Why is Discordia more relevant than ever in the year 2008?

[AFK]

Somewhere there needs to be a corrollary or warning that says,

"While Thinking For Yourself, make sure you look up every once in awhile so that you don't bump into a tree." 

[Cramulus]

I think (hah)
that these really fine semantic distinctions are unnecessary. Though this has been an interesting conversation, I'm not sure that we're adding anything to "Think For Yourself, Shmuck" by vivisecting it like this.

Other than
-thinking for yourself
and
-pragmatic approaches to the Strange Times

what tools does ol' Discordja offer which are useful in this decade?

Do you think any of the following Classic Discordian Ideas^TM are more useful / relevant now than they were in 1959?

-humor / satire
-the Five Seasons
-the Law of Fives
-the number 23
-the notion of an "irreligion" (we're not alone anymore!)
-Mr. Momomoto's Nose
-the Pentabarf
-any of that other crap in the PD?

[LMNO]

I have to go, but for me, the issue was "what does it mean to 'think for yourself'?"

The rest was just commentary.

[AFK]

humor/satire  

AND

Nonsense as Salvation

AND

The Sermon on Ethics and Love

[Cramulus]

Those are pretty strong. In what ways are they more relevant now than before?

I highly agree with Humor/Satire. Especially since the media is so diseased and it's impossible to get any real information though - people like Colbert and Stewart are successful at using satire to attack the media itself. We NEED that right now.



followup question:

will we ever reach a point when Discordia is less relevant?


I imagine two guys sitting atop a building jutting out from the post-apocalyptic landscape.

Guy 1: "Man, remember when we were all about tearing down the existing order?"
Guy 2: "Yeah, good thing that's over. Well, back to Christianity!"

[AFK]

Well, I think the humor/satire and Nonsense as Salvation go hand in hand.  I think it is more relevant because there seems to be so much more pressure on people to "make something of their lives".  The pressure to achieve the "American Dream" is beat into us routinely.  And people buy into it, and think if they don't achieve A, B, and C, that their life was a failure and a waste. 

And then the Sermon on Ethics and Love I think plays into this as well.  There is a synergy between those two, that I think, deal with being to hard nosed, too focused, too blinded with a utopian goal, that the ability to actually enjoy life gets choked to death and pushed out of the picture. 

[AFK]

As to follow-up question:

I think there has to be a fundamental shift and evolution in human sociology for the core philosophies in Discordia to be irrelevant.  In otherwords, when The Curse of Greyface is completely eradicated.  I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I don't think the PD will always be useful, even as we speak, fewer and fewer people know who Spiro Agnew was .

Some day, maybe Marijuana will be legal, and "Plant your seeds, keep prices low" won't make sense to a new generation.

The core ideas will have value, since humans and humans and the default for human is not 'Think for Yourself', or 'Nonsense is as Good as Sense" or even "If you don't like doing that... Stop!". As Crowley said:

Is there any man who still shuts his eyes to the plain fact that homo sapiens
is but a primate, cousin of the gorilla, with a brain over-developed to think
abominations, and a larynx evolved to aid their execution, a creature whose
prime pangs are hunger, lust, and hate, and his fundamental solaces rape,
robbery, and murder?

Or Twain:

This is a strange place, and extraordinary place, and interesting. There is nothing resembling it at home. The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane. Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm.

Discordian thought, ideas, philosophies if we wish to call them that, seem to strike directly to the heart of these insane nickel-plated sons and daughters of baboons. No longer the Children of God and the Blessed of the Earth, but rather the Children of Chaos and here because the Goddess hasn't bitch-slapped us too hard (unless you live in Galveston). No longer striving to please the Daddy God, Jove the Master of War and Shit. No longer the crown jewel of the Universe... but children of chaos, discord, confusion... existent because the moon happened to mix up a brew in the ocean and some spark of possibility turned potential into life. And maybe, in some sense, that spark of possibility was also a spark of the divine... Not a divine Omnipotent Omnibenevolent Master to command us, but divine in some sense nonetheless.

As long as humans see the world as ordered... as long as they think that there is THE PURPOSE to  life... as long as they demand that their perception IS Reality, then Discordia will be relevant.

Raven was relevant  when the Welsh and Native Americans (and other groups) made stories about him. So was Coyote, Krishna, Loki, Eris, and all the other tricksters, pranksters and archetypes that changed perceptions... or changed the rules... or changed the meaning of symbols.

Humans will always need the wake up poke... Welcome the new metaphors, same as the old metaphors with a fresh coat of paint and pinstripes.

(The paint and pinstripes will need redone over and over again, but ad Led Zeppelin said  "the song remains the same" )

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Somewhere there needs to be a corrollary or warning that says,

"While Thinking For Yourself, make sure you look up every once in awhile so that you don't bump into a tree." 

My cabal has the Corollary of Opposites, which simply states that for any affirmation the opposite is also true, which I have found useful for pretty much all equilateral statements.

Of course, it's really just another approach to the "every affirmation is true, false, and irrelevant" koan, but it is such useful shorthand to remind us to not focus too narrowly on what we think at the moment is the Right Way.

[Jenne]

Ok, my answer:  It's not.

Well, if you look, relatively...there's always a moment in time, in history, when every person can think for themselves, or not!  Because, we all are the sum of our parts.  It takes a LOT to realize you are coming out of your skin you are so uncomfortable with who you are and where you've been.

I think that this year is significant because of this stupid presidential race.  Without that, I have a deep, sinking feeling that a lot of the shit going down is just simple happenstance, or ipso facto.  Dumb as Bushie is, he's still Fucktard-in-Chief, and he holds the reins.

The trick is to realize that what goes around, comes around.  The pendulum swings incarnate, indubitably, inevitably.  I don't doubt that it's all rather disgusting, sordid and altogether nasty to contemplate, given the lives, monies, livelihoods that have been lost due to the out and out machinations of a god-complexed-micromanaging-Bible-thumping-Jesus-invoking-God-swearing-fucking-batshit-crazy-hosebeast that is our President.

But the world has sat by and watched this guy spin.  And that, my friends, is the crux of the matter.  So we will sit out THIS particular spin, we will survive it, comment on it, and chronologically record its movements.

And when the time is ripe, strike.  Strike swiftly, strike surely.  Never betwixt or between, but IN where it counts.  THAT is the grace of timing where it matters, where it makes the difference.  Folks like Cain, Rog, Idem, Vince, Net, Trip, Rata, Nigel, Suu, LMNO, RWHN...and the rest of our dear family...you all know where it's made the difference.  Where.  Not who, not why.  Those are contained within the where.

Eh.  I'm talkin' out my ass.  But, in the end, the maxim of "I'm studying my prey" makes much sense.  Be the prey, not the predator.  And truly, since we are all really prey of one thing or another, willingly or not, mark the properties most salient and USE them, for what's most important. 

...

[LMNO]

So, you think I should clean this up and put it on the BIP wiki?

Ah... what it means to "think for yourself."

Most of us don't, most of the time. 


I would include most of PD.com in that, sometimes.*  Because this gets wrapped up in one of the problems many of us have found to be a core issue of Discordia: the Filters, the Grids, the Prison Bars, the vital and trecherous habit of compartamentalizing.

If you start at the raw state (not the RAW state, mind you), you get an assload of sensory input.  So, the brain, all by itself, starts putting things in categories.  "This is like that, so we will associate these with those."  Eventually, we work our way up to a rough understanding of the world.

This process tends to work pretty well, so we start using it in other ways.  But this is where we really start running into trouble.  Our compartamentalizing turns into generalizing, and slips into "All A is B.  This looks like an A, so it must be B."  We look at new experiences as if they were old ones, so we can put new things in established compartments.

Essentially, without knowing it, we tend to fall into the habit of trusting people, or things, or ideas that are comfortable to our brains.  They get inside our bullshit detecor perimeter fence.  So when something happens, or someone says soemthing that falls within our trust zone, we accept it as truth without question.

Mind you, this is a fairly useful habit if you actually want to get things done.  There is much in this Universe that doesn't affect you, and that doesn't need to be parsed in fine detail.  I would guess that 95% of the shit that gets thrown at you every day isn't really worth your time to fine tune.

But it's that 5% that gets you.

So, back to that original point.  What is "thinking for yourself"?  I'd say it's the art of going back to your assumptions, categorizations, habits, and tendencies, and breaking them down.  Figure out where you got your opinions.  What influenced you?  Do you trust them?  What are the counter arguments?  Which works best for you right now, not when you were 13?  Is "just because" a good enough answer?

You break down your opinions, and sniff out where you just went ahead and trusted something without a second thought.  That doesn't mean you have to reject it; many times, you end up agreeing with it.  But now you have a more solid foundation of what you think.













*Do you like how I'm E-Priming the shit out of this?

[Cramulus]

So, you think I should clean this up and put it on the BIP wiki?

yeah, I think it'd make a great addition.

[Teh_Loserer]

So, you think I should clean this up and put it on the BIP wiki?

Yeah, spent some time reading the BIP Wiki before I joined, I think it'd make a good addition.
Puts a lot of common sense stuff into plain English.

[Jasper]

But I'm not convinced "thinking for yourself" is the same as having "new" thoughts.

No, it's not; IMO the "having new thoughts" part is a side topic, because you can't have original thoughts if you don't think for yourself.

Oh I like this:

1. Think For Yourself
         A. Question your beliefs and assumptions
         B. Question other people's beliefs and assumptions
         C. Have unique thoughts
         D. Live your life via a distillation of the first three.

That treads into near-oxymoronic territory.  The point of TFY,S! is that there is no manual, and you have to make it up as you go.  It runs counter to the point of it by saying "Do this, this is how".

will we ever reach a point when Discordia is less relevant?

When science has a grand unified theory of cosmology and physics, when people no longer need O:MF, and/or when strong AI shows up and starts making stronger AI.

[LMNO]

But Felix, in a way you're implying that TFY is unexplainable; that it's like the definition of pornography: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."

And I think that's bullshit.

But if you like:

FOR THE PEDANTIC

When someone asks me how I think for myself, I tell them that I analyze the beliefs and an assumptions that I have, and that I am receiving, making sure that I'm not trusting an unverified and unsupported source; and if I am, to recognize that it is a leap of blind faith, and not a fact.