Cain contra Robert Anton Wilson

[Cain]

(Yes, from the title you have probably guessed I am getting my Nietzsche on)

OK, so you wanna know why I don't like RAW?  Why I have a tendency to stomp n00bs who mention his name, why I make fun of Illuminatus! And generally act like a jerk towards people who ape his ideas?

Alright then.  I'll go with the aesthetics then go a bit deeper with the other stuff.  But first, I really don't like his writing style.  When I read something, I don't particularly want to be playing mental mind games with the text, or having to flip over three pages of pretentious imitation Joyce style writings about taking acid.  There's being complex due to the subject matter and then there is just being a pain in the ass, which RAW's fiction tends towards.

But the reason I really dislike RAW is he took something that was meant to be, to a degree, indefinable and went and created a whole damn subculture based around it.  If you read some of the other stuff by Hill and Thornley, you'll notice they were quite into their Zen.  One point that really stuck with Thornley in Zen thought is that naming something essentially destroys it.  Once you have a name, you can caricature it, you can define and exclude and you can eventually subvert it.  Once something has a definable set of ideas and symbols linked with it, it'll be in Hot Topic next week.  And once the Con has its hands on a movement, it ceases to be relevant or dangerous to the prevailing orthodoxy.

Now Illuminatus! did contain a lot of things that were only mentioned in passing by Thornley and Hill, yet were definitely in the Principia Discordia.  The Illuminati, the fate of Ambrose Bierce and Yog-Sothoth come to mind.

But now, every aspiring Discordian seems to think they have to be into these sort of things!  If you can't jabber on for hours about the mystic import of the number 23 (none), or the majesty of the works of H. P. Lovecraft (relatively mediocre), talk like you've been dropping acid non-stop since your third birthday or act like you're stuck in the 1960s then you aren't doing it right.

RAW, in essence, has created his own counter-orthodoxy within a group that shouldn't stand for any of it.  Now because every basement dwelling sockfucker once played Call of Cthulhu, he thinks that makes him a Discordian.  He created a set of interests every Discordian should have and can be identified by, because he created a common reality in Illuminatus! that is probably the single most harmful thing anyone has done to Discordianism since its creation.  Drawing people into a common reality stifles the creative processes and growth of group, because everyone comes to the table with their ideas pre-defined for them.  Thats one of the many reasons I am glad I discovered Discordianism in general and PrincipiaDiscordia.com in particular long before I read any RAW.

There is also the matter of his status.  I remember a ,ÄúDiscordian,Äù coming onto this here board asking for ,Äúwords of wisdom,Äù from one of the Discordian founders.  Create your own damn words of wisdom!  Shit, didn't any of that book actually sink into your skulls?  You are your own spiritual authority.  You can steal as many ideas as you can get away with, but for the love of sweet Baby Jeebus stop looking to others for your own development, you fucking Cabbages!  Thats what created this mess in the first place, people constantly looking to others for orders instead of doing their own thing.  How aneristic.  And RAW is one of the people most of this sort of Cabbage look to for leadership.

Now, I don't hold this against RAW personally.  Going by his personality, he is probably just as tired of people sucking up to him as I am.  I'm sure he didn't intend to be become the cult figure he did, which is what makes it all the more tragic.  I'm almost certain he didn't intend for the book to be as popular as it was.  Personally, he seems a nice guy who has done a lot of interesting things, written some interesting books (Prometheus Rising is fascinating, its hard to deny, as well as his non-fictional work on conspiracies) and is much smarter in a lot more fields than I could be.

But seriously, the only word for some of you people is Bobbies.  You're trying to turn this irreligion which has some pretty interesting and insightful ways of looking into the world into a Bob Anton Wilson fan club.  Didn't you fuckers learn anything from the example of Jesus?  Shit.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Can I have that on a teeshirt please? It'd save on so many stupid conversations.

[Messier Undertree]

Didn't you fuckers learn anything from the example of Jesus?  Shit.

Quote of the year! 

[Thurnez Isa]

or the majesty of the works of H. P. Lovecraft

speaking from a pretty big fan of lovecraft i really dont think lovecraft as an individual would appreachiate being even linked to discordianism
he was in all matter of fact a very conservative, semi-religious, racist nutbar
though he did calm down quite a bit later in life during his second run at writing, after the first world war, where he wrote his later lesser known, may i dare say far better, works
I think lovecraft is one of those writers, due to the almost dream-like style of his writing, where it is like old men looking into to a fire
you could project what you want into it
but in all purposes Lovecraft as a person would probably be pretty horrified that his writings are used in a discordian text, just as much as lets say as most of us would be if the writings here would be used by one of these writers
http://www.inscribe.org/MemberLinks.htm

[Cain]

I would agree.  I'm not a great fan, I think he had good ideas about the development of horror (taking the "things man ought not know" theme to a higher level), but he lacked the literary ability to actualize it.

[Thurnez Isa]

well its all about where your tastes lay
with lovecraft he had an amazing sense of setting and atmosphere
but he lacked a sense of character and direction
reading his stuff is like reading somebodies dream journal
like a lot of american authors at the time he was writing in a style that had been passe in europe for about a generation
try his later works like dagon, mountains of madness, and the tomb
they arent as well known as his early works and harder to find
probably cause, with the exception of maybe dagon, he was slowly going away from his former ideas of subraces and alien interference.
It was actually at this time too that he came out and officially said the necronomicon was a load of crap, and by then people already had some invested intrest in it
but he was actually became more focused as a writer

[LMNO]

Wait... "At The Mountains of Madness" is not about alien infrastructure or the Necornomicon mythos?


Funny, it seemed to me like it was giving an alien explaination for the Old Ones...

[Thurnez Isa]

sorry didnt noticed i used it as an example

[LMNO]

More like you didn't think anyone else had read it...

[Thurnez Isa]

actually its more like its 2 oclock in the afternoon
and i just woke up about 30 minutes ago

dont even have my pants on yet

[BADGE OF HONOR]

You forgot to mention that RAW didn't have the creativity to end any of his books properly, the wanker.

[P3nT4gR4m]

actually its more like its 2 oclock in the afternoon
and i just woke up about 30 minutes ago

dont even have my pants on yet

How did you manage to get a subtitle under your avi? That's some l33t ninja shit that is!

[Thurnez Isa]

go to profile
options there

[P3nT4gR4m]

go to profile
options there

Wow! Maximum badass

[Cain]

You forgot to mention that RAW didn't have the creativity to end any of his books properly, the wanker.

Yes, but since I havent finished writing the City stuff yet, I thought best not to draw any attention to that...