The concept itself refers to an expression in German, which means "spirit of an age." This is the name of the film produced by Peter Joseph in 2007. It emerged as a non-profit, documentary project, broadcast via the internet.
What the film does is question the effects of the capitalist mechanism, more specifically, of the monetary system that dominates all societies today. What he proposes in return is a system that is based on the use of subsistence resources, that is, resources that satisfy the basic needs and the basic needs of each of the inhabitants of the planet.
At the same time, he criticizes the institutions that are in charge of the "control" or "regulation" of society, based on the fact that they do not deal with solving the problems that really afflict the population, and in return, proposes a world without leaders or nothing like it, without dominations, a real democracy, sustained in true equality. Stopped in this, is that the documentary proposes a radical change in the economic model and political institutions. But a change that does not emerge magically, but uses a personal change, placing the individual as responsible for the state of the world.
This is the central idea, and it develops throughout the documentary under a historical plot. It starts from an analysis of strategy and political calculation, as well as religious beliefs and political and economic institutions. It focuses more especially on Christianity, on the fall of the towers, which occurred on September 11, on the war against terrorism ...
It uses great theories to raise the fact that all systems are mechanisms of social domination, within the conventional institutions of social control, and therefore, naturalized in the everyday. What he seeks, underneath this, is to ask himself the how and why of individuals accepting such mechanisms of control and domination. It ends up being an almost anarchist position, and at the same time somewhat contradictory. Use the medium to destroy the medium ...
I leave the link of the page, where the film is broadcast with subtitles in Spanish. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8883910961351786332