Sunday, July 29, 2007, I traveled from Brooklyn to Westport Connecticut for my grandson Matthew's fourth birthday party. While I was with my daughter Nikki, her husband Ryan and sons, Matthew and Noah, having brunch at a local restaurant, I had a vision. A word flashed in front of me ... a word that was foreign, German I thought, but not familiar ... Zeitgeist. Hmm....A German word that starts with a 'Z' ... curious and I realized connecting somewhere out there. I jotted the word on a napkin, which got left behind as we hurried off to the party in Bridgeport at the minor league baseball stadium of the Bridgeport Bluefish (metaphors), where Matthew was to throw out the first pitch. My thoughts were also focused on the overcast day and rain not happening until the game was over. Nikki and Ryan know my connection with weather and were confident. The rain started just as we were leaving the stadium hours later. (grin)
The word 'Zeitgeist', left my consciousness, with my busy schedule, until this morning, when I received an email from a reader of this blog, mentioning a website called Zeitgeist - The Movie, 2007 That was a real eye opener. The movie is 2 hours long, so I had to skim through much of it, understanding the messages and my vision. Time is Z. Zeitgeist also goes to Zero.
From Wikipedia ...
Zeitgeist is the experience of a dominant cultural climate that defines, particularly in Hegelian thinking, an era in the dialectical progression of a people or the world at large. Hegel's main contribution to the formulation of the concept of Volksgeist is the attribution of a historical character to the concept. The spirit of a nation is one of the manifestations of "World Spirit" (Weltgeist). That Spirit is essentially alive and active throughout mankind's history. Now, the spirit of a nation is an intermediate stage of world history as the history of the World Spirit. The World Spirit gives impetus to the realization of the historical spirits of various nations (Volksgeister').
The spirits of individual nations are both the articulations (Gliederungen) of an organization and its realization. The spirits of individual nations represent a segment of the World Spirit out of which emerges the unlimited universal spirit. A comparison is introduced here between the status of an individual and that of a nation's spirit. In the process of his formation the individual undergoes various changes without, however, losing his identity. As a part of world history, a nation - exhibiting a certain trend expressed in its Volksgeist - plays its part in the total process of world history. But once it contributes its share to world history it can no longer play a role in the process of world history. The submersion in the total process prevents a people's cultural rebirth, because it has exhausted its creativity in the historical growth of its guiding spirit. It is for this reason that one of Hegel's disciples, Michelet, considered the idea of a renaissance of the Jewish people as philosophically impossible.
Email from Bruce, a photographer in Arizona, later that day
Just to further the discussion on 'zeitgeist' ... It is taught in art school and is associated with consciousness development. For example: Inventions happening at the same time on different parts of the planet without the two inventors knowledge of the others experiments. Or, sometimes the relation between science and the arts dealing with the same philosophical topic without each discipline knowing of the others experimentation.
Funny that you mention Hegel and the Hegelian Dialectic. Popular thought process used by those in control of the Masonic Program. The idea is simple: thesis > antithesis > synthesis, or better stated as Problem > Reaction > Solution. ie. We have a solution to sell the masses, so let's create a problem knowing in advance exactly what the reaction will be to better sell the solution. Many people view the events of Sept. 11 this way.
This has been of much interest to me...a computer that literally monitors the 'zeitgeist' and is predictive to within an hour of major events. Located at Princeton, the computer monitors input from all over the globe to give an empirical status of 'zeitgeist'. Check out the Global Consciousness Project
Best,
Bruce
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