I’ve been on a bit of a tear lately with people I know talking about how OMG GRATE that Zeitgeist movie is. One of the things about the way this works on the brain is likely linked to some research I just read about on good ole’ Science Daily.
It seems that researchers have found that you can confuse people with video tape. Let’s say you see an accident. A few days later¬†you are brought in to look at a video tape of the incident and give your statement. If the video you watch contains things you did not see, you’re still likely to agree with it, to the point of blaming someone for actions they did not do.
Creepy, sure. But despite all those conversations with our parents explaining that professional wrestling wasn’t real or that the coyote didn’t really just hold on to a chunk of TNT while it blew up (only to look disapprovingly at the camera and try again), we still want to believe what we see on the TV screen.
I immediately connected this with that crap-fest, Zeitgeist. The first time I ever watched the movie was with a friend who had told me that this was the most mind-boggling movie of all time. I went in expecting to be blown away, and I was. But not blown away in terms of wanting to believe, I was blown away at the number of facts thrown out, some of which I knew without even researching to be patently false. There are plenty of sites that debunk the mythology of Zeitgeist (such as this site on Conspiracy Science and this great article from Skeptic Magazine) and that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I just thought it was interesting to see how much stock we put in the images we are presented with.
It’s something to consider, and all the more reason for us to be open to questioning the things we see and believe.
Jim
I find it pretty ironic that we have access to a database of all human knowledge but are so inundated with info that we don’t even bother to take 5 min to verify sources. I know i’m guilty of this as well.
We all do it. However, I’m struggling against my lazy nature to try to remember to fact check whenever I can. And honestly, it was this ridiculous movie that made me do so because I had felt persuaded by some of their arguments.
When i first saw the movie i’ll admit i was a big fan! Naturally, any film that talks about how the Jesus myth was just a regurgitation of previous mythologies is a gooder in both our minds. I assume this is the persuasive argument you were speaking of … however, it was the 911 conspiracies that i was truly skeptical of at the time and still am.
I was skeptical of it all, but there are things throughout that were intriguing. However, things like clinging to the notion that December 25 was important, and a lot of the straight out confoundings in the first section set me on “this might be crap” mode. A good friend of mine named Charles Shaw who lives in the US had written a paper quite some time ago about the Bush family and their long history of creepiness, so that was something I recognized (and have still not bothered to fact check). All in all, though, after watching the movie I was left mostly confused and thinking I owed it to myself to look further into this. And I did. And it was good.