Name: "Zeitgeist Revolution" Breaking the Set Interview about The Zeitgeist Movement
Uploaded: 2017-07-23T12:31:22.000Z
Duration: 13 min 42 s
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What if politics weren't to blame for the institutional corruption,

the endless wars and the burgeoning homelessness?

What if rather these are just symptoms born out of an outdated social structure?

That's the revolutionary idea behind the explosive Zeitgeist documentary trilogy.

these documentaries have been translated into 40 different languages,

and have been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

But the ideas brought forward by the documentaries quickly transcended film

and spawned The Zeitgeist Movement: a global-sustainability, advocacy organization

that's revolutionizing the way people think and act.

Now, the filmmaker will be re-energizing the movement

with yet another series entitled 'Interreflections'.

Here to talk about the 'Culture In Decline',

The Zeitgeist Movement and where there may be a glimmer of hope,

I'm joined by the filmmaker himself, Peter Joseph.

Peter, thanks so much for coming on. - It's my pleasure, Abby, thank you for having me.

- First of all, I think that these movies should be essential viewing

for everyone on the planet because you really present these concepts

that are not so much new or revolutionary as they are just glaringly obvious truths

in the way you articulate them, Peter, but I wanted to get into how you got started.

As someone who worked in Wall Street and advertising, when did you step back

and analyze your own role in society and decide to radically change course?

- Great question; it was a slow evolution really.

Like many people brought up in this culture, you end up with

I came from a middle class family; we had no real wealth.

I came into the world, I went to school, I dropped out

in the educational college/career problem that we have

(most college debt is the peak of bankruptcy

coupled with medical debts, in aggregate),

and I began to realize that there's something going on with this system.

I did stuff with Wall Street and advertising trying to keep my self-preservation going,

and finally it dawned on me when I made this catharsis film in 2007

just called 'Zeitgeist', which became 'Zeitgeist: The Movie'.

It was a frustration piece that I made, it just sort of exploded in my mind

to the extent that I don't even know where it came from to be frank.

It was a big catharsis that I did which I threw up online.

It became viral because I think people identified with the same issues and themes,

and then that triggered where I am today. I continue to move forward

with representative media that is both entertaining

and value-shifting in the quality that it pursues,

but also extremely educational and ultimately activist-oriented,

and that's the whole purpose of my existence at this point.

- Thanks for explaining that; let's get right into this. With the elections

coming up in less than two weeks, let's talk about the two-party system

which you explore a little bit in a recent video that you made, called 'What Democracy?'.

What purpose does this system serve to control the population?

Do you advocate people to completely remove themselves

from the electoral process, or do you see some merit in supporting

third party candidates and local politics?

- I think we have to deal with what we have at the moment.

because that's a form of direct democracy.

But the aristocracy game that has emerged,

which is an outgrowth of basically the economic system

which inherently generates hierarchy, is completely misunderstood.

We think we're in a different paradigm today than we were

during the age of kings and queens, but we're really not.

The kings and queens are behind the scenes and operate within the business/

industrial enterprise, which is the driving mechanism

of all the values and institutions we have.

The figureheads: the elections, the presidents, the Congress,

which is the monetary market economy itself.

Those values that are there confuse people,

and they think that when they go into a voting booth and elect somebody

that they're going to change something. But if you look at the historical record

(which many have not, especially since the beginning of America),

Really, when it comes to the election of any single individual,

or the conglomerate actions of the Congress or whatever parliament institution,

this statistical element is lost unfortunately.

This isn't projection to say that "Oh it's just to be cynical

and say it doesn't matter if you vote," this is proven.

The effect of these elections is not given the correct gravity

because it's very small. I'd say maybe 10%

is how effective the election of a new president really may be.

- Exactly, and it also serves to disempower

and disillusion people into thinking that they do have a choice,

It really is stifling humanity in that sense.

When people look at the current trajectory of the world,

it's obvious that we're pretty much on a crash course

based on a model of unsustainable growth, Peter.

some argue that "It's not a free and fair market,

if cronyism were removed from the equation, capitalism would work."

But is the two-tiered, just in that we're seeing today, the plutocratic governance

and endless war for resources, an inevitability of the capitalist model?

- Unfortunately, I would have to declare that it is.

I know it's a heated subject and people love to argue with me.

I've had endless debates with people who say that the state is the problem,

or regulation, and that the market should just be 'free' to do whatever it wants.

I argue back that the market is as free as it ever was,

At least, in the past, there were restrictions on the market economy

and how it could influence the aristocracy's decision

to basically rule everything through war.

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"Zeitgeist Revolution" Breaking the Set Interview about The Zeitgeist Movement

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