Why I throw apples.

[Pæs]

(Might edit this later, so don't be surprised if it changes. I'm too tired to re-read it properly and make sure it says what I want it to say, but I'ma post it anyway.)

We have been criticised; it is said that we are unkind. It is said that we crash parties just to harass the guests and make a nuisance of ourselves. It is said that we dedicate ourselves entirely to causing upset amongst people who are otherwise quite content.

Our Lady was often misunderstood in this way. Eris wasn't invited to parties for fears she might offend the guests' delicate sensibilities. That simply by being present at a wedding feast, she might motivate the celebrated couple to prematurely split. They called her cruel and bitter. She's portrayed as being some sort of malicious shit-stirrer, rocking up to a party she had no business being at and starting the bitch-fight that resulted in the Trojan War, just for kicks. Upset at being snubbed, they say, she hatched this devious little plan to get her revenge. Strife, abhorred Eris, mother to murders and lawlessness, to pain and to ruin... got her revenge by rolling in a note which read:

You are now aware that only one of you can be the prettiest.
   Love, Eris.

PS: Your party is gay.

This is the ancient equivalent of a "kick me" sign taped to your back. Oh, no. I doubt this was an enraged Eris acting out of anger at a perceived insult. If you insult Eris, I'm pretty sure you know all about it.

Thing is, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, the three who quarrelled over the apple, had some issues they needed to resolve. Each of them felt they had a claim to being called "the fairest of them all" and assumed it was well-known that they held the title. They were so confident in this being common knowledge, in fact, that none of them ever thought it worth mentioning to the others. They never directly acknowledged it, but the belief subtly influenced their every interaction.  Similarly undetected by the conscious minds of these women was their own resentment of the way the others carried themselves. Too proud to consider their own jealousy, each of the Goddesses went about their business growing increasingly short with each other, but barely aware of change in their relationships and even less cognisant of the reason it was changing.

Eris, though... Eris could smell bullshit from a mile away. She didn't just apply Strife to whatever the fuck she liked to see what impact it would have. Eris had a pretty solid understanding of how and where to push and which bits would fall off. She knew how each of these women secretly viewed the others and of what would happen if things were allowed to continue to deteriorate. In all probability, the end result of an uncontrolled confrontation between these Goddesses would have been immanentization of the eschaton. Not the "everybody meets again in Heaven" eschaton, either. We're talking "Aneris swallows up all of being, curtains close, maximum entropy" kind of end-of-the-world. No fucking way was Eris going to let her sister win like that.

With a targeted application of a specific kind of Strife, Eris forced the other Goddesses to confront the lies they were telling themselves to support the narratives they lived by. She forced the following discussion of the issue, which led to arbitration and reconciliation. That Zeus chose a fucking stupid method of choosing a winner – "Oh, this dude is pretty fair. He didn't try to cheat Ares, at least." – can't really be blamed on Eris at all. Like Partyboy Zeus or Aphro-fucking-dite didn't know that given a choice between ANYTHING and an easy lay, most guys aren't going to have to think long. Eris didn't force you do kidnap the wife of Menelaus, guys. What she did force them to do, however, was to address reality and update their understanding of it. The Goddesses could no longer disregard the fact that there was unvoiced conflict between them, and it was addressed before it caused further issue.

Many situations can benefit from having a Golden Apple tossed into them. Boring parties, online echo-chambers, gatherings of misinformed memoids and perhaps most importantly, the dialogue between the voices and beliefs within your own head.
Application of Strife to these situations works much the same as tugging on a rope to test whether it can take your weight before fully committing yourself to it. We see if things will break before we fully link our safety to their integrity.

The Discordian Apple-Lobber is a member of reality's Attentive Public. Much in the same way that the Mass Public of politics are unqualified to make serious decisions regarding their leaders, the Mass Public of reality cannot be trusted to decide how we relate to it, because they do not live there with us. By increasing the awareness of our fellows, and encouraging their rationality, we increase the voices we can trust to inform us about reality. The word of a member of reality's Attentive Public is fully entangled with reality, and so counts as evidence of the nature of things on its own.

I throw apples because successfully alerting people to the ways in which misinformation hinders them encourages a rational relationship with reality, and the further rationality spreads, the more eyes I have upon the world.

I throw apples because I want to create a botnet of truth seekers, because the totality of existence is too big for me to understand alone.

Sometimes throwing apples appears unkind. Sometimes it seems as if I'm crashing parties just to harass the guests and make a nuisance of myself.

Our Lady, too, was often misunderstood in this way.

[Pinprop]

That Eris myth is missing the part where the goddesses learn to recognize the unconscious cause of their dispute. Throwing apples I think often has the effect of pissing people off and just making them draw deeper into their shell, if you throw too hard anyway. Particularly stupid people probably aren't going to learn anything if you offend them too much, they're going to entrench themselves deeper into their current position, unless you do something really clever that upsets their belief patterns without offending them personally. Although, I guess almost anything will make them do that.

You know, that sounds kinda stupid, and impossible, now. I don't know any people that believe things who don't equate those beliefs with themselves, in fact building an identity seems to be the entire reason people have beliefs.
Okay I guess my point is if you throw the apples too hard your only excuse is fun (not that there's anything wrong with that)

[Doktor Howl]

That Eris myth is missing the part where the goddesses learn to recognize the unconscious cause of their dispute. Throwing apples I think often has the effect of pissing people off and just making them draw deeper into their shell, if you throw too hard anyway. Particularly stupid people probably aren't going to learn anything if you offend them too much, they're going to entrench themselves deeper into their current position, unless you do something really clever that upsets their belief patterns without offending them personally. Although, I guess almost anything will make them do that.

You know, that sounds kinda stupid, and impossible, now. I don't know any people that believe things who don't equate those beliefs with themselves, in fact building an identity seems to be the entire reason people have beliefs.
Okay I guess my point is if you throw the apples too hard your only excuse is fun (not that there's anything wrong with that)

Fun is its own justification.  It is not a means, but an end.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Props to the OP, I liked it.

[Hoser McRhizzy]

OP is entirely deserving of

What she did force them to do, however, was to address reality and update their understanding of it. The Goddesses could no longer disregard the fact that there was unvoiced conflict between them, and it was addressed before it caused further issue.

I'll probably out myself again as not really discordian here, but I'd really never thought about it this way before.

Also, welcome Pinprop.   Thinking about your "stupid people just get angry" point brought two quotes to mind - "The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye.  The more light you shine on it, the more it contracts."  That, and "There are certain people you should want to offend."  Which boils down to "Yes. What Dok said."

[Pæs]

I think I took some away from the main idea in there by poorly explaining my take on the judgment of Paris, but I'm not going to edit this like I said I might, I'll just come at it from another angle later.

[Epimetheus]

That Eris myth is missing the part where the goddesses learn to recognize the unconscious cause of their dispute. Throwing apples I think often has the effect of pissing people off and just making them draw deeper into their shell, if you throw too hard anyway. Particularly stupid people probably aren't going to learn anything if you offend them too much, they're going to entrench themselves deeper into their current position, unless you do something really clever that upsets their belief patterns without offending them personally. Although, I guess almost anything will make them do that.

You know, that sounds kinda stupid, and impossible, now. I don't know any people that believe things who don't equate those beliefs with themselves, in fact building an identity seems to be the entire reason people have beliefs.
Okay I guess my point is if you throw the apples too hard your only excuse is fun (not that there's anything wrong with that)

When people just won't learn to laugh with us, the only thing left is to laugh at them.