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Core Themes of Discordia

Started by Cramulus, May 22, 2007, 05:39:13 PM

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Cain

Was it better?  As far as I can see, lots of people ended up dead and the empire fell apart.  Not to mention all of the structural improvement could have been done without the huge piles of bodies and devastated cities etc....

cyberus

Maybe it was one of those things that started off as a good idea, but as more and more ideas got piled on top of it, it glowed, and stank of fail and rotting flesh.
The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but,which was worse,did injure them most outrageously,called them prattling gabblers,lickorous gluttons,freckled bittors,mangy rascals,shite-a-bed scoundrels,drunken roysters,sly knaves,drowsy loiterers,slapsauce fellows,slabberdegullion druggels,lubberly louts,cozening foxes,ruffian rogues,paltry customers,sycophant-varlets,drawlatch hoydens,flouting milksops,jeering companions,staring clowns,forlorn snakes,ninny lobcocks,scurvy sneaksbies,fondling fops,base loons,saucy coxcombs,idle lusks,scoffing braggarts,noddy meacocks,blockish grutnols,doddipol-joltheads,jobbernol goosecaps,foolish loggerheads,flutch calf-lollies,grouthead gnat-snappers,lob-dotterels,gaping changelings,codshead loobies,woodcock slangams,ninny-hammer flycatchers,noddypeak simpletons,turdy gut,shitten shepherds,and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further,that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes...

Jasper

My core themes tend to be

Faster
Cheaper
Efficient-er
Newer
Shorter
Sweeter
Punchier
Friendlier
Sincerer
Absurder
Funnier
Meaner
Truer
Smarter
Cooler

PopeTom

That focusing on order over disorder or disorder over order isn't nearly as important as focusing on the creative over the destructive.
-PopeTom

I am the result of 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years of random chance. Now that I exist I see no reason to start planning and organizing everything in my life.

Random dumb luck got me here, random dumb luck will get me to where I'm going.

Hail Eris!

Triple Zero

i destroy focus over blurredness!
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

the other anonymous


LMNO



Quote from: LMNO on May 22, 2007, 03:10:07 PM
All this discordianism crap is pretty much breaking down into a few distinct principles:

Pattern Recognition.
Primate Territorialism.
Reality grids/filters.



Quoted because I think it's important.

the other anonymous


Pattern Recognition -- Haiku (5-7-5)
Primate Territorialism -- Pornography (where da bitches at?)
Reality grids/filters. -- Haikus AND pornography (I know it when I see it)

tyrannosaurus vex

to bring the negative aspects to light:

discordia is all of this and also:

- frustration
- anger
- dread


POLITICALLY/SOCIALLY:
it is not a fight against the Way Things Are, it's a fight against the Way Things Are Going (if you happen to have one or more of the above mentioned feelings in connection with that).

PHILOSOPHICALLY/PERSONALLY:
It's a rebellion against always being the same person just because it's comfortable.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Iron Sulfide

i'm a bit of a wispy-headed eastern thinker on the subject,
and tend towards Unism, or Monism (not monotheism) on the nature
of reality.

that said, the concept of Discord, to me, represents those three you mentioned
)Pattern Recog, Territorialism, Reality(

but it also implies the corollary, to me. i.e. understanding the
inane, random syntax the patterns form out of; reconsituting the
fictive boundaries created in our territorial perceptions (whether
it's taboos, state lines, laws, my personal space on the public transit...);
always being able to flip your thinking into something else- "empathy" if you will.

i mean: in pattern recognition, it's difficult sometimes to see the pattern.
but easy when compared to trying to understand Pi. and in as much, Pi is
easier to understand as a syntax than a pattern.

or: killing chickens is okay when i'm hungery, but not for pointless rituals
where the meat gets wasted afterwards. it's okay, though, for pointless
rituals where they eat it afterwards. everything in this pseudoparagraph is false.

or: reality is that which is directly observable and testable. reality is the sub-atomic particles that fluctuate between various eigen states. reality is a metaphore that we have to live through in order to understand, because we're that dumb. reality is the subjective nature of consciousness developement.

in short, the fourth core attribute i would add on is "Advocacy for the Devil."
because a chaos without order is no fun. life without death is far from thrilling.
Ya' stupid Yank.

Forteetu

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on May 22, 2007, 05:39:13 PM

What other things do you think are part of Discord's "core themes"?

High Madness / Weirdness has been mentioned.


I ask because when it comes time to rewrite the book on Discordia, it'd be nice to have a sort of checklist of what should be included.

Well, as a n00b to the forum I'm sure I'm bound to be flamed sooner or later so why not weigh in here.

First, seems kinda odd to me that there's talk of re-writing the PD. I mean really, was Rocky II any better than Rocky? Yet at the same time, if a new copy gets a few more poeple to pick it up and stop being cabbages, then I'm all for it.

IMHO, no matter what else you do to the text, it all boils down to two sections of the book for me. The most important is the section ON OCCULTISM and the second bit is the discussion on The Sacred Chao.

Spin those concepts off into a couple dozen sub-topics delivered with a bit of irony and the occasional poo joke and you just might have the next "Steal This Book".
WOMP'd


Episkopos of the Discordian Society

http://42.dia.net.au - Forteetu

LMNO

Quote from: Prater Festwo on June 27, 2007, 09:00:35 PM

but it also implies the corollary, to me. i.e. understanding the
inane, random syntax the patterns form out of; reconsituting the
fictive boundaries created in our territorial perceptions (whether
it's taboos, state lines, laws, my personal space on the public transit...);
always being able to flip your thinking into something else- "empathy" if you will.

This is true.  I suppose I had taken for granted that most things contain their opposite.  So yes, pattern recognition = recognition of disorder, primate territorialism = tolerance, reality grids = tunnel vision.

Quote from: Forteetu on June 28, 2007, 08:08:12 AM
Well, as a n00b to the forum I'm sure I'm bound to be flamed sooner or later so why not weigh in here.

First, seems kinda odd to me that there's talk of re-writing the PD. I mean really, was Rocky II any better than Rocky? Yet at the same time, if a new copy gets a few more poeple to pick it up and stop being cabbages, then I'm all for it.

IMHO, no matter what else you do to the text, it all boils down to two sections of the book for me. The most important is the section ON OCCULTISM and the second bit is the discussion on The Sacred Chao.

Spin those concepts off into a couple dozen sub-topics delivered with a bit of irony and the occasional poo joke and you just might have the next "Steal This Book".

Hi n00b!

To save you the thread diving, here's the summary of why we came up with this in the first place:

1. We've been posting here for a while.
2. We noticed among ourselves that we embraced some aspects of the PD.
3. We also noticed we rejected some things
     a. Specifically, we rejected the outdated, hippie pseudo-zen fluffy humor.
     b. We got sick of a lot of the "Pineal Gland! 23!  Fnord!" stuff.
4. We felt that a 40-year-old joke hidden as religion hidden as philosophy hidden as a joke might need to be updated.
5.

Cramulus

In many ways, I have the same feelings for the Principia as I do Illuminatus!.

Both created long-lasting bubbles in my pineal gland which has caused infinite merry spirals and subspirals in my life.

But in rereading Illuminatus, I can't help but feel it's a little outdated. The details of the revolution that Wilson talked about involved things like white men sleeping with black women. His characters thought that was pretty kinky. Hippies learning to sympathize with cops. etc.

I grew up with parents who grew up in the 60s (though were not hippies). Peace love and understanding were in the background of my childhood, so Wilson & Shea's revolution doesn't seem that shocking to me as it might have on their original audience.

Then the Principia -- same thing. I feel like the core "religion disguised as a joke / joke disguised as a religion" was probably very fresh in the 60s, but we're living in the era of subgenii, pastafarians, last tuesdayists, cthulhu cults, and all sorts of other malarky. If Discordia is going to bloom in the coming decades, it needs a fresh coat of paint.

Are we the ones who will give it that? It would be kind of egotistical to think so, and probably not. But there are some memetic masterminds here, and I feel that the snowball which becomes an avalanche could very well be thrown here on this forum.

So whether we "rewrite the PD" or masturbate about the black iron prison or just post retarded MS Paint pictures, I think this is the place to be.

AFK

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 28, 2007, 03:15:13 PM
In many ways, I have the same feelings for the Principia as I do Illuminatus!.

Both created long-lasting bubbles in my pineal gland which has caused infinite merry spirals and subspirals in my life.

But in rereading Illuminatus, I can't help but feel it's a little outdated. The details of the revolution that Wilson talked about involved things like white men sleeping with black women. His characters thought that was pretty kinky. Hippies learning to sympathize with cops. etc.

I grew up with parents who grew up in the 60s (though were not hippies). Peace love and understanding were in the background of my childhood, so Wilson & Shea's revolution doesn't seem that shocking to me as it might have on their original audience.

Then the Principia -- same thing. I feel like the core "religion disguised as a joke / joke disguised as a religion" was probably very fresh in the 60s, but we're living in the era of subgenii, pastafarians, last tuesdayists, cthulhu cults, and all sorts of other malarky. If Discordia is going to bloom in the coming decades, it needs a fresh coat of paint.

Are we the ones who will give it that? It would be kind of egotistical to think so, and probably not. But there are some memetic masterminds here, and I feel that the snowball which becomes an avalanche could very well be thrown here on this forum.

So whether we "rewrite the PD" or masturbate about the black iron prison or just post retarded MS Paint pictures, I think this is the place to be.


well said. 

Let's face it.  Even these original writings, the PD, Illuminatus, barely made a noticeable dent in the cultures in the times and eras they were written.  Even now, the closest these things get to any kind of larger societal stage is an occassional "Billy and Mandy" cartoon. 

But, some of the "core values and ideals" have wide ranging applications to the larger society and we all know that.  This means packaging is important.  Does that mean we doll it up and sell it to the Hot Topic and MySpace crowds?  Well, we probably could, if we found someone with money to burn, but what kind of results would we get?

Cram is right, I don't think it's realistic to think this group here can really make any significant statements or changes.  It's a nice thought but it isn't going to happen.  So instead of focusing on the Macro we look at the Micro.  By exchanging ideas and memes with other Discordians and like-minded ilk.  By exchanging ideas and memes with friends and families who may be open to this stuff, or at least, the ideas of open-mindedness, nonsense as salvation, reality grids, etc., etc. 

In the end, if we help no one else, we are at least helping ourselves. 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Forteetu

Quote from: Professor Cramulus on June 28, 2007, 03:15:13 PM

Then the Principia -- same thing. I feel like the core "religion disguised as a joke / joke disguised as a religion" was probably very fresh in the 60s, but we're living in the era of subgenii, pastafarians, last tuesdayists, cthulhu cults, and all sorts of other malarky. If Discordia is going to bloom in the coming decades, it needs a fresh coat of paint.

Are we the ones who will give it that? It would be kind of egotistical to think so, and probably not. But there are some memetic masterminds here, and I feel that the snowball which becomes an avalanche could very well be thrown here on this forum.

So whether we "rewrite the PD" or masturbate about the black iron prison or just post retarded MS Paint pictures, I think this is the place to be.


Yeh, fair enough from that point of view. In that case, I would suggest the inclusion of further discussion on:
The 8 circuit model of human consciousness
Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics
WOMP'd


Episkopos of the Discordian Society

http://42.dia.net.au - Forteetu