On the subject of FNORD

[Arafelis]

On this day of Saturday, despite having in full exposure of witnesses been forewarned that This May Not Be A Good Idea, I'd like to discuss 'FNORD.'  This is my idea of what 'FNORD' is, what the related terminology means, and so on and so forth.  I'm interested in other imaginations on this subject -- until these boards, the dozen or two other humourously-serious Discordians I'd met had basically the same sense of the term as myself.  Shit diversity bang flame.

This article isn't going to be funny.  I'm basically aneristic.

My original exposure to the Principia was as plaintext.  The rewriter of that edition transcribed some, but not all, of the more important diagrams/commentary/graffiti from the original Principia Discordia into the text... there was some surrounding context for the Principia, and that's where I first heard the term fnord, largely as a nonsense word used to indicate "something."  Sometimes enlightenment.

Nigel, people who aren't Nigel but also already know the background, feel free to skip this next paragraph.  It's a recap.

So it was just a goofy word to me until I read Illuminatus! sometime rather later, in which 'FNORD' was a much more-referenced concept.  The main character is taught how to 'see the FNORDs,' and shown a room of children being brainwashed to ignore them with the phrase 'if don't see the FNORD it can't eat you.'  The character then, suddenly, starts seeing FNORD interposed into text -- they're in newspapers, on TV, everywhere there's media/religion/government/Authority.

But I've never thought of FNORD as a literary convention, or something that purely indicates a word designed to inspire fear.  That's kind of the lead-in we're given by Illuminatus!, but I feel like that's metaphorical (shocker, i know, a metaphor in R.A.W.).  FNORD as a term refers to any situation in which the context/environment is being manipulated to induce a reaction of obedience or compliancy, especially to a course of action, in the 'reader.'  I see it as a semiotic concept, a part of meta-language.

The best single example I could give of what I see as FNORD is Jack Chick, a subject I'm going to come back to in another post.  Jack Chick is a master (if perhaps by fecundity and ferocity rather than outright skill) of the forced (false) dilemma, the strawman, the Big Lie... all the many tactics of FNORD.  It's propaganda, yes, but there's another aspect to it.

See, as far as I can tell, Chick actually believes what he writes.  There are implications here, things that seperate FNORD from simply being "propaganda techniques with heavy does of xenophobia and population control"  Chick didn't originate his position, and he's not 'pushing' it out of some desire for personal wealth or power.  Whether he or any one else who propagates FNORD does in fact gain those things, or even is consciously aware that they are likely to (Pat Robertson being another FNORDist who does so -- apologies, I'm not trying to target a specific religion here, this is just the big one in my home culture and thus the easiest for me to think of examples from), is kind of immaterial.  They'd do it anyway.  They picked up the FNORD from somebody else, they pass it on to others: they're basically just carriers.  I believe they think this is really how the world works.  They think that stretching the truth just a little to cover some of the gaps is the Only Way to keep out the Bad Stuff, that if they compromise even a tiny bit, the world is seriously going to fucking end, or at least their country/ideals/whatever are going to be fucked beyond all recovery.  And they absolutely do not ever consider the implications of the past twenty generations or so of people 'stretching the truth just a little bit' as it's being transmitted to them.

I think that's why we get the analogy we do in Illuminatus! of a tired-looking schoolteacher brainwashing kids about FNORD.  If a carrier or antecedent of a FNORD (an antecedent being one of these Authorities like the one Chick is in the body of) could literally teach children in school to have an instinctive fear of some concept, they'd do it, for the greater good.  I mean, hell, people have literally tried that.

But rather than saying, "It's a propaganda technique kind of like the ones used by America during the cold war to spread fear of Communism, with the important element that it's picked up and carried by individuals in the environment to reinforce other individuals in the environment's receptivity to the fear or obedience that is being induced; and while it may not have any single originator, its originators probably wholeheartedly believed the prototypical form of the beliefs it is intended to inspire in others, and also there's some other stuff to it," R.A.W. et al (probably wisely, because that way they don't ever have to rely on a single definition) gave us a literary allusion and called it FNORD.

I have no reason to think this is a particularly revolutionary view or explanation.  Hell, I didn't think it was even substantially disputed until last night.  I'm posting because it was suggested to me to do so and I'd like to see where the discussion goes.  And that is all.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think you're kind of stating the obvious.

[Thurnez Isa]

I for one never heard of Fnord

or the Principia Discordia

is some kind of web page?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I for one never heard of Fnord

or the Principia Discordia

is some kind of web page?

Is this crazy new fad.  All the cool cats are doing it.

[LMNO]

This is fucking amazing.  You've identified exactly what I've been trying to say this whole time. Fuck, I've been on this board for YEARS, and you're the first one who's gotten it.

Thankfully, I am no longer alone.

[Arafelis]

I think you're kind of stating the obvious.

That's what I thought, too.  Then everyone was all like, "NO MAN YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT FNORDS THAT WAY."  And I was all like, "Well, fine.  What are they, yo mamma?"

And then we had cake.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think you're kind of stating the obvious.

That's what I thought, too.  Then everyone one guy was all like, "NO MAN YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT FNORDS THAT WAY."  And I was all like, "Well, fine.  What are they, yo mamma?"

And then we had cake.

fixed.

[LMNO]

Cmon Nigel. Take it easy on the guy. He knows what he's talking about.

[Arafelis]

Cmon Nigel. Take it easy on the guy. He knows what he's talking about.

I absolutely know my cake.  And I know it is real, although I have never seen it.  This is because I've got faith.  Faith means knowing things that you can't see.

[LMNO]

Yup. You & me, same page.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You are killing me.

[Arafelis]

Let's keep it up, LMNO!  Soon, we'll have the Wicked Nigel of the West reduced to a puddle!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I actually kind of liked DK. Can we have him back?

[Dr Goofy]

...didn't read...

So it was just a goofy word to me until I read Illuminatus!

...didn't read...

I TAKE OFFENSE! It is not my word!

I for one never heard of Fnord

or the Principia Discordia

is some kind of web page?

I havn't read any of it... I am just kinda here like gum on a shoe!

[Triple Zero]

I think you're kind of stating the obvious.

To be fair, I kind of asked him to write this. Since he went on about how there are fnords in some of the articles in the BIP Pamphlet.

So I asked him to explain what fnords mean to him, hopefully getting a littlebit of a less ambiguous and vague explanation. Cause if you go by "what [discordian] people generally understand as fnord" you get a very, very wide definition.

Actually I think he wrote this straight from the post form, without really mulling over much about what exactly he was trying to say. So after getting his thoughts together for the largest part of the post, unfortunately writing it all down (no we don't want to read every single thought in your head*), in the end he kind of gets it together and summarizes it here:

"It's a propaganda technique kind of like the ones used by America during the cold war to spread fear of Communism, with the important element that it's picked up and carried by individuals in the environment to reinforce other individuals in the environment's receptivity to the fear or obedience that is being induced; and while it may not have any single originator, its originators probably wholeheartedly believed the prototypical form of the beliefs it is intended to inspire in others, and also there's some other stuff to it," R.A.W. et al (probably wisely, because that way they don't ever have to rely on a single definition) gave us a literary allusion and called it FNORD.

whether this is the one proper definition, no, but it is his. it would have been useful if he could have just said this when asked in his critique of the BIP thread. but there he had only a vague notion what he was talking about, now he knows (a bit more).


* unless your name is Sepia of course.