In January 2011, the movie "ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD"
was screened in cities all over the world; it is a non-profit documentary
directed by Peter Joseph, also available online for free download.
In Italy, twenty cities participated in this global screening project.
The Zeitgeist Movement chapter in Rome screened the movie
at the Azzurro Scipioni Cinema, owned by director Silvano Agosti.
To our great surprise, Paolo Bonolis, presenter of "The Meaning of Life"
a prime time TV program on Channel 5, also attended the screening.
Paolo and his co-author, Michele Afferrante, have shown great interest
for the Movement's ideas and immediately welcomed a cultural exchange
thereby starting a cooperation with the Zeitgeist Movement.
They have been broadcasting a series of intellectually stimulating snippets
throughout the season without soliciting any funding
which is proof that even on a commercial TV channel
there are people who don't regard monetary reward as their only target.
We have collected those bits and put them together, showing the path
that millions of Italians have followed for over two months.
We thank Paolo, Michele and their staff for granting us this great opportunity
and hope this effort will arouse curiosity and meditation in some of the viewers.
Clip #1
I would like to show you and have you listen to these words, please.
Not to accept things as they are
but to understand it, to go into it, to examine it.
Give your heart and your mind with everything that you have to find out
a way of living differently.
But that depends on you and not somebody else.
Because in this there is no teacher, no pupil.
There's no leader.
There's no guru.
There's no master, no savior.
You yourself are the teacher and the pupil.
You're the master, you're the guru, you are the leader.
You are everything!
And
to understand
is to transform what is.
The character that you have just seen and heard is Krishnamurti.
He is considered as one of the greatest thinkers of all time.
He didn't theorize any philosophy or religion.
Instead he spoke of things concerning all of us in our daily lives
in particular about the need for a radical change in human consciousness.
The video clip is taken from the documentary movie "Zeitgeist"
which means "the spirit of the time" by Peter Joseph.
It is a three chapter non-profit work
which brings some of our certainties into question.
It is a movie which tries to make us think in a different way
out of the box and away from conventions.
We liked the Zeitgeist project so much
that we decided to share some parts of it with you
throughout this 4th edition of "The Meaning of Life".
They are short and, according to us, enlightening fragments like this one.
Now, my grandmother was a wonderful person.
She taught me how to play the game Monopoly.
She understood that the name of the game is to acquire.
She would accumulate everything she could and eventually
she became the master of the board.
And then she would always say the same thing to me.
She looked at me and said
“One day, you'll learn to play the game.”
One summer, I played Monopoly almost every day, all day long.
And that summer, I learned to play the game.
I came to understand the only way to win
is to make a total commitment to acquisition.
I came to understand that money and possessions
that's the way that you keep score.
And by the end of that summer, I was more ruthless than my grandmother.
I was ready to bend the rules if I had to, to win that game.
And I sat down with her to play that fall.
I took everything she had.
I watched her give her last dollar and quit in utter defeat.
And then she had one more thing to teach me.
Then she said
“Now it all goes back in the box."
Clip #2
As we did in the last episode of this 4th season of "The Meaning of Life"
we will showcase some clips from "Zeitgeist".
Zeitgeist, which means spirit of time
is a movie directed by Peter Joseph.
It is a countercurrent and countercultural view of our reality.
Here's today's segment.
In a world where 1% of the population owns 40% of the planet's wealth...
In a world where 34.000 children die every single day
from poverty and preventable diseases
and where 50% of the world's population
lives on less than 2 dollars a day...
One thing is clear.
Something is very wrong.
And whether we are aware of it or not
the lifeblood of all of our established institutions
and thus society itself, is money.
Therefore, understanding this institution of monetary policy
is critical to understanding why our lives are the way they are.
Unfortunately, economics is often viewed with confusion and boredom.
Endless streams of financial jargon
coupled with intimidating mathematics
quickly deters people from attempts at understanding it.
However, the complexity associated with the financial system is a mere mask
designed to conceal one of the most socially paralyzing structures
humanity has ever endured.
Clip #3
The dominant values of a culture tend to support and perpetuate
what is rewarded by that culture.
And in a society where success and status
is measured by material wealth, not social contribution
it is easy to see why the state of the world is what it is today.
We are dealing with a value system disorder, completely denatured
where the priority of personal and social health
have become secondary to the detrimental notions
of artificial wealth and limitless growth.
And, like a virus, this disorder now permeates
every facet of government, news media
entertainment and even academia.
And built into its structure are mechanisms of protection
from anything that might interfere.
Disciples of the monetary-market religion
the self-appointed guardians of the status quo
constantly seek out ways to avoid any form of thought
which might interfere with their beliefs
the most common of which are projected dualities.
If you're not a Republican, you must be a Democrat.
If you are not Christian, you might be a Satanist.
And if you feel society can be greatly improved
to consider, perhaps, I don't know, taking care of everyone?
You're just a “Utopianist”.
And the most insidious of them all:
If you are not for the "free-market"
you must be against freedom itself.
Clip #4
If there is any testament to the plasticity of the human mind...
If there is any proof to how malleable human thought is
and how easily conditioned and guided people can become
based on the nature of their environmental stimulus
and what it reinforces
the world of commercial advertising is the proof.
You have to stand in awe at the level of brainwashing
where these programmed robots known as "consumers"
wander the landscape only to walk into a store and spend, say
$4000 on a handbag that likely cost $10 to make
in a sweatshop overseas
only for the brand status it supposedly represents
in the culture.
Or perhaps the ancient communal traditions which increase trust
and cohesiveness in society
which have now been hijacked by acquisitive
materialistic values where now annually
we exchange useless crap a few times a year.
And we might wonder why so many today
have a compulsion to shopping and acquisition
when it is clear that they have been conditioned from childhood
to expect material goods as a sign of their status
with friends and family.
Clip #5
Famines throughout at least the last century of our history
have not been caused by a lack of food.
They have been caused by relative poverty.
The economic resources were so inequitably distributed
that the poor simply didn't have enough money
with which to buy the food that would've been available
if they could have afforded to pay for it.
That would be an example of "Structural Violence".
Gandhi saw this. He said
“The deadliest form of violence is poverty.”
And that's absolutely right.
Poverty kills far more people than all the wars in history
more people than all the murderers
and all the suicides in history.
Not only does Structural Violence kill more people
than all the Behavioral Violence put together
Structural Violence is also the main cause of Behavioral Violence.
Clip #6
So, a Resource-Based Economy
is nothing more than a set of proven, life supporting understandings
where all decisions are based upon
optimized human and environmental sustainability.
It takes into account the “Life Ground” which every human being shares
as a need, regardless of their political or religious philosophy.
There is no cultural relativism to this approach.
It isn't a matter of opinion.
Human needs are human needs
and having access to the necessities of life, such as clean air
nutritious food and clean water
along with a positively reinforcing, stable
nurturing, non-violent environment
as demanded for our mental and physical health
our evolutionary fitness, and hence, the species' survival itself.
Clip #7
Making homes using hammers and nails and wood
with the state of our technology today
is really absurd and will go the way of our labor class
in regards to manufacturing in the United States.
Recently, there was a study by economist David Autor of MIT
that states that our middle class is obsolete
and being replaced by automation.
Quite simply, mechanization is more productive
efficient and sustainable than human labor
in virtually every sector of the economy today.
Machines do not need vacations, breaks, insurance, pensions
and they can work 24 hours a day, everyday.
The output potential and accuracy
compared to human labor, is unmatched.
The bottom line: Repetitive human labor is becoming obsolete
and impractical across the world
and today's unemployment is fundamentally
the result of this evolution of efficiency in technology.
The bottom line is that the “labor for income” game
is slowly coming to an end.
In fact, if you take a moment to reflect on the jobs
which are in existence today which automation could take over
right now, if applied, 75% of the global workforce
could be replaced by mechanization tomorrow.
Clip #8
Now, we'd like to end this fourth season of "The Meaning of Life"
by leaving the conclusion to 95-year-old Jacque Fresco
who would have attended in person if he could.
Unfortunately, his age prevented him from doing so.
He is the founder of The Venus Project which we came to know
through the documentary movie "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward"
which we have shown in some of its segments.
I suggest you to follow his speech carefully
in which he will express his vision of things
with a deep sense of freedom.
See you all at the next edition of "The Meaning of Life" hopefully.
When I was a young man
growing up in New York City
I refused to pledge allegiance to the flag.
Of course I was sent to the principal's office, and he asked me
"Why don't you want to pledge allegiance? Everybody does!"
I said "Everybody once believed the Earth was flat
but that doesn't make it so."
I explained that America owed everything it has
to other cultures and other nations
and that I would rather pledge allegiance
to the Earth and everyone on it.
Needless to say it wasn't long before I left school entirely
and I set up a lab in my bedroom.
There I began to learn about science and nature.
I realized then that the universe is governed by laws
and that the human being, along with society itself
was not exempt from these laws.
Then came the crash of 1929
which began what we now call "The Great Depression".
I found it difficult to understand why millions were out of work
homeless, starving
while all the factories were sitting there.
The resources were unchanged.
It was then that I realized
that the rules of the economic game were inherently invalid.
Shortly after, came World War II
where various nations took turns
systematically destroying each other.
I later calculated that all the destruction
and wasted resources spent on that war
could have easily provided for every human need on the planet.
Since that time I have watched humanity
set the stage for its own extinction.
I have watched as the precious finite resources
are perpetually wasted and destroyed
in the name of profit and free markets.
I have watched the social values of society
be reduced into a base artificiality of materialism
and mindless consumption.
And I have watched as the monetary powers
control the political structure of supposedly free societies.
I'm 94 years old now
and I'm afraid my disposition
is the same as it was 75 years ago.
This shit's got to go.
Clip #9
A “RESOURCE-BASED ECONOMY”
The idea was defined in the 1970's
by structural engineer Jacque Fresco.
He understood back then that society was on a collision course
with nature and itself, unsustainable on every level
and if things didn't change
we would destroy ourselves, one way or another.
(Larry King) Are all of these things you are saying, Jacque
could they be built with what we know today?
Or are you guessing based on what we know today?
- No, all of these things can be built with what we know today.
It would take 10 years to change the surface of the earth
to rebuild the world into a second Garden of Eden.
The choice lies with you. The stupidity of a nuclear arms race
the development of weapons, trying to solve your problems politically
by electing any given political party...
All politics is immersed in corruption. Let me say it again:
Communism, socialism, fascism, the Democrats, the liberals
we want to absorb human beings ...
all organizations that believe in a better life for man!
There are no Negro problems or Polish problems
or Jewish problems or Greek problems or women's problems.
There are human problems! I'm not afraid of anybody
I don't work for anyone. No one can discharge me. I have no boss.
I am afraid to live in the society we live in today.
Our society cannot be maintained by this type of incompetency.
It was great, the free enterprise system, about 35 years ago.
That was the last of its usefulness.
Now we have got to change our way of thinking or perish.
The horror movies of the future will be our society
the way it didn't work.
And politics would be part of the horror movie.