Dada Black Sheep: Have You Any Pull?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Fuck a movement

just  have fun

(To this comment and the whole thread)

 For me, absurdity is fun. Poking people in the head is fun. I loved absurdity before I knew about Eris or the Golden Apple or the PD. As far as I can tell, She What Done It All, just gave me yet another reason to be absurd.

Besides, why start a movement? Every other fucking movement has been compromised... every time you haul a bunch of monkeys along for the ride, they'll try to drive. It seems far better to me, to enjoy memes, and absurdity and silliness and puns and mindfucks and jakes and all the other games of order and disorder. IF they collide with the right shrapnel from other memes, then maybe a movement will happen (and that would be cool)... IF they don't, then I'll still have fun ordering and disordering things until my day at the circus is over (and that would be cool too).

[Cramulus]

for context, the discussion was originally about subversive uses of absurdity / nonsense

Kerry Thornley's quote (in the OP) highlights some of the problems with naming yourself as a Movement. According to that manifesto, many of the people in his subculture thought it was over as soon as the magazines declared them the Hippie Movement.

BUT

subverting the dominant paradigm generally only works as a group effort! One lone weirdo is too small scale to change big things. She cannot generate consensus on hre own. Unless she gets really lucky or has access to really great resources. So to be effectively subversive you do need to coordinate your efforts with others, dontcha think?

I mean, we can't take that "we must stick apart" command too literally, it'll hamstring genuine efforts at coordination.

[Cainad]

I mean, we can't take that "we must stick apart" command too literally, it'll hamstring genuine efforts at coordination.

 

[M. Nigel Salt]

for context, the discussion was originally about subversive uses of absurdity / nonsense

Kerry Thornley's quote (in the OP) highlights some of the problems with naming yourself as a Movement. According to that manifesto, many of the people in his subculture thought it was over as soon as the magazines declared them the Hippie Movement.

BUT

subverting the dominant paradigm generally only works as a group effort! One lone weirdo is too small scale to change big things. She cannot generate consensus on hre own. Unless she gets really lucky or has access to really great resources. So to be effectively subversive you do need to coordinate your efforts with others, dontcha think?

I mean, we can't take that "we must stick apart" command too literally, it'll hamstring genuine efforts at coordination.

Concerted mindfuckery does not a movement make, though.

A bunch of people picking up on a meme and utilizing it may or may not qualify as a "movement". I, personally, would rather what I do not, because as soon as it's identifiable as a "movement" it loses its ability to surprise. If anything, it should only be identifiable after the fact... preferably decades after.

On the other hand, people labeling something as a "movement" and pronouncing it dead can work to the advantage of the dedicated little-a absurdist. For instance, the Discordian movement was recognized a generation after its inception, and assumed by pretty much everyone to be dead and mildewy. In another 30 years, maybe what PD spags are doing will be identified as part of the original Discordian movement or perhaps as a second Discordian movement, and that's fine as long as everyone assumes we're not doing anything interesting or influential right now.

I don't like to be looked at when I'm laughing.

[Cramulus]

anyway, back on topic:

I like Cain's distinction between Semantic nonsense and Holistic nonsense.


What I find amusing about it is that we're basically trying to make a finer cut between "good noise" and "bad noise". It's a classic signal:noise detection problem.

In this case we're identifying the Signal as nonsense embedded in sense. ("Did you hear that the New York Times is running for reelection?")

And Noise as nonsense which doesn't rely on its context. ("Fribble on sale; two snakes per lugnut!")

   what's funny to me is that to the untrained ear, it's all noise.




To me, the "humorous" part of nonsense is when it's surprising. (possible example) Your mind was going down a rational path, and then something unexpected happens, and that makes you laugh.

I've been writing the word GOAT all over my apartment building in bright green chalk. I must have hidden 20 goats at this point. It just cracks me up so hard to envision some old woman wondering why the hell someone wrote the word GOAT on the ceiling of the elevator. It's not easy to explain - nothing is being communicated, and it's probably not a graffiti tag.

Some Ethnomethodologists (sort of like a variant of sociologists) use Breaching Experiments to reveal hidden rules and expectations of social-reality. The theory is that a violation of expected reality produces a breach, a gap in reality that must be quickly patched by an explanation. In this way, nonsense like this is perhaps a way to explore these norms.

Breaching experiment: A method for revealing, or exposing, the common work that is performed by members of particular social groups in maintaining a clearly recognizable and shared social order. An extreme example: driving the wrong way down a busy one-way street can reveal myriads of useful insights into the patterned social practices, and moral order, of the community of automobile drivers ... and police. The point of such an exercise is to demonstrate that gaining insight into the work involved in maintaining any given social order can often, best be revealed by breaching that social order and observing the results of that breach - especially those activities related to the reassembly of that social order, and the normalization of that social setting

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

It might be an interesting Idea to bring the Breaching Experiment concept to the O:M for Mad Scientists thread.

[Misery's Fred Trough]

To me, the "humorous" part of nonsense is when it's surprising. (possible example) Your mind was going down a rational path, and then something unexpected happens, and that makes you laugh.

There is this episode of MST3K I am reminded of.  I think it is the one featuring The Pod People.  Anyway, there is this part in the show/movie where Crow is repeating the name "McCloud" over and over again.  I don't know why, but it cracked me up.  I really had no reference point, I have no idea of what the connection between "McCloud" and that particular part of the movie was, and I'm sure there probably one was, but I was laughing like an idiot during that part.  I have a little smile on my face now just thinking about it. 

[fomenter]

  at your possible example, i had to explain the hidden meaning in a song for a high school English project, and that is the song i did ... yours is better than mine...

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

for context, the discussion was originally about subversive uses of absurdity / nonsense

Kerry Thornley's quote (in the OP) highlights some of the problems with naming yourself as a Movement. According to that manifesto, many of the people in his subculture thought it was over as soon as the magazines declared them the Hippie Movement.

BUT

subverting the dominant paradigm generally only works as a group effort! One lone weirdo is too small scale to change big things. She cannot generate consensus on hre own. Unless she gets really lucky or has access to really great resources. So to be effectively subversive you do need to coordinate your efforts with others, dontcha think?

I mean, we can't take that "we must stick apart" command too literally, it'll hamstring genuine efforts at coordination.

Well, I see a difference between group actions and a movement. The Great Googlie Mooglie Cabal has, on a number of occasions pulled off nonsense as a group and they are successful (in some sense). HOWEVER, and this is where I see the distinction, there is not a recruitment goal... there isn't a "We did this and if you join us you can too!" aspect. We simply do it.  Now, once done, I have found that we end up with more friends wanting in on the fun... but not because we're making a movement, but rather because we're DOING SOMETHING FUN... and they want to as well.

I think my aversion to movements, tend to be tied to my aversion to evangelism in any form. One of those damned bars in my BiP, eh?

It does not feel good, to leave a 'movement' because you decide its wrong and bad... only to realize that the dozen or so people you convinced to join the movement are still stuck in it and now regard you as apostate. I 'studied' (converted) a young family once, about 6 years before I left the JW's. Recently, I found out that one of their kids went to the hospital and nearly died, while the doctors were trying to find someone to work on him without the use of blood transfusions. If he had died, I think, in some sense, I would have felt responsible.

So, I suppose my perception of any movement has been colored by those experiences. I re-read Little Brother a couple weeks ago and it kinda reinforced that concept... M1k3y started xnet with the idea that he was doing right/good and in some sense he was. However, he also ended up enticing/encouraging/inspiring very silly young kids to do very stupid things and they got caught. Since it was a story, M1k3y ended up saving the day and was a hero... so it was justifiable in the end. If, however, the story hadn't ended with his heroic WIN... would the 'movement' have been worth the lives and freedom of all those kids?

Discordian pranks I pull seem unlikely to reach the levels of 'interest' Little Brother did. If they do, however, I'd just as soon it be a prank I was pulling alone or with a group of people that knew the risks and what they were getting into. If it were part of a 'movement', who knows how many kids might take the risk without realizing it?

Maybe that's a poor way to look at it, I don't know. Maybe I should assume everyone is responsible for themselves and let it go at that. But, I still have trouble doing that with the past, maybe I'm just not ready to do it again....

Cram it, Damnulus! Stop making me reflect on this sort of thing!

[Net]

Great thought provoking thread.

I don't have time to properly compose my reactions to it at the moment, but the gist of it is this:

We all have an idea of when language is more nonsensical or making sense, but is this division anything more than reiteration of the BIP?

In other words, isn't nonsense something you just don't understand (whether by unconsciously deflecting something or out of sheer ignorance), and sense is where it fits with your worldview?

What specific social, psychological and biological criteria are primarily at play when things get classified as sense or nonsense?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Great thought provoking thread.

I don't have time to properly compose my reactions to it at the moment, but the gist of it is this:

We all have an idea of when language is more nonsensical or making sense, but is this division anything more than reiteration of the BIP?

In other words, isn't nonsense something you just don't understand (whether by unconsciously deflecting something or out of sheer ignorance), and sense is where it fits with your worldview?

What specific social, psychological and biological criteria are primarily at play when things get classified as sense or nonsense?

Excellent point, Net.

That one line from Mal-2 was one of the first that really poked me hard:

If you can master nonsense as well as you have already learned to master sense, then each will expose the other for what it is: absurdity.

Or:

The words of the foolish and words of the wise,
are not far apart in Discordian eyes.

[Bu☆ns]

In response to teh OP (i wanna read the rest of the thread when i'm not working.) Great rant.  Alan Watts once said something about nonsense...looking through the nets......ah here it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3uvue0ud0cu

He discusses the importance of nonsense and how the search for meaning is often misunderstood.  While not necessarily in the context of social change....i think Watts really hits the mark with the importance of nonsense in the context of the individual in relation with his self/environment.  If nonsense and social change are to go together, perhaps it should start with correcting any poorly understood conceptions of nonsense within the self/environment and proceed from there.

 I apologize if i'm totally blowing this thread off topic, but i'm only going by the OP and my initial reaction to it.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

That is to say, the use of nonsense as a signifier, a way to call attention to themselves as Outlandish and Interesting... A way of labelling themselves, an act no different than Boxxy's black nail polish.

Because to use nonsense in such a casual and self-identifying way dilutes the power of nonsense.  Rather than sticking in the brain like a piece of jagged glass, the nonsense becomes background noise.

THISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHISTHIST HISTHISTHISTHIS

Someone finally articulated what makes me so fucking disgusted with that shit.

[Balls Wellington]

Kalle Lasn is the Bono of counterculture.

also, to this whole thread, especially Cram's OP and Cain's coinage of the phrase "holistic nonsense".

[Adios]

Fuck a movement

just  have fun

THIS.
Once you start a movement you have become what you are trying to counter. A flower can still grow right next to a weed.