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Nick Meador
On Saturday, March 15, 2008, thousands of people watched a free Internet film at one of more than 700 public and 1100 private showings in about 70 countries around the world. That film is Zeitgeist, a three-part documentary that explores the relationship between the Christian religion, the events of September 11, 2001, major wars over the past century, and the Federal Reserve Bank. MSU junior Christina Psaros organized the only public viewing on campus at Akers Auditorium, but unfortunately only 12 people attended. Since news of this film has been spreading around the East Lansing community with the speed and force of a hurricane, one can probably attribute the low attendance to the fact that anyone with a high-speed Internet connection can stream the film right from the official web site. Zeitgeist is a key example of the Internet’s ability to spread information between massive numbers of people worldwide. The film is geared towards skeptics and intellectuals; those who feel there’s something terribly rotten – or at least potentially destructive – about organized religion; those who wonder to varying degrees what we still don’t know about the 9/11 attacks; those who can’t understand why war even happens in our world anymore, let alone a tax-funded “War on Terror” in Iraq that seems to exist solely in order to secure Bush’s control of oil reserves. For example, the first section of the film explores the possibility that the modern Christian religion is based largely on astronomical observances (i.e. – the sun and stars) and astrological myths (i.e. – the stories developed in coordination with movements of the sun and constellations to explain those natural phenomena) that date back to Egypt circa 3000 BC. Conclusion-jumpers might take this as an attack on faith or spirituality, but that’s not the case. The point is simply to contest beliefs that are automatically accepted as true because they’re written in the Bible. Needless to say, these are touchy subjects. That is partly because we live in a separatist society. We are united by common enemies, and divided by artificial partitions like race and religion, all according to the government’s need to control a population. Those who have subscribed to the redefinition of the word patriot (which Bush has twisted to mean “support your government without contest”), who have never considered that churches are also highly lucrative businesses, and who see war as a necessary result of international struggles – those people find a huge problem with Zeitgeist. In some respects, the film directly attacks a large piece of what those people consider to be the one and only reality. Critics attempt to debunk this film – and other related documentaries like Loose Change, which centers on the 9/11 topics – by claiming that the film is based on too many assumptions, unaccredited anecdotes, and weak facts. To some extent, the opponents are correct. But a film like Zeitgeist doesn’t propose to consist entirely of facts. It would be impossible for such a documentary to contain only facts. That’s why stories like this are absent in the mass media and traditional journalism organizations. Most people who haven’t attended journalism school – and even some who have – don’t realize the distinction between fact and truth. Journalism consists of facts, but because of its objective nature, it cannot necessarily reveal grand truths. Truth is achieved by combining facts with deeper research, analysis, and subjective insights. This is why, in a 1965 letter, esteemed gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote, “Facts are lies when they’re added up.” Far before that, in 1922, journalist Walter Lippman said, “News and truth are not the same thing…The function of news is to signalize an event. The function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality upon which men can act.”
This is the point of a film like Zeitgeist. The strength of these movies is not that they present any great truths; it is that they propose the greatest questions. The reason they are garnering such widespread response is because, deep down inside, a growing number of people have known that something is wrong. Naturally, most people have no clue where to start exploring or explaining what is wrong, and anyone who tries is deemed a conspiracy theorist. These films give us a doorway that could lead to the discovery of more aspects of the problem – aspects that we must come to know intimately. Shortcomings are not grounds for discarding the film altogether; it just means that we have more cooperative investigation to do. Zeitgeist is a diving board into an Olympic-sized pool of truth-filled water molecules. The Internet provides an avenue for disseminating these ideas with total disregard for traditional barriers of language and geography. The filmmakers even offer the documentary for free download as a torrent, endorsing the invaluable technology of peer-to-peer networking. Our democracy was founded on the concept that information unveils truth, and citizens can use that truth to self-govern. However, our society has been shrouded in so many layers of lies and deceit that we may never be able to root out and punish “the men behind the curtain” (as they are referred to in Zeitgeist). But that doesn’t mean we should stop here. The first step to attaining a better world is watching the movie, and any other controversial film you can find – especially if it challenges your personal beliefs. This step can be extremely unsettling, even for the greatest of anti-establishment skeptics. The second step, which many people will never take, is self-education: we must fill in all the gaps in literature, psychology, philosophy, and science created by an educational system designed to prevent intellectual development. The third and even less practiced step is to find ways to open our third eye and see beyond the artificial separations, into the one loving consciousness at the core of humanity. This is the basis for the film’s conclusion. In fact, they quote a famous section of from comedian Bill Hicks’ repertoire, when he would say, “We can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a choice right now between fear and love.” This can be our future, but only if we choose it. In this Information Age, apathy is the equivalent of taking a swan dive, from the rafters, with no helmet, into an Olympic-sized ice arena. In that case, the truth will remain frozen forever.
VIDEOS:
Zeitgeist trailer (aka the first three minutes of the film)
Trailer for Zeitgeist – Addendum, coming in Oct 2008
LINKS: Official Loose Change web site
Questions? Comments? Contact Nick Meador at meadorni@msu.edu |
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