Why Discordia is more relevant than ever in the year 2008

post by Cramulus

As time marches on and culture gets weirder and weirder, I think Discordia is becoming increasingly relevant. I'd like to riff on why Discordia is more relevant now than it's ever been. Here's my take, and I want to hear yours:

At its core, Discordia has some silly lessons about ignoring cultural programming and navigating our fractillian society on your own baffling terms. Its satirical approach towards religion, something that was once so shhh! sacred! that we couldn't joke about it, is an attitude we can ride into many other straightfaced territories. Gender, politics, the economy, war, terrorism, our expectations for the future, your goals, your flaws, your life -- these are things that we can easily bork if we take them to be Real and Serious and a Big Deal. Which isn't to say that they're not a big deal. But that it's better to take them with a spoonfull of salt.

When we get serious, we get rigid, we get tunnel vision, and we get indentured. Discordia is about tearing down serious walls internally as well as externally. In this decade, where there are so many conflicting messages being shouted at us, it's important to differentiate between What Matters and What Don't. And the secret is that people probably take more stuff all bitchtits than is healthy. Healthy for all of us. Discordia uses flexibility and humor to cope with the paradoxes and dangers and ubiquitous spags of modern living. It's about escaping the two-man con where both choices are bum, and becoming an active (rather than passive) character in your life's lame-ass Made For TV Movie.

I think this is the most interesting and confusing period of history to date. Historians will struggle to misunderstand what it was like to be alive in the 21st century. The Bureaucracy is getting bigger and sicker. There is a great cultural demand for agents of change who will challenge the existing order and suggest that some tea and scones should follow. The heroes of our day are the people who are kinetic enough to make clothing from this threaded culture and not get weighed down by the dross and rut of the human condition. All sorts of economists, academics, politicians and other knowitall spags think they've got the logical progression of society pegged. I'm not even interested in the ehhhhh "logical progression" of society, I'm interested in totally unsharted territory! This is the modern Discordian's role, to flip the blessed bird at binary choices, to make objection and change part of the hegemony, and to enjoy oneself despite our programming and inclination to be boring-ass spags. We are the silver lining to the cultural cabbage patch. This is not just a society of robots, and the Discordians are evidence of it.

At the time of this writing, I don't see Eris as a Goddess in the same way that the ehhhhh religious types think of Gods. My Eris isn't a pagan entity. It's Goddamn 2009, it's 3175, and the "Gods" model is in need of a patch. That language is outdated software. Eris isn't answering prayer calls, the phone's off the hook 'cause she's getting busy. Personally, I see Eris as a force similar to the internet, similar to the spirit of protest, similar to hair metal. She's not the force, but the attitude through which Bureaucracy is transcended into Aftermath. She is the unexpected punchline at the end of a decade long shaggy dog joke. And in that I think she has more to offer than the sepulcher and bureaucratic tangle of other contemporary edifices like religions and ideologies and static.

These are the Strange Times, and Eris' advice is to go into this crazy mixed up world like you're attending a costume party. It's a CRAZY party, too - with boobs and drugs and sex and violence and hope and ugliness and beauty and misery. There's straight talk and stray talk silly talk shop talk gossip talk. If you're not having fun, wander around, see what else is out there. It's wild.

There's so much out there, that's the best part. There's more than anyone can handle, and exponentially more every moment. Today, the day you're reading this, is the most complex, interesting, exciting day in history to date. You don't think so? "Listen; there's a hell of a universe next door: let's go!"

Eris would love to be your date to this crazy party. She knows that the Strange Times leave a lot of people miserably confused. She's not going to resolve your confusion, but she can help you become happily confused instead.

So if you ask me, the Principia is 49 or 50 years old, and it's more relevant than ever.

post by Golden Applesauce

I makes me sad when people tell me that things like religion are too important to joke about, or old propaganda posters too offensive. It bothers me when I get suspended from school or hauled before Loss Prevention for reasons like "I know that this is just a misunderstanding, but we must follow procedure." It hurts when I look around my infosphere and see nothing but advertisements, especially when those ads are meant to make people feel bad about themselves.

The world is ruled by an endless morass of strictures and convention and no one wants to take responsibility for them. People are perfectly content to let the train follow its own momentum down the tracks, even though they don't like where it is or where it is going, because this is Policy, it's what Everyone (the everyone in "everyone knows that...") has Decided. Rules and traditions might be annoying, but it's Not In Our Power to do anything about them.

Post by LMNO

In today’s so-called “Information Age”, most of us are constantly bombarded with stuff. Perhaps not with ideas, so much as pure input. While for the most part this input is pretty much bias-neutral, an increasing amount of it is being supplied by people who have an angle. What’s more, to get through to the growing population of Jaded Couch-Dwelling Fuckheads, there has been a new approach of making the stuff more-or-less self referential, as in, “we know you know we’re trying to manipulate you. See how cool that makes us?”

So, what do you do when you are flooded by 50,000 points of view? The old way was to have Rules and Tradition and Procedure and Black and White. To take that stuff and cram it into a narrow worldview, distorting what little information you actually notice. Which only serves to hold you back, slow you down, and shut you up.

Our way, the Discordian way, is to make Temporary Models, make new Game Rules, to grab hold of the stuff and ride it out, making connections as you see them. You do your best not to have your views manipulated by stuff, and you do your best not to manipulate stuff to fit your views. Which serves to keep you on the Edge of What’s Going On.

At least, that’s the general idea.

post by Ratatosk

I don't know if it is 'more relevant'. It seems to me that people act, pretty much, like people. People in 1959 aren't all that different from us, they may have slightly different rituals and memes, sleight variations in clothing styles and slang, but the humans appear the same. Our society may be more open and more tolerant (at least the aspects of society that are very popular right now), but humans interact and follow the rules of that society, pretty much as they did in 1959.

The people who are cogs in society behave like they're supposed to. The conservative cog grinds to the tune that their entire society is about to collapse, the liberal cog whirrs away at a Utopia that seems as far away now as it did in 1959 and the 'rebel' cogs turn to the tune of "I Did It My Way" (though now it might be the Sex Pistols version...).

If Discordianism was relevant ever, then it's relevant now... in theory, if not in specific memes. To think that life now is DIFFERENT, is (in my opinion) to confuse the trappings of society with the functionality of humans. Even the best broadband available won't stop an asshole from beating his wife and kids. It won't stop the man who is not comfortable with his own feelings from bashing gays. All the information in the world, won't necessarily make us elect a good president or change the basic selfish behavior of most monkeys on this planet.

However, IF the information is served on a platter, complete with trimmings and yummy sauce... some humans might eat it and change. Discordianism, I think, provides just such a platter. The concepts of general semantics, the limits of perception, the bias of our own reality and the ability to 'STOP' doing the things we don't like, aren't unique to Erisian Enlightenment. However, for at least some humans, Discordianism seems to make the ideas palatable, digestible and useful.

So Discordianism was valuable then and is valuable now... because humans are human

Post by Payne

Discordia will always be more relevant to me personally than in any kind of "cause" or "movement".

Yes, things in society are fucked up, yes "everyone" thinks that "everyone" else wants things to be this way, and there is nothing that they can do about it as individuals. Yes, they are wrong.

But all of this means nothing to me.

I am not an activist, I don't go out of my way to try and convert people anymore. I used to, but then I thought it was mandatory or at least expected. Since I decided for myself that it wasn't, I don't do it. I don't expect people to wake up unless they want to do it themselves, I certainly don't expect it to ever make sense for them unless they do it in the hardest and unfunniest ways, but that may be my jaded and bitter inner self talking.

Discordia is not a movement, it is not a purpose, it is not a cause. It's a state of mind. A state of mind that connects a diverse group of people who wouldn't give each other the time of day if they met socially in other circumstances and didn't have the call signs Discordia offers, the "fluff" like 23, Eris or Principia Discordia.

I like that. I like talking to people who I normally would never talk to, who would normally never talk to me.

Discordia is at times an excellent way of tying some of us together to work on projects that normally would never be worked on, like Paths and Shrapnel, PosterGASM and some of the weird and wonderful art projects.

I like that. I like working with people on plans and projects that may have some relevance to how I think about my life, or can help decorate it in a way that makes me question what decoration is.

Discordia will always be relevant to me in some way because of this. Its worth far outweighs the effort of getting anything back from it.

I like models, I like art, I like exploring the weirder aspects of our psyches, and the even weirder methods of exploiting what we find.

I like to laugh, hate, cry and love, as we as humans are meant to, not as we have been conditioned to. As I've only learned to do with some intense soul searching and some pain. Discordia has been the chair I've sat down in when I'm weary, the desk I've used to write some of the most personal and important things I've ever written, it has been the mirror in which I've seen what I am, what I was and what I want to be.

And I've learned to not care what others are thinking about it all, except in specialised circumstances, for example: when I feel like it.

I know what I've learned, I've learned to question what I know, and I've learned to learn more, always learn more.

For me, Discordia is a question, an answer and everything else in between, and it is so huge that I could spend a lifetime exploring it.

Is Discordia relevent? Certainly for me, maybe for you.

Post by Cain

Why is Discordianism still relevant in 2009?

Because I am the The Decider, and I have decided that it is.

Debate over.

Oh, alright then, some more evidence.

Two thousand and eight kicked off, in my mind at least, with two major events. The first was the US Presidential election. The second was the Anonymous “war” on Scientology. The first of these two quickly became a spiralling mess of such a degree that parody and satire often seemed more reasonable than what was actually being said. Therefore, parody and satire need to step up to the plate, and have done so admirably. In a country where Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart can give more prescient and accurate news than many of the major news stations, in such a country comedy with a message is King.

The second was interesting, because it showed how an internet subculture with no centralization, no money and little in way of common purpose (indeed they often flaunted their chaotic and contradictory ways) could pose a threat to a very powerful and rich, highly centralized religious cult.

Change is still the name of the game. As corporate elites have stepped up to the plate, promoting and co-opting every new youth movement and subculture, in some cases from almost the very start, subversive counterculture has done a vanishing act. It still exists, and its still there, but its a true invisible college, taking form on the internet and in the street. Flashmobs and other microcultures have become very possible with the rise of mass membership websites such as Facebook, putting Situationist tactics into the hands of online activists, who can construct an event with a few clicks, so long as they can get enough people interested. Appear, perform and disperse. We're evolving and changing, because anyone who stands still for too long is going to end up in the cross-hairs of one marketing executive or another. Subversion and change, nanoculture and personal freedom, are becoming synonymous.

We're continuing to have a small, if noticed effect on the mainstream as well. V for Vendetta and Lost, a program and a film with some very Discordian influences, are favourites of viewers all over the world. High Weirdness is back in fashion, too. It doesn't matter if its a giant artistic piece of dogshit which has got loose, or J. J. Abrams latest show, the strange and the odd are still capturing imaginations and peoples curiosity.

Chaos, equally, is back in fashion more than ever. No matter if its politics or the music industry, the old rules of how things are done, and the elites who control them, are under a barrage of assaults from newcomers and individuals with the power to move and shake the industries they work in. With the second internet revolution in full swing, its becoming easier than ever to get one's voice out there, create an audience, be heard, and bypass the traditional methods of control to say what you want. Equally the weather and the stockmarkets are both going crazy, and becoming ever harder to predict. Many of the old assurances seem to be crumbling in the bright lights of the 21st century.

The arts of obfuscation, disruption and, well, we can only call it trolling have become more popular than ever, diffusing down into society. Since trolling is part Situationist theatre, part postmodern identity shifting, and we have natural advantages in areas such as that, we have an edge on tactics that the media, the blogs and activists are only just starting to grasp.

Religious fundamentalism is back on the scene, with all the stupidity and farce such an event brings. Whether its bearded lunatics in caves or meth-taking, rent-boy hiring, homophobic minister, religion is once again proving its potential to destroy lives, ruin countries and damn people on the flimsiest of charges. And so, it must come as a relief to many to find a religion that doesn't want your unquestioning obedience, wont damn you to hell for your sins, doesn't want your time or money or impose any strange dietary practices (barring those with hotdogs), but wants you to have a good time and tell anyone who tries to get in your way to STFU.

Post by the Good Reverend Roger

Relevant? Who cares?

I'm just here to gnaw at the foundations of society like a diseased termite.