New Peter Joseph Film
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Don’t know if anybody is not already aware or still interested in this kind of thing but a new film by Peter Joseph of Zeitgeist fame has recently come out. I’ve downloaded but not watched it yet.
With a synopsis which starts like this……….
“InterReflections, the first of a trilogy, is an experimental, social commentary film. Structurally, the work is mixed-genre, combining three mutual timelines, with aspects of documentary, horror, science fiction satire and more. Inspired by the avant-garde tradition of impressionistic abstraction, challenging convention, the 2 hr and 45 min work is grounded in a distinct sociological perspective surrounding the subject of public health and human well-being.”
………….I get the feeling that I’d rather eat my own scrotum than watch this film.
The synopsis intrigues me and i look forward when i can get to watch it for free.
Any attempt to present the case for a resource based economy in an interesting manner is to be applauded…even if it does sound a bit pretentious…i’ll reserve my judgement
Looking at the trailers and other stuff in that link, it seems that the film is about the new human rights movement that he wrote about in the book of the title that was reviewed in the Socialist Standard in 2017.
So it will criticise capitalism but he is also presenting it as an experimental avant-garde film in keeping with his profession as a filmmaker. Sounds as if it might be too avant-garde for most of us.
The latest from the man of made up
big words…Revolution Now! with Peter Joseph | Ep #14 | Dec 30th 2020
In this episode, the long-term evolution of activist intent, coupled with the contrast of in-system and out-system activism is discussed, highlighting the necessity for a structuralist worldview.
This is one of the things (incl his flirtation with UBI and lesser evilism) that let’s him down.
Actually, despite the different and perhaps pretentious language of the introduction, if you listen to this podcast (I have just done this) he is making the same point as we do —- that activism within the system (what he calls “in-system activism” and we might call “something-now reformism”) cannot succeed as its comes up against the basic structure of the present economic system (of “group dominance” and production for the market and profit where people have to get money one way or the other to survive). It is this system which causes the problems they are active against and rules out these being solved within it. He says that activism should aim rather at the complete “demarketization” of the economy and society generally if these problems are to become solvable.
I also listened to podcast #10 and that was quite good too.
I would say that he is still stands for the same system of society as we do, even if he doesn’t and won’t call it socialism. What is not so clear is how he envisages this coming about. Even so he is calling for “Revolution Now!”
Anyone, have a listen to it and see what you think:
In the meantime I’ve been listening to some of his podcasts. I think we would agree with every word in #3 (on human nature) while there is a good criticism of capitalism and some interesting ideas on a “post-scarcity economy” in #11. Follow the link in the last previous post here.
Here’s Peter Joseph puting exactly the same as us on the so-called “Great Reset” in his latest podcast
So the great reset was put forward by Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum, if I remember correctly. He started talking about this around the beginning of COVID-19 in early 2020. Here’s what it says on their actual website, “To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country from the United States to China must participate, and every industry from oil and gas, to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a great reset of capitalism.” Yes, the great reset of capitalism. Which makes no sense at all since capitalism is actually the fundamental problem, effecting sustainability and all other such issues that this great reset professes to address.
I suppose it’s good to see more conversation, especially when it comes to the environment, but the very fact that the limits of debate have been set and that this is really about preserving capitalism, even though they want to create some idealized version of it called stakeholder capitalism, all this simply reveals another well-meaning pro-establishment spasm in the end. No different than all the climate conferences and biodiversity conferences that accomplish nothing because everyone refuses to look at the system structure as the actual problem, the economic system. It’s actually quite comical if you think about it, “We want to change the world, but not capitalism.”
And of course this notion of stakeholder capitalism is one from a long line of nonsensical, qualifying adjectives that people amend before the word capitalism to try and pretend like some sub distinction would ever make a meaningful difference. You see all over the place, crony capitalism, responsible capitalism, vulture capitalism, the social entrepreneur. My favorite is conscious capitalism, as if it ever could be given the very nature and incentives of the structure, once again. It doesn’t matter who’s in the positions. It matters what the structural incentives are.
Just to be clear here, this stakeholder capitalism is defined as “a system in which corporations are oriented to serve the interests of all their stakeholders. Among the key stakeholders are consumers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and local communities. Under this system, a company’s purpose is to create longterm value and not to maximize profits, and enhance shareholder value at the cost of other stakeholder groups.” I’m not even going to address the insurmountable idealism in that vague description other than to say, you can never take the core incentive out of the system if the system remains in any respect or form. It is nonsensical to say that somehow corporations are going to orient themselves respecting everybody in this kind of stakeholder environment and the ecosystem without maximization of profit and hence, exploitation. You can’t have capitalism without exploitation and profit and hence, exploitation. If those things are removed, then you’re in a completely different system by default.
So this great reset thing is just another spasm, a well-meaning joke, a ploy in fact to sort of pretend like we can make capitalism better when all empirical evidence shows that we can not.
Peter Joseph on the word “socialism” from a tweet the other day:
“Folks also need to stop using the word Socialism as an activist foundation because it is antiquated and lends to perpetual misinterprrtation. Better to simply speak of the train of thought behind public health and sustainability. The logic of a new social system is self-evident.”
I think perpetual misinterprrtation is an inescapable feature of human language. No matter what you call it you still have to explain what you mean. At least he seems to be in agreement with the content of the concept though?
‘I think perpetual misinterpretation is an inescapable feature of human language.’
Perhaps but there is also an Orwellian component here since the powerful get to define words and their meaning and it obviously suits them to define socialism by the Bolshevik interpretation.
I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘get to define’, but yes of course the weight of ideological pressures is not in our favour.
The meaning of words is set by those that are using them to communicate, is an organic process rather than one set by decree.
‘The meaning of words is set by those that are using them to communicate, is an organic process rather than one set by decree.’
Well you try to define socialism the way we do in the mainstream media without feeling the weight of decree from the owners. Words like ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, ‘justice’ etc. are all defined by decree and any deviation will cost you your job as a journalist.
In his latest Revolution Now podcast, Peter Joseph embraces democracy which he defines as
“I define democracy as the intellectual will of a citizenry expressed through some process of assessment, so societal decisions are made based on the majority consensus in the end.”
He is always a bit wordy so it’s unclear what a “majority consensus” is. Presumably he just means a majority.
This overcomes one of the criticisms we have had of his earlier vision of a society without property rights or money — that it was technocratic. So, on this, he has moved closer to what we understand by socialism — a society based on no property and democratic control of the resources society needs to survive.
On the other hand, he has now taken up this idea of what to do now and how such a society might come about, speaking of
“the Integral parallel economy project that I will introduce in my new film: Zeitgeist Requiem by which localized, smaller economic structures emerge, and then they self-organize through their own nodes as they connect to other parallel economies of the same nature, and ideally continue self-organizing to a point where their use is so widespread, it takes all of the steam out of the horrific market economy system.”
I suppose something like this might emerge in the final days of capitalism but the final overthrow of “the horrific market economy system” will have to overcome by political action based on socialist understanding.
Anyway, his podcast can be found here (but be warned he is wordy):
https://www.revolutionnow.live/episodes/episode50-k9w85-z3c2d-lfd83
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