faith in science, hence scientists. Since some will be
more apt than others towards science, this could easily give us a new
bureaucracy.
Peter Joseph claims that “Zeitgeist” is not a political
movement.(Joseph, 2009). This is a strange statement for Joseph. After
all, he is deeming power structures useless and obsolete, wants to
abolish the monetary system, dismantle multinational corporations, and,
apparently, the nation-state. Not political? It sounds an awful lot like
historical political movements that arose through the development of
capitalism and the labor movement’s response to it (these are those
pesky working-class people that Joseph is reluctant to mention), i.e.,
Marxism, and anarchism. Perhaps he’s been on the fringe right-wing for
so long studying conspiracism (which seems to be not so en vogue these
days as evidenced by the popularity of this Zeitgeist thing) that he
doesn’t know his history. For a movement to be “political,” it doesn’t
require political parties and leadership; political movements can be
non-hierarchical and have nothing to do with the state or, like
anarchism, be against the state.
One would think that someone who is articulating a framework for
overthrowing the State and capitalism would have done some research.
Either Joseph is omitting the works of Marx and classical anarchism,
i.e., the revolutionary aspects of what is called the Left, or he is
simply omitting the history to appeal to a constituency that is of the
extremist right. Think about the opposite scenario: let’s assume that I
try to sell a scheme to the Left that involves completely deregulated
markets, dated ideas like the gold standard, condemn war because it
isn’t cost-effective, seek to abolish all taxes and reduce the role of
government, but never mention the history of lasaize-faire economics; I
don’t think that the left would be as kind, and quickly point out that I
am trying to pitch them a rehashed, watered-down version of capitalism.
A-historical accounts are troublesome in any regard. The American
“progressive” community is quick to point out the criminal actions of
Republican presidents like George W. Bush, but slow, or reticent, to
discuss analogous and equally atrocious acts committed by presidents
like JFK or Bill Clinton (the conspiracist right-wing is also reticent
in regards to the former). For this, the so-called “progressives,” or
the “left-of-center,” get nowhere and are not to be taken seriously. The
Zeitgeist Movement is comparable in this regard.
Either Joseph doesn’t understand what a political movement is or, worse,
this isn’t a political movement; the latter would suggest that the
“activist arm” of the Venus Project is really just part of the larger,
lucrative conspiracy industry that attracts an extremely alienated
working-class to invest money in their pyramid schemes. To say that it
is not a political movement would suggest that this is simply just a
neat idea that is fun to read about; in this case, there is a vast body
of futurist fiction, in which case, whatever one thinks about it, it is
at least candid about the fact that it is science-fiction. If the former
is true, then the Zeitgeist Movement represents vulgar utopianism.
Joseph and the Venus Project are proposing something radical: they are
proposing that humanity, essentially, abolishes the nation-state,
parliamentary bodies, and capitalism. There are many assumptions that
can be made about the Zeitgeist Movement as such, but I will limit it to
these for the moment: (1) Joseph and proponents of the Venus Project
believe that they can achieve this new society through reforms (because
to my knowledge they do not speak or write about a clash with the state,
i.e., revolution); (2) they are coming from an angle that suggests that
this will happen when there is a consciousness-shift, i.e., humans are
too stupid and greedy to have this society at the moment; (3) they have
a naĂŻve assumption, and again, an a-historical stance on what happens to
the working-class (does Joseph even mention them?) when they attempt to
overthrow the bourgeois state, i.e., fascist private militias,
concentration camps, murder of civilians en masse, etc., because they do
not speak of revolution as such; or (4) the proponents of this top-down
movement do not really view it as something attainable, resorting it to
fiction or an interesting idea.
If the first assumption is true, i.e., that a technocratic society sans
government and capitalism could be achieved through reform, then this
movement is certainly not to be taken seriously. Is anyone really naĂŻve
enough to believe that abolishing the bourgeois nation-state and the
arbitrary economic system that it resuscitates time-and-time again will
be welcomed by the ruling-class ? This is, of course, nonsensical. But,
to my knowledge, again, the Zeitgeist Movement has no class analysis, no
politics, etc. It is agnostic on everything.
To perceive that this first sustainable city is built somehow, without
the capitalists shutting it down any way they can, let us hypothetically
extrapolate on the scenario: a city gets built in, we’re assuming, the
Western world (because third-world US client-states would simply cut
their heads off the second they said they were going to build an
autonomous self-sustaining city) that is autonomous, has no allegiance
to any government, any monetary system, and is completely off-the-grid.
What is the first reaction that the State will have? Well, I would
extrapolate that the national guard, Blackwater and other fascist,
private militias, the police, the FBI, and probably every military force
in the world would invade the city and murder everyone they can; this is
if they do not simply drop missiles on the first sustainable city. This
is the kind of defiance that the bourgeoisie has not tolerated,
historically (see the Zapatista Movement and the Spanish Civil War).
Revolutionary social and political theories that historically come from
class struggle in contrary to the development of capitalism are not
naĂŻve about this; these theories acknowledge that if revolution is to be
successful, i.e., dismantling the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, there
must be organized resistance among the majority of people (the
working-class) and, an unfortunate matter, a clash with the State (if
only in defense). Marx acknowledged the class struggle in he and Engel’s
The Communist Manifesto, and believed that the history “of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles” (Marx & Engels).
Further:
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master
and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant
opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now
open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the
contending classes. (Marx)
Marx’s acknowledgements are spot-on; it is his techniques on how to have
revolution that many believed to be flawed. Marx favored an educated
sect of the working-class, what he referred to as the dictatorship of
the proletariat, running a transition state which would yield a
stateless, classless, society, sans monetary systems (sounds a bit like
the Zeitgeist Movement, no?).
Who, on the “left,” was to the contrary? The relevant sect of the early
history of the labor movement, and that sect that was, in fact, contrary
to Mr. Marx, was that of the anarchists and their respective movements.
Without digressing into too much detail, we can give a brief overview as
such showing the split in the 1870’s in the First International, or the
International Working Men’s Association (excuse the dated, sexist
preclusion of women radicals in the name). This was an anti-capitalist,
international organization of the working class that was communistic and
socialist, but there was a major difference within the organization:
those that sided with Marx and Engels, and those that sided with
anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (soon to become one of Marx’s loathed rivals).
All were socialists, certainly (meaning, simply, they favored the means
of production and political power being collectively owned by everyone),
but the split came between the authoritarian and the libertarian
socialists, the statist-wing and non-statist wing, respectively. Those
libertarian-socialists came to represent a revolutionary philosophy that
set out to dismantle capitalism, the State, and all other oppressive
hierarchical structures; this was the philosophy of anarchism.
So, anarchism is certainly a political movement. Yes, it seeks no
political party or major organization to govern the people, and abhors
the notion of parliamentary, representative government. But it seeks to
put political power in the hands of communities, through whatever means
the communities deem appropriate, i.e., direct democracy, consensus,
workers council, or even technocracies like Joseph condones. Perhaps
this is what Joseph means to say: the Zeitgeist Movement does not seek
to establish some kind of political party or organization, but it is
certainly a political movement since it seeks to put the political power
in everyone’s hands.
An anarchocentric critique of the Zeitgeist Movement doesn’t reject many
of the ideas for which Joseph has presented. But there are major
fallacies. Joseph has proposed a futurist society that will not appeal
to everyone as the end-all solution to our problems. I certainly
wouldn’t oppose a community like the one Joseph speaks of existing after
a revolution that dismantled capitalism and the State; I utterly condone
a pluralistic world with many different types of societies co-existing,
as long as they are voluntary, and non-oppressive. Also, as mentioned,
this is not something we can achieve, whether technocratic or a society
ran according to anarcho-syndicalism principles, through reform, or an
unprepared working class. As far as I’m concerned, if the majority of
the working class is not participating in the movement, then the
movement is not significant.
If the second principle is the case, i.e., they believe that such a
grand scheme can only come about when there is a consciousness shift, or
further evolution of the human species, well, this would be a simple
case of a philosophy which condones some form of idealism and
utopianism, and is not rooted in the pragmatic or material world.
Comparatively, pacifists might tell the Palestinians to let Israeli
aggressors slaughter them or their family, because pacifism is an ideal.
Some hardliners would promote this nonsensical idea, while most anti-war
activists acknowledge that the Palestinians have a right to defend
themselves from aggressors.
This ideal suggests that capitalism is simply outdated; that the
power-structures that enslave the working class and prevent them from a
life of human solidarity and creativity, and destroys the environment
through (Joseph acknowledges this) a profit-driven incentive that
surpasses anything else.
This brings me to Joseph’s perception of the global economy. He defines
the players involved as employers, employees, and consumers. And his
perception is that the problem with these relationships is that
capitalism is terribly inefficient. Joseph almost seems to place
working-class individuals in the same realm as the bourgeoisie,
explaining that they simply cannot reach a compromise. This is analogous
to saying that those who run prisons cannot compromise with the
prisoners. Those who currently own the means of production need not
compromise; they have an army of desperate wage-slaves, ranging from
neurosurgeons to janitors. Their job is to buy these wage-slaves labor
on the cheap, and collect surplus value. Ironically, the capitalist does
not use the means of production that she or he “owns.”
This is an historical critique of capital and private property.
Anti-authoritarians have criticized the idea that such an entity exists.
Anarchists and libertarian Marxists agree that what one uses, one
possesses. So, if a capitalist “owns” a chunk of property and employs 80
wage-slaves who use his means of production daily, the anarchist or
libertarian Marxist feels that the wage slaves possess the means of
production that the capitalist technically “owns.” A thoughtful critique
of private property is missing in Joseph’s analysis.
Does Joseph think that the property owners, whether the State or private
owners, will tolerate him using their land to build an off-the-grid city
that is not affiliated with the State or capital? Certainly, he is not
this naĂŻve. If he is suggesting that people buy up property to do this,
then it is simply liberal reform. This is the same elitist stance that
liberals take; they believe that if we simply consume less, eat organic,
and ride a bike, we can moralize a morally bankrupt system, i.e.,
capitalism. I would see little difference if property-owners bought land
in bulk to build such cities. Joseph will have to develop his analysis,
because it is unlikely that the bourgeois State will allow his utopia to
coexist.
Joseph is correct: capitalism is inefficient and will most certainly
destroy the planet left to its own cancerous devises. But his lack of
class-analysis connotes that he’s never seriously studied capitalist
critique. I suppose this is a good thing, that people inherently see the
flaws in capitalism, but when one has a platform speaking of these ills
as if they happen in a vacuum, I find it quite troubling.
When the words “wage-slavery,” “subordination,” and, perhaps most
importantly, “private property” are missing from a critique of capital,
it begs many questions, and suggests liberalism and reformism, like the
social democrats attempts to create a “green” capitalism.
In this essay, I could be perceived as one who has written the Zeitgeist
Movement off as conspiracist drivel; mostly I have. However, at the crux
of it, there are anarchistic connotations. Who’s to say that this is not
prefigurative politics, i.e., the idea of building a new world in the
shell of the old? Or, who could argue that, if this truly was a
decentralized, non-hierarchical free-space for people, it is not
striving to build a dual power structure? Both prefigurative politics
and dual-power building are both anarchistic tendencies, and I argue the
Zeitgeist Movement could be that.
Also, certainly environmental degradation subordinates the majority of
human beings who would not destroy the planet left to their own vices to
the miniscule percent of the population of property owners who are
destroying the planet. Joseph is addressing these problems, and a
majority of his audience is coming from the conspiracy industry that
predominantly believes global-warming is a hoax created to perpetuate
socialism through carbon tax (no, I’m not kidding). The fact that a
constituency who bought ultra-extreme ideology for so long seems to be
accepting of the sustainable technocracy for which Joseph is a proponent
is certainly less-worse. But is the technocratic metropolis something
that can ever be sustainable? Has “Zeitgeist” thought outside the box,
or would Fresco’s sustainable city be every bit as alienating as our
current “cities?” Further, can we reach sustainability without creating
new paradigms? I believe it is doubtful.
I think praxes that explain “This is the way to freedom!” can be
interesting; there are certainly other examples of classical anarchists
like James Guillame and Peter Kropotkin writing specifically about their
ideal communities, or even Michael Albert with his intricately planned
“Parecon” idea (whatever one may think of it). I do believe, however,
that the rigidity of a plan can alienate anti-authoritarians, and
perhaps Joseph should sympathize with all people who are opposed to
capital and state; this should be the area on which we focus instead of
focusing on our ideal new society. I am not suggesting we should not try
to build alternative institutions like co-ops and free spaces for
everyone; this is the kind of work we should certainly take part in. But
we need not focus all of our time on someone’s specific praxis and ideal
about a future society. It is crucial to understand for these ideal
future societies to exist, we must dismantle the oppressive
authoritarian institutions that prohibit Joseph’s scientific green city,
or my ideal communist society. This is where our activism, and certainly
our creativity, should focus.
Further, it could be argued that it is wasted effort writing about
something so insignificant like Zeitgeist. It is, after all, weak in
theory, and seems to come from a film-maker who realized that the
conspiracism that made his first video so popular is losing momentum
(this is certainly a good thing that the alienated, mostly white males,
who patronized the intellectually bankrupt industry of distraction seem
to be abandoning it). But it is sort of quasi-anarchistic, and quite
popular. This gives libertarians, whether Marxian or anarchist, an
opportunity to discuss their ideas with people who may have previously
been unsympathetic to anarchism. It can be a nice segue, like “You know,
this whole Zeitgeist thing is pretty close to anarchism.”
I am not suggesting that libertarians should be missionaries, always
trying to recruit new worshipers. But it is an opportunity to create
dialogue, which is of the upmost importance. Anti-authoritarian politics
should not be tucked away in a dusty closet. With the popularity of the
Zeitgeist movement, this dialogue could happen on a large scale. And
that is why Joseph’s work is a significant piece of pop-culture.
Oxford University Press
Tube. Retrieved July 12, 2009 from