[IDEA] Deconstructing Discordianism

[P3nT4gR4m]

Nihilism states that there is no God, no meaning to life, no meaning or purpose to anything and if you go look for meaning, you're wasting your time.

Absurdism states that there probably is no God, if there is a meaning or purpose to life we cannot know it. We can make up our own purpose in life and we can go looking for purpose. It's not possible to find the purpose, but the seeking may have value in and of itself. It's not necessary, but it might be useful/valuable/fun.

Absurdism is really just a slightly more positive view of nihilism. They both contend that God and Meaning/Purpose are likely non-existent. Absurdism just accepts that making shit up in your head is as good an option as any, while nihilism sees it as a waste of time. Maybe we could call it Pragmatic Nihilism?

The Black Iron Prison fits the absurdist paradigm, because it holds that you can rearrange your cell AND that its valuable to do so. One of the reasons I created the Submarine/Spaceship/BiP metaphor was because I wanted to stress the absurdist view that "Purpose is whatever you make it out to be".


Now back to Deconstructing Discordianism

Your point on Nihilism, whilst being essentially true of the general nihilist, is something I never really understood. When I arrived at the nihilist pov (never read anything about it - more kinda worked it out for myself) I thought it was great. Made my whole life a lot more fun, without the pressure of living up to some externally imposed mystery meaning.

Years later I discovered nihilists and was genuinely shocked at how depressed they seemed to get about it.

This made me laugh like an idiot, for ages. I still chuckle occasionally. I maintain - Nihilism is a perfectly valid model but most self proclaimed nihilists are doing it wrong

[LMNO]

I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

Possibly:

The Absurdist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... but you can try and in trying there may be value/purpose that you have personally created for yourself."

The Nihilist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... rearranging/remolding etc is a waste of time and a fool's errand."

At a meta view, certainly both positions are based on the perceptions of the 'prisoner' and what they can see from their BiP. That is, its part of their BiP to think that remodeling is or is not useful.

IMO, this is a good example of the difference between 'constraints' and 'prison' in my view. That is, the nihilist seems to be in a prison that he cannot change, because he believes he cannot (shades of Nopants, ITT). However, the Absurdist is not imprisoned in a system that cannot be changed, rather he can manipulate it and have fun on the way (Submarines, Spaceships, GSP etc). Both are still confined to experience reality through filters and constraints... one just manipulates it for fun, while the other sits on the prison floor masturbating over the emoness of it all. 

[Cain]

I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

Possibly:

The Absurdist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... but you can try and in trying there may be value/purpose that you have personally created for yourself."

The Nihilist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... rearranging/remolding etc is a waste of time and a fool's errand."

At a meta view, certainly both positions are based on the perceptions of the 'prisoner' and what they can see from their BiP. That is, its part of their BiP to think that remodeling is or is not useful.

IMO, this is a good example of the difference between 'constraints' and 'prison' in my view. That is, the nihilist seems to be in a prison that he cannot change, because he believes he cannot (shades of Nopants, ITT). However, the Absurdist is not imprisoned in a system that cannot be changed, rather he can manipulate it and have fun on the way (Submarines, Spaceships, GSP etc). Both are still confined to experience reality through filters and constraints... one just manipulates it for fun, while the other sits on the prison floor masturbating over the emoness of it all.  

This is not nihilism - it's most primates reaction to the nihilistic principle

Nihilism ends at meaninglessness.

Weeping like a little biotch is what happens when a whiny fucing pussy discovers nihilism and it sometimes leads to suicide and this is as good for the gene pool as it is amusing to behold.

Laughing and feeling like that's a load off your mind and feeling generally liberated is how a proper person adopts nihilism. How many of those have you met?

So there's my point - most nihilists are doing it wrong

[Iason Ouabache]

In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think it might work better in a fictional format.

I thought that that was the plan in the first place.

That was one of the options I considered, yes.

Also, nihilism, as a possible (if unintended) outcome, as shown by the discussion between Net and Cram and Iason.

IMHO, anyone who ends up at nihilism because of Discordianism is missing the point but we can run with that if it makes the plot more interesting.

Maybe this will help http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction

I'll see if I can find more examples.

I thought that this sentence was especially helpful: "Deconstructions are about playing things extremely straight, often pointing out how bad (or possibly not so bad) things are if they were real."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that in a Discordian world, everything would keep on going.

What is a Discordian world? You need the Hodge to balance the Podge, right? And both are equally Discordian, right?

After all, remember the Law of Eristic Escalation, and also remember that the opposite is also true.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

This is why I've always felt that TFYS and KYFMS go hand in hand.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Sudden (somewhat related) thought - Discordianism might benefit from a martyr, like all the proper religions have.

Someone who thought for him/herself but didn't account for the (very real) danger that acting this way would put them in from society at large

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

Also, P3nT I think Absurdism and Nihilism get mix/mashed in most western thinking.
Excellent point!

Realist Anarchism states that the Individual is free, but understands they live in a non-free system. They choose to obey the laws of the system, until they law conflicts with their desire. Then they do a risk analysis on what's more important, their desire, or the risk of punishment. Absurdism seems similar, if we use the BiP metaphor.

The awakened Black Iron Prisoner knows that they can change the bars and bricks at will, but understands that there are consequences tied to those modifications. A consequence of me abandoning "the Truth", was an aversion to the concept of truth. A consequence of abandoning a bar that society demands, might be incarceration.  However, in some cases the consequence may be worth it... the action may cost a lot, but that cost may be justifiable for some people.

Society leaves a lot for us to "change" in our Prison, religion, philosophy, kinds of data you decide to process etc. Society also has some hard core bars, like 'If its under 16 you can't fuck it'. This is interesting because there are multiple ways one could change such a bar... the individual could just engage in underage sex... and face the consequences of prison, being labeled a sex offender etc. Or, a person could philosophically remove the bar, without acting on it... like Uncle BadTouch, for example. He too faces consequences for changing that bar/brick. That is, it provides a label for people to attach to him without knowing anything else about the guy. Maybe for him, the freedom of thought is worth the consequence of being outcast by his tribe. I think that nothing Uncle BadTouch says would be accepted here... even if it had nothing to do with sex or Really Real Discordians. If Uncle BadTouch were to post here like most of us, the name would still attach to the label "He broke that BAR of the Prison!!!" and the opinion of him, the value of his comments would be nullified.

Thats a high cost for a minor modification to one's Prison... I dunno if it was worth it to him or not. It wouldn't be worth it to me, even though I agree that arbitrary age isn't a good way to define anything about the maturity of humans... it may be the only way to do it within a system but its not something I feel strongly enough about to face consequences for, so the bar remains.

[Roaring Biscuit!]

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21108.msg713597#new

a start... maybe?  I'm not best pleased with it, but its mostly just for the general idea i think.

started in a different thread becasue I thought i'd leave this thread for the development of themes rather than discussion of actual works...

x

[The Wizard]

a start... maybe?  I'm not best pleased with it, but its mostly just for the general idea i think.

started in a different thread becasue I thought i'd leave this thread for the development of themes rather than discussion of actual works...

Read it. Liked it.

[Kai]

I think we need to get away from the idea of a discordian world. The Watchman wasn't a world for superheros, it was a world that /contained/ superheros, heros that were the ultimate conclusion of all the masked hero archetypes (the patriot, the detective, the atomic man, the heroine, the genius, the inventor) and the deconstructions thereof. They CHANGED the world by being present in it, but it was still more or less our world.

[The Wizard]

So how would people react to a Discordian state?

[Arafelis]

I think we need to get away from the idea of a discordian world.

Agreed.  Sort of.  I think there's too much focus on that concept, at least, especially compared to how much we would actually get out of it.

Keep in mind that some of Moore's other works deconstructed the superhero in other ways.  Take Supreme, for instance.