Absurdism

[Rumckle]

Why do teacher assign kids with almost no life experience books that only make sense after the Universe has kicked your teeth in a few times?

Teachers: Shaping the Minds of Tomorrow, Today

[Iason Ouabache]

Absurdism is the very essence of Discordianism to me.  Humans have this very inate need to find patterns in everything.  We want there to be a Super Special Meaning to life.  We want everything to have a purpose.  We want an explanation for the movement of every single atom in the Universe. And we want Someone in Charge to blame it all on.

Absurdism is the admission that "meaning" and "purpose" are empty terms.  There is no such thing as objective meaning, just strange purposes that we impose on our universe.  We can make up any kind of meaning that we want, but that meaning will be neither true nor false. 

Sure this seems like a very bleak and dismal outlook on life.  We are just pointless little meatbags floating through life aimless.  But it's not really that bad.  Since we have no Ultimate Meaning attached to the Universe by a Cosmic Superpower that means that we get to decide what everything means.  We get to choose what it means.

We are Children of Chaos staring at the trees and wondering who is moving the leaves.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I started an essay on this topic once, and the forgot to finish it. Anyway, here are some bits of it which I throw out for beatings and pokings and to keep this discussion alive. Originally, I had started in as a way of working through the ethics of absurdism... and somehow it morphed into a comparison of Absurdism ala Camus, vs the later Absurdist viewpoints of Malaclypse etc.

So here it is, unedited and probably more useful as a conversation starter than anything else:


Ethics of the Absurdist

Abstract
Absurdist Philosophy, often under the tutelage of Camus, seems to say precious little about ethics. It leaves us with the option to live or die, with neither side having much value or reason behind choosing it. While Camus may have been a pioneer in the concept of the absurdity of life, he comes to a final solution which might be said to appear pessimistic in its conclusions. Since Camus' time though, other philosophers and authors have approached the concept of Absurdist Philosophy with a slightly more pragmatic or even optimistic perspective. I argue that, although Camus does present us with an interesting view of the Universe, it may not be the only view available to the student considering Absurdism as a philosophy.

Introduction
Absurdity appears to have its roots in existentialism, the idea that man is truly free. Nietzsche went as far as to say "All is permitted" echoing the mythic words of the infamous Hassan I Sabbah "Nothing is True, Everything is Permissible". As one of the early philosophers to embrace the absurd, Albert Camus used three statements which supported his position of the absurdity of life:

1)   God is Dead.
2)   Life is Absurd
3)   Life is Meaningless.

"God is dead", at least in the sense that God hasn't shown up for work in quite sometime and hasn't even called in or brought a Doctor's note, seems obvious to many serious philosophers. Other serious philosophers may still figure he's indisposed at the moment or in hospital after a particularly dangerous Skee-Ball outing, but for now, let's leave this one alone and people can reference the Internet if they want to dive headlong into that brier patch of an argument. That "Life is absurd" seems apparent in pretty much any aspect of ones existence. No matter the best laid plans, random occurrences can produce utterly catastrophic results. "The Black Swan", by Nassim Taleb lays out an interesting argument as to the likelihood and impact of events which appear highly improbable (or unpredicted). When examined from this angle, Life certainly appears absurd. (The best laid plans of monkeys and men...) The third position, Camus seems to have determined based on the previous two. If God isn't there to tell us what to do, and we can't rely 100% on reality to behave as we expect... then there exists no meaning to Life.

These three statements may have summed up the position of the Absurdist throughout much of the 20th century. However, among Hippies, Yippies, Berkeley Counter-Culture and several different authors, absurdist philosophy seems to have grown wings and flown all over the place. Some philosophical positions (such as the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) retain pessimism similar to that of Camus. Let's take as an example, the book 'Venus of the Half-shell', by Kilgore Trout (a pseudonym for Vonnegut). The protagonist spends most of the book desperately flying from one planet of strange beings to another, in search of God. His metaphoric journey ends with finding God, and then learning that while God created many, many planets of amazing and interesting races... Humans evolved from a garbage dump outside an alien outpost on our otherwise dead planet. The height of absurdist pessimism, even finding God and disabusing Camus of his first argument doesn't provide any real meaning to our lives. Douglas Adams, in his later series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" provides a similar dismal picture. The final words from our Maker to Creation are "We apologize for the inconvenience – God".

However, this is not the only perception available to the thinker poking at the absurd state of existence. For example, we have three absurdist philosophers who began to examine absurdity in a more positive light; Greg Hill, Kerry Thornley and Robert Anton Wilson. Their writings inspired and were inspired b, the Discordian Movement, which is now widely accepted as a 'religion' by some people, a 'philosophy' by others and a 'load of nonsense' by everyone. I'll leave the question of religion for another day, and we'll focus on the idea of Discordianism as philosophy.

I will not claim that this is THE discussion of Discordianism, or that all Discordians agree with anything I say here. In fact, it may be that no Discordian except me considers this as anything other than a load of hooey. I will be using Discordianism, Discordian writings and Discordian memes to construct an argument for optimism in absurdist ethics, not to define, label or set standards for what Discordianism is or what Discordian Ethics must look like.


Camus-Sutra: Showing Albert Some New Positions

Camus: There are no rules.   
Discordians: There are no rules anywhere.
Camus:God Is Dead.
Discordians: The Goddess (Chaos) Prevails.
Camus: Life is Absurd.   
Discordians: Life is a constant back and forth between Order and Chaos, each are simply grids that humans use to perceive their world.
Camus: Life Is Meaningless   
Discordians: Everything (including the purpose of Life) is True in Some Sense, False in Some Sense and Meaningless in Some Sense.


Well, the Absurdist crowd seems able to agree that rules are nonexistent, however the similarity ends there. While both sets of positions are drawn from the first, the conclusions lead us in wildly different directions.

Where Camus sees no God, Discordians see Eris, not particularly as a real supernatural entity, but perhaps as a metaphor, or a psychological archetype. Instead of despair, the Discordian finds comfort. While the technical result (no belief in a God) may be no different, the attitude provides for a possibility of more optimism. A Discordian can create plans, but they half-seriously assume that Eris will want to involve herself, that is they expect some possibility of a Black Swan, an unexpected event and maybe they will plan for it, or perhaps they'll laugh when it exposes itself halfway through a project.

Camus and Discordians will probably agree that life is absurd. However, they may take two different conclusions from this position. Camus sees life as Absurd and thus meaningless, Discordians see life as absurd and thus hilarious. Given the choice between laughing and crying, Camus chooses to weep; Wilson, Hill and Thornly choose to laugh. Why?

Greg Hill, in the Principia Discordia stated it this way:

If you can master nonsense as well as you have already learned to master sense, then each will expose the other for what it is: absurdity. From that moment of illumination, a man begins to be free regardless of his surroundings.  He becomes free to play order games and change them at will. He becomes free to play disorder games just for the hell of it. He becomes free to play neither or both.  And as the master of his own games, he plays without fear, and therefore without frustration, and therefore with good will in his soul and love in his being.

He sees each as a choice and humans as being free to make that choice. This will figure heavily into the ethics that we can extract from Absurdist Philosophy.

Camus' third position, so logically drawn from the other two, is roundly exorcised by the more optimistic trio. Where Camus sees an Aristotelian Duality of "IS/IS NOT", Discordians are encouraged to use a less stark view. St. Sri Sayadasti's mantra provides us with a basis for this optimism:

All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense.

Choice once again dominates the philosophy of the modern Absurdist. The meaning, or lack thereof, is not controlled by Life, God or anything, except the individual's choice in perception. Once again Freedom of choice is emphasized over any particular choice that may be made.

The Absurd Agent: Ethics of a Free Person

Rboert Anton Wilson provided further Absurdist concepts in "The Illuminatus! Trilogy". His main hero, Hagbard Celine, appears as an absurd agent and his actions are dictated by the maxim, "Think for yourself, Schmuck". His actions as an absurd agent are based on increasing freedom for individuals. He attacks, either directly or indirectly



.... And therein I apparently stopped writing it.

[fomenter]

this is worth finishing!!!

[Cain]

Agreed, that is some worthwhile shit.

Also, certainly Verwirrung material.

[hooplala]

A)  My story on here somewhere "Modern Sisyphus" is based largely on the point of The Myth Of Sisyphus.

B) Rat, if you can think of a way to finish that off I would LOVE to put it on my blog.  PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So can we argue that the Ethics of a Discordian [may, in some sense/ insert e-prime here] are based on 'increasing freedom for individuals'?

If so, how to we define or assign a value to 'freedom'. For example, a government, by definition limits some freedom... however, without any government, some people may have no freedom, while other people have total freedom. What way could be charted using absurdist ethics?

If a person found a personal meaning to life through service to community, or improving the 'quality of life', they might back benevolent governments. Yet, even the most benevolent government would restirct freedom on all individuals under its contol, in at least some sense. Since relatively few 'absurdists' I know really seem to profess a strong connection to any of the major forms of anarchy, what modifying factor is there in their weighing the value of freedom with government vs freedom without?

What about life and death situations where there are many lives being risked against the life of a single small child? How would absurdist views direct the actor in such a situation?

OR, perhaps, is absurdism a new sort of philosophy, a meta-philosophy which sort of collects various bits of ethics from other systems? Rather than creating a system of ethics itself, is it an active commentary on all systems of ethics? Ethic Agnostic?

[hooplala]

Is that the ending?

And if so, where does it connect?

[Cain]

Hang on, I'm going to have to grab my copy of Camus' works tonight and have a look for an answer.

Since there are few Absurdists in history, it makes sense to try and find a road, before we decide to veer off into the trackless wastes.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Is that the ending?

And if so, where does it connect?

No ending... I am hoping to stir discussion... then maybe I will have my thoughts in enough order to make some stab at the next bit of the essay.

I'm looking for some help here 

[hooplala]

Well I'll just post the first part then and claim its unfinished because you're dead.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Well I'll just post the first part then and claim its unfinished because you're dead.

Well, ok... maybe I was blown away in the windstorm Sunday....

[hooplala]

Oh I thought you were murdered by Aini for your unnatural love of Nell Carter?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Oh I thought you were murdered by Aini for your unnatural love of Nell Carter?

Oh, gimme a break!

[hooplala]

You sho' deserve it!