Obscurity or celebrity

Amazon has an uncanny way of creating lists of books that might interest me. But, there are 100 items on the list of Kindle ebooks. That is too many. Overload. So, I scroll through them and note the artwork on the cover, the author (known or unknown), the customer rating, and the price. If something catches my attention I look more closely.

Amongst today’s recommendations is Team, Tzm (2014) “The Zeitgeist Movement Defined: Realizing a New Train of Thought”. Kindle Edition. This caught my attention because of the word (Zeitgeist) and the price (99p). So the next task was a quick flick through the blurb on the jacket cover and then on the tops and tails of the text. I liked their idea of a new ‘train of thought’. The train never stops. ‘Truth’ has a cultural context. Globalised humanity is potentially a radically new cultural context.

But they might be lunatic fringe. What does Wikipedia say about them from its neutral point of view? Information is buried here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_%28film_series%29#The_Zeitgeist_Movement

“Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) started the chain of events leading to the introduction of the Zeitgeist movement. The group advocates transition from the global money-based economic system to a post-scarcity economy or resource-based economy. VC Reporter's Shane Cohn summarizes the message of the films and the movement's charter as: "Our greatest social problems are the direct results of our economic system". The films criticize market capitalism and the price system method in general.

TZM’s is a ‘leaderless movement’ with no central funding although small scale fundraising may be needed to cover expenses at the local level. For example, Peter Joseph, the founder of The Movement, is the sole financier of the Global Chapter website, its Administration, along with the core Zeitgeist Movement "Main" events, such as Zeitgeist Day, Zeitgeist Media Festival, etc).

Peter Joseph

“Joseph created a political movement that, according to The Daily Telegraph, dismisses historic religious concepts as misleading and embraces a version of sustainable ecological concepts and scientific administration of society. The group describes the current socioeconomic system as structurally corrupt and inefficient in the use of resources.”

“Zeitgeist: The Movie is a documentary-style film with two sequels: Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, presenting a number of conspiracy theory ideas. Peter Joseph created all three films. The Zeitgeist Movement is a trademark of Gentle Machine Productions which is owned by Joseph.”

Peter Joseph (1979 – on going ) film maker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Joseph ) would appear to be a controversial outrider. He has given several TED talks. (http://peterjoseph.info/biography/) and has been written about in many high profile newspapers and magazines. But he does not get mentioned by the cutting edge authors that I read. This might be because he is not part of the academy

SO – is TZM destined for obscurity or celebrity? Time will tell. Thanks to Amazon for pointing.