While I concur with a great deal of Roger's commentary, one has to acknowledge a very ugly fact: The Greyfaces won decades ago, and it was groups such as the Hippies, Yippies, the violent revolutionaries, and yes, the Discordians, that allowed them to do so.
Americans no longer live in a society that allows the cognitive wiggle room that allows Discordianism - or Discord itself - to flourish. Americans are dumber than ever, to the point where some of us can no longer even reach them on a semantic level that allows for mindfucks or other "enlightening" practices. America knows television, and it seems pretty goddamned difficult to find any room for mental maneuvering within that stodgy and intellectually suffocating environment. There's no ammunition, and there's also no target.
Even when we manage to do something that gets on radar - via the evening news or NPR or the more popular blogs - we're hard-pressed to find a single damned perosn who will spend a second of their lives to even think about the act. With all the information at their disposal, Americans are better than ever at ignoring Damned Things.
Nevertheless, re-reading the Principia for the Nth time, it seems like the aforementioned anti-establishment groups did their jobs just fine. The Bureacracy destroys itself through the Game Without End of Order Imposition. At this point, the only way to even make the establishment take notice of you or your Discordian Mandate is to blow something up or kill people or destroy a tremendous amount of government property in a flashy way. That's Destructive Disorder, and condemned by the entire goddamned philosophy. So it seems, at this point, that the wisest course of action is to let the establishment paint itself into a corner, and Totally Flip Out.
So what do you do in the meantime?
The missus and I, on the other hand, are taking a course of action we consider to be saner for all involved - we're leaving. We're saving up for a vineyard in Italy. I'll go grow my grapes and drink my wine and avoid newspapers and television and the Internet like the plague. The loss of Hot Pockets and mass produced music delivered to my door and Cros'anwdwiches seems like a reasonable sacrifice.
Back to why Roger's right, however:
Reading between the lines of the Principia, you find that Discordianism is, like Islam or Zen or the Copenhagen Interpretation or the Ku Klux Klan, a philosophy. Underneath (and contained inside) the jokes and nonsense you find a sort of Western Zen that other, more serious minds have been trying to create for decades. It seems to me, however, that a great deal of Discordians I've spoken with today are unwilling or unable to understand or even glimpse that underlying philosophy.
"Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead."
A great deal of what I've found on PD.com is meaningless chatter. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, contrary to the opinion of some, such as Roger. I think they attack this chatter because they think that, somehow, it's detracting from the discussion, evolution, and implementation of Discordian philosophy as more than retarded jokes and abused catchphrases. They may believe that with a little less distraction, and a little more focus, PD.com could continue what the original group started.
I submit to you that many of you never intended to discuss those subjects to begin with.
Americans no longer live in a society that allows the cognitive wiggle room that allows Discordianism - or Discord itself - to flourish. Americans are dumber than ever, to the point where some of us can no longer even reach them on a semantic level that allows for mindfucks or other "enlightening" practices. America knows television, and it seems pretty goddamned difficult to find any room for mental maneuvering within that stodgy and intellectually suffocating environment. There's no ammunition, and there's also no target.
Even when we manage to do something that gets on radar - via the evening news or NPR or the more popular blogs - we're hard-pressed to find a single damned perosn who will spend a second of their lives to even think about the act. With all the information at their disposal, Americans are better than ever at ignoring Damned Things.
Nevertheless, re-reading the Principia for the Nth time, it seems like the aforementioned anti-establishment groups did their jobs just fine. The Bureacracy destroys itself through the Game Without End of Order Imposition. At this point, the only way to even make the establishment take notice of you or your Discordian Mandate is to blow something up or kill people or destroy a tremendous amount of government property in a flashy way. That's Destructive Disorder, and condemned by the entire goddamned philosophy. So it seems, at this point, that the wisest course of action is to let the establishment paint itself into a corner, and Totally Flip Out.
So what do you do in the meantime?
The missus and I, on the other hand, are taking a course of action we consider to be saner for all involved - we're leaving. We're saving up for a vineyard in Italy. I'll go grow my grapes and drink my wine and avoid newspapers and television and the Internet like the plague. The loss of Hot Pockets and mass produced music delivered to my door and Cros'anwdwiches seems like a reasonable sacrifice.
Back to why Roger's right, however:
Reading between the lines of the Principia, you find that Discordianism is, like Islam or Zen or the Copenhagen Interpretation or the Ku Klux Klan, a philosophy. Underneath (and contained inside) the jokes and nonsense you find a sort of Western Zen that other, more serious minds have been trying to create for decades. It seems to me, however, that a great deal of Discordians I've spoken with today are unwilling or unable to understand or even glimpse that underlying philosophy.
"Some say he is a holy man. Others say he is a shithead."
A great deal of what I've found on PD.com is meaningless chatter. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, contrary to the opinion of some, such as Roger. I think they attack this chatter because they think that, somehow, it's detracting from the discussion, evolution, and implementation of Discordian philosophy as more than retarded jokes and abused catchphrases. They may believe that with a little less distraction, and a little more focus, PD.com could continue what the original group started.
I submit to you that many of you never intended to discuss those subjects to begin with.
