Rethinking Zeitgeist

I was thinking about the state of the world today. Yes, when you live a wonderful bum life, you tend to have time to worry about frivolous things like that.

A few weeks ago, under the urge of my friend, I watched the award-winning movie, Zeitgeist, for the first time. A riveting movie, I must say. Or, at the very least, controversial and daring, though not the first to be so. (ask Michael Moore -- I mean, come on. anyone who's seen Zeitgeist SHOULD know that there is a not-so-hidden agenda to be inflammatory ... so to get your attention. so get a bottle of salt ready for the things you hear. You'll need more than just a grain.) Well, riveting mostly because of its sound effects. The bass-heavy beginning with a rather verbose man speaking for 6 minutes straight, complete with Windows Media Player-like graphics was ... riveting. Then, its conspiracy theory content was also, at the very least, entertaining. So entertaining that it stuck with me until today, when I decided to think about what I watched a little more. If I'm going to be brainwashed, I want to at least know what the hell I'm being brainwashed with. So today, I looked up the movie's transcript, which they only have the first part available. I cannot wait for the rest of it to come out.

The movie was divided into three portions. In my words:
Part I: Christianity's flaw
Part II: The 9/11 Conspiracy
Part III: International bankers' plot

I am a strong believer in that there is still value in a badly-written piece of literature as long as it raises reasonable doubt in the pre-existing world order. That being said, I also am a strong believe in conviction, journalistic and scholastic integrity ... AND a substantial bibliography.

And I am extremely interested to see how Zeitgeist fares because there is absolutely no bibliographical mention in the movie at all, short of The Bible, really.

As you can hear in my tone here, I am not the most convinced audience in the world. Why? Well, because I'm part of what you would call the educated, logical and analytical public, and I am determined to live up to it.

Why am I such a pooper critic?
Well, ok. Here it is.

I've been really into astrology lately. Not just because I've been trying to "find myself" or whatever the hell people call it. It's also because I'm fascinated with the astrological system's rich social and historical implications (aka. archaeoastronomy, comparative mythology and religion, and identity politics). So I did my research, did my reading, did my thinking, and realized that (DUH!) there isn't just ONE zodiac system. With advancement in astronomy, astrology has been forced to change for the past many, many years. Now, "since when" is a good question to be asking right now. Well, astronomy has been advancing for as long as astrology has been developed. In fact, when the tropical zodiac system (the conventional 12-character system you see on you daily horoscope), it was already known that it wasn't entirely accurate -- far from it! (It has been known that the precession of equinox causes adjustments once every 70 years ... this has been fact for some two hundred years before some guy was born in the manger who grew up to be nailed to a tree). And during all those years, the constellations have changed dramatically. In fact, for the longest of time, there were at least 3 systems in Western astrology: Tropical, Sidereal/Vedic, and the basic Sun in Constellation (in which there are more than 12 constellations).

And all of this, though topically insignificant, lingers in my mind with implicit significance:

While the movie did a very good job presenting the zodiac system and its inherent flaws, it 1) did not mention the rest of the systems existed at the time that were more astronomically accurate (thus, slightly less mythologically biased), and 2) also did not mention the fact that the ancients KNEW that their system was flawed for hundreds of years before baby Jesus was born, and before collective government systems were built in the time of the Pagans!!

So what's the point in conveniently not presenting all of THE OTHER information? Why focus on one that's most convenient in supporting its argument? Hmm. Wouldn't this be grounds to call it "bias," if not "misleading?" *gasp!*

The truth is, stars changed and people changed. The ancients chose what they believed in, and WE twisted them around. We are the ones that took their sea-faring believes too literally (as we all know, other than agriculture and land directions, the boom in astronomy started when people began their sea adventures). For thousands of years, Christianity, for worse (or WORST!), became the slaying sword in the hands of the vicious few (which is the point of the movie), but, for better, it provided an anchor of hope for many people.

Christianity hasn't always been the way Americans see it to be. And I say "Americans" because if we look at Western the Western political climate, the US is by far the most affected by Christianity in its policies. For example, did you know that in the Middle Ages (uh, CATHOLIC), doctors and women knew better ways for birth control, contraceptives and abortion than we do today? Yes, they used herbs, not hormones. Why didn't the movie just say "It doesn't have to be this way ... and it hasn't always been this way," instead of "You've been duped"? The interesting thing for me here is that the movie chose to ride the "inflammatory" route instead of a calm presentation that doesn't take the artistic license of scholastic works of others.

Speaking of scholastic works, what I'm also surprised to find out is that there is no trace of the works of Joseph Campbell, a prominent and well-known scholar in the field of comparative mythology and religion. What I noticed in the bibliography is frequent mention of a certain Acharya S, whose real name, according to the much beloved Wikipedia, is M.D. Murdock, and her first book is named "The Christ Conspiracy."

I don't know what to make of all this. Actually, it's more like I don't have the words to describe the scholastic failure presented here by the lack of breadth in Part I's bibliography. Any scholastic work -- or movies that made a point to rile up scholastic scrutiny -- would have at least CONSIDERED citing prominent scholarship! Remember? This is something we learned even in high school, one of the cardinal rules of respectable scholastic work. Competency speaks volumes in scholastic work.

Another interesting thing I noticed is that, even though the movie makes such an effort to bring about the impression that the Christianity conspiracy is based on some worldwide fact, it fails to mention China, as one of the world's foremost astronomical powerhouses for thousands of years. (It did, however, mention Japan, if you care to notice because it passes by really fast in font. But Japan, during those times, was quite different than China ... read history.)

So that's the beginning to my skepticism of Part I.

No no. I don't mean that the whole thing doesn't make sense. In fact, I would say that it is thought-provoking. But I would also say that it lacks depth. It lacks the depth of truly understanding, aside from conspiracy theory or the "truth" about God and Man, what ELSE these myths and religion and star constellations say about humanity. There's so much more than Horus and Set, light and darkness, and right and wrong. And there's already so much work done on the reality somewhere in between the two extremes.

Zeitgeist is obviously behind the times.

For more information, please refer to Joseph Campbell and his league of scholars. No, not even that. Before going there, check out PBS and their specials. (The truth is ... TRUTH is everywhere. You don't always have to invent it.)

Part II and III, I cannot comment on in great detail or any detail at all because I am still waiting for the transcript and bibliography to become available. But I will say that, in regards to the war on Iraq, the movie also conveniently "missed" the internal politics of the administration, as demonstrated clearly by its blatant disregard of the National Security Advisor and the Secretary of Interior by the Vice President and Secretary of Defense. Much of the war and its debauchery is a result of internal unrest in the cabinet itself, clearly illustrated in the timeline of occurrence and events throughout the war effort. This INCLUDES the passing of the Patriot Act and the President's disregard (yes, more disregard!) of the proper procedure he must follow with the Office of Legal Counsel. Also, the "war on terror," as we all know, began in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration! Does anyone remember the twist that became of the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s, during which the US foreign policy took a misstep by intervening ... just like it did in so many different events around the world?

Come on. We ALL KNOW that the 9/11 and subsequent (even consequent) events did not just start on 9/11/2001. And we ALL KNOW that the military-industrial complex has a hand in our foreign and domestic policies -- I first learned this in high school. But let's not forget that there are some very complex, but very tangible, politics at work here that are not unheard of. ... Apparently, though, the makers of Zeitgeist thought these political struggles (as illustrated even on PBS!) are not tangible enough.

OK, sure enough, like the movie advocates, we cannot always trust the media (ironically, the movie also wants its audience to trust it). But for all I know -- and NPR knows it, too, because it did an interview special on it -- at the very least The New York Times (I mean, come on. It's only one of the most well-known news media in the world ....) published articles about how the administration was trying to by-pass the Office of Legal Counsel to pass the Patriot Act, which the movie made such a big deal about. It is true that the administration tried to dissuade The NYTimes from publishing it, but the brave editors went ahead with it anyway.

You see, just like the scandalous Watergate, just like the ugliness of the Vietnam War (I mean, how else did you think that war came to an end?), and just like everything else that is put out there by the media, THERE IS STILL JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY IN THE WORLD.

DO NOT FORGET THAT WE AS HUMANITY, THROUGH ITS UPS AND DOWNS, STILL HAVE INTEGRITY. It's all around us, if we care to notice. You know, between a happy-go-lucky, head-in-clouds worldview and the Zeitgeist portrayal of the world, the reality is most likely somewhere in between. Paranoia must not be hurled in with healthy skepticism. So, I, for one (and I know I'm not alone), would not be so naive to be so easily affected by Zeitgeist's mediocre attempt to sway me one way or another. (And honestly, there are better conspiracy theory movies out there -- even Michael Moore's movies prove to be better.)