Peter Josephs Where are we going. Culture lag - Essay Example

The main quest of this movement is to find a new way that leads to transition by promoting a social design, namely, “Resource Based Economy” (What is The Zeitgeist Movement?). Zeitgeist movement proposes certain observations and identifies that the present world is kept away from the physical world, with techniques and new innovations separated from the environment. Peter Joseph, in his speech makes a right judgment about this movement, their observations about society, government, monetary system, free-market capitalization, and so on.

In the first part of his speech Joseph is specifically focusing on “Culture lag” and “Pluralistic ignorance,” the two grave issues affecting the modern society. Joseph begins his tremendous speech by describing the transitions occurred to social life during the past centuries. The speaker has identified that history has marked the evolution of human life all through these years. Thus, he identifies the ten thousand years old Neolithic Age, Agricultural Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age which paved the way for gradual development in society.

The speaker has presented various study reports in order to prove the immense growth of technological inventions and the amazing growth of the evolution of technology. However, the speaker observes technological development as the primary factor promoting the development of human civilization, belief system, philosophy, friends, references and the like. Anyhow, for the speaker, the society is diffident in fully accepting these technological developments. This reticence is what the speaker calls as “culture lag.

” “Culture lag” is the phenomenon where culture takes time to catch up with technological inventions, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag (Joseph). To make it clear, one can see that it is the difficulty of any traditional establishment in adjusting with the technological invention. The speaker provides various examples in order to prove the culture lag. One of the best examples Joseph presents is the severe punishment and threat the Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo faced when he revealed that the earth is revolving round the sun.

It is only after 76 years the world acknowledged his discovery. This can aptly be called as culture lag. Culture lag probably leads to “pluralistic ignorance” the other issue to which the speaker brings one’s attention. ‘Pluralistic ignorance occurs where the majority of individuals in a group assume that most of their others are different in some way, whilst the truth is that they are more similar than they realize’ (Pluralistic Ignorance). Joseph identifies that the present monetary system is defective as it is aiming only the profit and disregarding human labor or emotions.

One should note the fact that money is not a natural resource, it is a convention. The Zeitgeists moves away from the general way of thinking and proposes their own perspectives. This is quite evident when Joseph describing his discovery that problems and scarcity are promoting profit other than the economic principles, demand and supply. The speaker also recognizes the real intension of wars as hoarding money and there is no war for homelessness. Abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit.

Free-market capitalism is the economic religion of today, Joseph adds. The pluralistic ignorance can also be explained in terms of ethics and competition, criminal behavior, government and democracy, activism and ethics, and so on. Thus, one can see that Peter Joseph’s speech, “Where are we going?” clearly exposes certain issues with regard to culture lag and pluralistic ignora