Cain contra Robert Anton Wilson

[hooplala]

 

[LMNO]

In almost-related news, the bassist for the empties expressed surprise I never heard of, and started babbling on about, the Illuminatus! card game.  I immediately thought of this thread.

Then, I thought: Wait a second.  RAW wrote the I3!, and may have had a hand in PD but the rest of his stuff doesn't always name-check Discordia.  It's more of the "Guerilla Ontology" shite he's always on about.

The person who grabbed Discordia, packaged it, and pushed it into the mainstream is STEVE JACKSON.  He's the one who decided to make a buck off it, he's the one who keeps publishing crap copies of the PD, and the one who comes up with new ways to exploit the memes.

Anyway, I doubt that addresses the point of the OP, so I apologize.  Just wanted to get that off my chest.

[hooplala]

Cain, I thought you were going to keep responding idiocy until someone discovered your "point", or the thread died?

Why are you so blatantly dishonest?

[P3nT4gR4m]

 

[Cain]

Cain, I thought you were going to keep responding idiocy until someone discovered your "point", or the thread died?

Why are you so blatantly dishonest?

I never said when I was going to do it.  I have paper to read, people to see and shopping to do.

Why do you feel the need to compulsively lie?

[hooplala]

What was my lie this time, oh brilliant one?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm still confused. What did we miss? Why are Cain and Hoopla beating on each other.

You two are being...

OUTLANDISH!!!

[AFK]

Srsly.  It's just the internet afterall. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I had a dream last night that someone published a pocket-sized Principia Discordia New Testament, and it was all rewritten in the style of bible verses, with no pictures or anything. It made absolutely no sense.

[Faust]

I'm still confused. What did we miss? Why are Cain and Hoopla beating on each other.

You two are being...

OUTLANDISH!!!

apparently their is some hidden message to cains post, and hoopla doesn't like it.

[hooplala]

I simply didn't like being treated in what I perceived to be a unnecessarily rude manner by someone I consider a friend, simply because I didn't understand what something meant.  I couldn't care less if someone else likes or dislikes RAW, I was arguing the points in the OP because that's what we do here, not out of true defense of RAW, or an attempt to "attack" Cain.

Now, THIS post is officially the last time I am posting in this thread, and that's a promise.

[Faust]

you are both adults, you are right to argue it. please dont let this become a tiff.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

You know, I understand (I think) Cain's frustration with some Discordians and I can see how he might link that activity to RAW. I personally, disagree that anyone's actions should be blamed on anyone but themselves (be they '23' throwers or puppy throwers)... but that doesn't mean that Cain doesn't have several good points in his contra.

There are fans of Robert Anton Wilson that hold him as a Guru, a Hero, a Prophet and The Discordian. Some of those fans, think that quoting Bob is thinking for oneself, or that Bob's favorite maxims are The Rules of Discordia (like "If you can't be kind, at least be courteous"). Sure, some people are unwilling to admit that TIT has some iffy writing and some weird styles... personally, I love the book and thoroughly enjoyed being forced to learn a new pattern of reading. I mean, in the end, that, more than being Joycean or cut-up, was the Bob's reason for writing in the manner they did. They hoped to follow a non-standard pattern, to see if people's brains would adopt the new pattern. TIT is a beautiful, literal, mindfuck, in my opinion. However, that doesn't make it a must read for Discordians, it doesn't mean that every Discordian should love it or that we should all eternally spout memes culled from Bob's Best Known Tome. Hell, Bob didn't even continue to spout those memes alone, his writing remained progressive and he didn't stick with OMGZ23PINEALFNORD... in fact, in some of his last works, there's not much inane Discordian silliness at all. Tales of the Tribe (Email To The Universe) covers some fantastic ground, Coincidance also displays some extremely thoughtful essays which don't simply repeat old Illuminatus memes.

I think that there may be several issues at play. First and foremost, as Bob always hated and feared, some Discordians hold him up as God. This is not only bad, its stupid and a direct opposite of everything Bob tried to encourage in people's brains. I have seen him rip into people that treated him like a prophet or teacher or whatever. I don't blame him for the faults of other hairless monkeys (but I can understand if some people do). The second issue is that as Discordians, we often work very hard to throw down any icon we find... and Bob, Fnord, Pineal, 23 and TIT are all icons in some sense... of course, throwing down all icons may be no better than worshiping all icons... I dunno. Finally, I think that some people may only have some small exposure to RAW, through TIT and RAWITES and base their opinion off of that alone.

I don't know Cain's particular reasons for holding the opinion that he does, but I understand why some Discordians share (at least) his sentiment, if not the reasons. I think this would be a great topic for debate and discussion... hell if the old man were alive, he'd think it was a great topic for discussion as well .

Cain, I don't know why you've taken offense or become defensive or whatever... but I think either your post didn't clearly state your argument, or somehow we've all misread what you intended to say. Perhaps you could explain a little more so that we could correct this misunderstanding, rather than you and Hoops beating each other with pickled herring, which although amusing for all of us... isn't nearly as interesting as a dissection of the useful and not useful contributions of older Discordians.

Can we call a truce and get back to the topic please?

[Dido]

Intellectually speaking it seems ever so stupid to blame an author for the idiocy of that person's self proclaimed followers. But that has never led anybody to wash their hands off praise received for the greatness they have inspired in others.  See what I mean?

Of course, the consequence of that view is regarding everybody as responsible for every result of all of their actions. That sounds a little Kantian in its rigidity but we would not want personal rejection of a philosopher stand in our way, would we? Ahem. What I meant  was that accepting responsibility only when it suits you kind of fucks the concept.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I got about halfway through the Illuminatus! trilogy in the yurt.

I'm amused. I had no idea how many memes on this board came from that book... so I can sort of see the reasons for some of Cain's dislike of that. I mean, we're Discordians, so we should be coming up with our own shtick, right? On the other hand, it gives new people something comforting to latch onto until they acclimate.