Creation vs Destruction: FIGHT!

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I dunno about a balance... more just having both options available to use when they're useful. It seems like asking if you prefer the jackhammer or the carpenter's hammer. They're both hammers, but they don't do each others job very well at all. A Jackhammer mostly destroys, a carpenter's hammer mostly creates... but the skilled monkey uses the right one for the job.

[LMNO]

They also emotionally charged the terms of "Creative" and "Destructive".

Before they even built the chart, they had already decided that Creative = Good, and Destructive = Bad.

well yes, because they were using the chart to explain their point of view. They wanted to complicate the traditional good/bad dichotomy by overlaying a new dichotomy on top of it.


My question is not about the meaning of creation and destruction or the "reality" of that dichotomy, so much as why they / you would pick one over the other. Is striving for a personal balance between the two really desirable?

I dunno about a balance... more just having both options available to use when they're useful. It seems like asking if you prefer the jackhammer or the carpenter's hammer. They're both hammers, but they don't do each others job very well at all. A Jackhammer mostly destroys, a carpenter's hammer mostly creates... but the skilled monkey uses the right one for the job.

More like do you prefer the hammer or the nail.

In the way I view things (as explained above), creation and destruction are intertwined.  You can't "choose" one over the other, because they are invariably occuring at the same time.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

They also emotionally charged the terms of "Creative" and "Destructive".

Before they even built the chart, they had already decided that Creative = Good, and Destructive = Bad.

well yes, because they were using the chart to explain their point of view. They wanted to complicate the traditional good/bad dichotomy by overlaying a new dichotomy on top of it.


My question is not about the meaning of creation and destruction or the "reality" of that dichotomy, so much as why they / you would pick one over the other. Is striving for a personal balance between the two really desirable?

I dunno about a balance... more just having both options available to use when they're useful. It seems like asking if you prefer the jackhammer or the carpenter's hammer. They're both hammers, but they don't do each others job very well at all. A Jackhammer mostly destroys, a carpenter's hammer mostly creates... but the skilled monkey uses the right one for the job.

More like do you prefer the hammer or the nail.

In the way I view things (as explained above), creation and destruction are intertwined.  You can't "choose" one over the other, because they are invariably occuring at the same time.

The nail is destroying wood while the hammer is creating a bookshelf... I like it.

[Cramulus]

why do you think POEE embraces the creative trip over the destructive trip?

[LMNO]

Hippies.  Acid.  Positive thinking.  Cartesian duality.












Honestly, I don't believe they thought it all the way through, or hadn't taken the time to apply everything in the PD to everything else in the PD.  They stress "NO EITHER/OR!" for a good chunk of the book, but then fall straight into Aristotle when it comes to Creation and Destruction.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Hippies.  Acid.  Positive thinking.  Cartesian duality.












Honestly, I don't believe they thought it all the way through, or hadn't taken the time to apply everything in the PD to everything else in the PD.  They stress "NO EITHER/OR!" for a good chunk of the book, but then fall straight into Aristotle when it comes to Creation and Destruction.

Also, a lot of the stuff in the PD came from various sources, not just Mal-2 and Omar... Who wrote this piece? I dunno.

Too, I think that its focusing on a very limited, hippielike application of the terms destruction and creation, where Destruction = Harming otherwise useful stuff, rather than destruction having potentially useful connotations.

[Cramulus]

LMNO has already established that he believes it to be a false dichotomy. And perhaps I've been unclear, but this is not really what I'm asking. "Use both trips as needed" is also good advice, but also seems disconnected from the question.

I'm assuming that Mal and Omar had some reason for devoting a whole page to encourage the creative over the destructive trip beyond "being hippies" or "not thinking it through".

What are the reasons for following one trip and not the other?

[LMNO]

Well, if you take their definitions as evidence of their mind state, they considered Creative to be Good and Destructive to be bad.

Naturally, most people want to be Good.

To be honest, they seemed to be more interested in showing that Disorder could be beneficial.

The original grid is built to show a "good/bad" split, and then overlaying a "Order/Disorder" test.  The purpose is to show that Destructive Disorder is Bad, but Constructive Disorder is Good, so we shouldn't be afraid of Disorder.

Because they were more concerned with Order/Disorder, they ran with the Constructive/Destructive split as a priori.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

If we consider the question to be one 'trip' or the other... then it precludes being able to select both.

Thus we could say "which do you want your trip to be focused on?" Generally speaking, although both Creative and Destructive tools are necessary, our trip might be labeled as one or the other based on the overall ratio of destructive things vs creative ones.

If someone is primarily using the destructive paradigm, they could be said to be on a Destructive Trip, even if they also create sometimes (see GW Bush's presidency).

If someone is primarily using the creative paradigm, the could be said to be on a Creative Trip, even though they will invariably destroy some things.

Perhaps the encouragement is to choose a creative trip over a destructive trip, not creative tools over destructive ones. Maybe its about the focus, rather than all individual actions?

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm assuming that Mal and Omar had some reason for devoting a whole page to encourage the creative over the destructive trip beyond "being hippies" or "not thinking it through".

I don't mean this to be snarky, but I'm honestly not sure that's a valid assumption.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'm assuming that Mal and Omar had some reason for devoting a whole page to encourage the creative over the destructive trip beyond "being hippies" or "not thinking it through".

I don't mean this to be snarky, but I'm honestly not sure that's a valid assumption.

Well, there's some truth to that...

[LMNO]

Thinking about it from a slightly different angle, but keeping my previous idea...

when introducing a concept to someone for the first time, you need to keep any distractions to one side, and stress your main point as hard as you can.

For the Principia, that main point (or at least one of them) was that too much Order can be a bad thing, and embracing Disorder can be a good thing.

To that end, you don't want to add further details and say, "incidentally, Creation and Destruction are the same thing," because that would be distracting.

So, they accepted some ham-handedness and some artificial duality, in order (hah!) to get their main point across.

[Telarus]

If we consider the question to be one 'trip' or the other... then it precludes being able to select both.

Thus we could say "which do you want your trip to be focused on?" Generally speaking, although both Creative and Destructive tools are necessary, our trip might be labeled as one or the other based on the overall ratio of destructive things vs creative ones.

If someone is primarily using the destructive paradigm, they could be said to be on a Destructive Trip, even if they also create sometimes (see GW Bush's presidency).

If someone is primarily using the creative paradigm, the could be said to be on a Creative Trip, even though they will invariably destroy some things.

Perhaps the encouragement is to choose a creative trip over a destructive trip, not creative tools over destructive ones. Maybe its about the focus, rather than all individual actions?

I'm leaning towards Cram's view here. I think most of you are over simplifying the author's positions based on one page out of context from the rest.

Being on a "Creative Trip" doesn't mean you ignore destruction. It means you use destruction for your CREATIVE TRIP.

Likewise, being on a 'Destructive Trip" doesn't mean you ignore creation. It means you use creation to further your DESTRUCTIVE TRIP

(example, Predator Drones are sure a nifty NEW invention, ain't they? Somebody had to get "Creative" to come up with the idea, but as soon as it was created it was bent to the Destructive Trip our nation finds itself in.)

I think the conversation so far has focused too much on ACTS of Creation/Destruction, but I really think this page talks more about Motivation. (Compare the discussion on pg 61, "On Occultism")

Still reading....

[Telarus]

Thinking about it from a slightly different angle, but keeping my previous idea...

when introducing a concept to someone for the first time, you need to keep any distractions to one side, and stress your main point as hard as you can.

For the Principia, that main point (or at least one of them) was that too much Order can be a bad thing, and embracing Disorder can be a good thing.

To that end, you don't want to add further details and say, "incidentally, Creation and Destruction are the same thing," because that would be distracting.

So, they accepted some ham-handedness and some artificial duality, in order (hah!) to get their main point across.

Agreed. And considering how layered the PD is, that it's setup to have unfolding layers of revelations, once one groks the Creative/Destructive Trip choice, they should be able to apply the Eristic/Aneristic Illusion lessons to the concept and COME UP WITH THEIR OWN CONCLUSION.

I do like hashing these thing out with you spags, tho ^__^.

[President Television]

Thinking about it from a slightly different angle, but keeping my previous idea...

when introducing a concept to someone for the first time, you need to keep any distractions to one side, and stress your main point as hard as you can.

For the Principia, that main point (or at least one of them) was that too much Order can be a bad thing, and embracing Disorder can be a good thing.

To that end, you don't want to add further details and say, "incidentally, Creation and Destruction are the same thing," because that would be distracting.

So, they accepted some ham-handedness and some artificial duality, in order (hah!) to get their main point across.

I was going to say this before I read your post, but you said it better than I could have anyway. I don't think the PD should ever be considered an ultimate authority on Discordianism or an infallible font of wisdom. Doing so runs against everything our little religion/joke is supposed to represent (to some of us, anyway) and brings us dangerously close to the faults we find in mainstream religions. The book is nothing more than a guide and introduction to the general idea that disorder isn't always a bad thing, and what's more, we can't assume that the various authors possessed perfect wisdom and knowledge of Chaos. As a matter of fact, I'd say that they most certainly didn't.

In any case, it strikes me as an incredibly foolish idea to take the material in the book any more seriously than a set of thought-provoking memes.