Rant 65: Acceptable Levels of...

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 65
Acceptable Levels of,Ķ

,ÄúAt every stage there is revealed the working of the vile maxim of the masters of mankind-,ÄúAll for ourselves and nothing for other people.,Äù
-Adam Smith (a philosopher and critic of early capitalism)

,ÄúAll moral culture springs solely and immediately from the inner life of the soul, and can only be stimulated in human nature, and never produced by external and artificial contrivances.,Äù
-Wilhelm von Humboldt

,ÄúOverthrow the rich man and you will not find a poor man,Ķfor the few rich are the cause of the many poor.,Äù
-the ,ÄòSicilian Briton,Äô (from the 5th century Tractatus de Divitiis)

,ÄúYou cannot force people to obey by violence, as the Soviet system tried to do. So you need systems of indoctrination to ensure that they agree to what the ruling groups want to do.,Äù
-Noam Chomsky (speaking about the American system)

We are so heavily alienated from even the thought of real freedom that the way we use language precludes any discourse about it, except via properly indoctrinated channels of ideology which lead us to support the idea that we need to maintain the current power structure (a.k.a. ,Äòthe economy,Äô, etc.), despite any changes we may wish to make to its appearance. We can,Äôt even conceive of the possibility of real freedom anymore in any meaningful or hopeful sense unless we free our minds of such drivel. Discordianism may be here to help you do so. The only thing you need decide for yourself, if such a thing need be decided, is how much drivel you are willing to put up with before you decide to start looking around for yourself at what the fuck is really going on.

Never mind all that drivel from around you in the form of the media and the zombie-like repetitions spouted by many people who consider themselves to be ,Äòwell informed,Äô simply because of their propensity to memorize large amounts of so-called (and alleged) ,Äòfacts,Äô, carry them around, and repeat them to anyone who listens. Never mind even the drivel you have running around and amok inside your own mind that seduces you into thinking that the idea of freedom and of free thought is ,Äòtoo much effort,Äô to be any realistic,Ñ¢ good. Discordianism may be here to help you get over all of that, if you let it,Äîin as much as it can be said to be allowed to do anything. And I want you to know that we (as opposed to THEM) will help you in any we know how,Äîsome ways which you may find, at first, objectionable.

If the issue is what you may find acceptable, then, of course, you may find yourself disappointed in Discordianism, because ,Äòacceptability,Äô,Äîat least in the common sense of the word,Äîis not what it aims for. Discordianism, if it can even be said to be aiming for anything, aims at the radical liberation of the mind in the possible hope that such an event will catalyze a person into living with free will,Äîdespite all the intellectual territorial pissing contests about free will verses predestination/determinism. (Some of you may object to my claim about Discordianism,Äôs emphasis and cultivation of free will. But I am not hiding my bias at all. I think that free will is the basis of Discordianism, in as much as I am influenced by the ideas and practices of Discordia, the radical libertarians of the Enlightenment period, and the long line of Celtic thinkers who defended the ancient druidic, and therefore native, Celtic conceptions of free will through the centuries until now.) Discordia/Eris, doesn,Äôt care for ,Äòacceptability,Äô in as much as that common sense meaning of the word implies an externally based judgment/value system. Discordia cares more for the fully developed, creative, and free-willed person, if such a thing could be said. Whereas many of the modern occult systems have used combinations of the terror reflex and the Eros-ecstatic reflex to imprint this radical notion upon adherents (or at least that,Äôs what is supposed to happen), Discordianism focuses primarily on laughter, surrealist thoughts, and absurdities to expand minds until adherents are able to perceive both the freedom of thought and the creativity through which they have really generated their views and ideas about themselves and their world. (Note: My use of the word ,Äòadherent,Äô doesn,Äôt imply that I am calling anybody names or anything.) Thus Discordianism gets people to be able to form their own versions about how they will see the world regardless of what the experts of society tell us. Free will becomes the validation upon which a creative life grows. (This is opposed to the current popular idea in Global Society that validation comes from the proper acquisition of material or intellectual status and recognition.)

This ,Äòfree will,Äô seems harmless, but it has been viciously attacked and prohibited wherever it became expressed in social and economic practice, by leftists, rightists, and ,Äòcentrists,Äô. (One need only consult a few of the many historical examples of this, such as: Lenin and the Bolshevik Party,Äôs hijacking of the Russian Revolution in which developing revolutionary communities based on free will and free association were smashed or subverted to serve the interests of the emerging powers of the Bolshevik State. Lenin mistrusted such ,Äòfreedom,Äô, seeing it as counterproductive to the goals of his elitist ,ÄòVanguard Party,Äô in which only the properly trained ,Äòmandarins,Äô of revolutionary thought could lead the people, instead of the more rational (and therefore denounced as ,Äòutopian,Äô) idea that the people can lead themselves. A lot of the ,Äòrevolutionary violence,Äô that occurred in the years after the Bolshevik State,Äôs consolidation of power was in response to the libertarian socialist resistance to that State. See the writings of Makhnov for some of the particulars and make up your own damned mind.) The particular problems of the American corporate-controlled State can be mirrored in the above parenthetical discussion of Lenin. An elite group of highly trained intellectuals is rewarded for following and defending what is considered the proper canon of ,Äòdemocratic,Äô philosophy and practice. Such intellectuals will denounce as absurd any ideas that call themselves and their masters into question. The media is saturated with the over-class,Äôs biases and ideals to the point where they can be masqueraded as free and objective. And questioning the values or judgments of such ,Äòexperts,Äô is itself seen as ,Äòabsurd,Äô or is known by that dirty word ,Äòextremist,Äô. No one ever bothers to think about how fanatical the official experts,Äô opinions can be.

Such experts, or ,Äòmandarins,Äô (or ,Äòcommissars,Äô as they were known in Lenin,Äôs Russia), have as their main job to alienate you from the idea that you yourself can define the criteria of your own existence. They also alienate you from the idea that you can make informed opinions about the world and society around you on your own, without recourse to officially accepted thoughts. They get you to unthinkingly accept the several choices they have prefabricated for you and then you believe you are free because you were at least given a choice. In a twisted way, this goes to show that the ,Äòpen is mightier than the sword,Äô. (Especially the pen that is backed up by State-Corporate power.) This also largely mirrors what happened with religion in that an original impulse within human beings to seek connection with the universe was hijacked by official scribes, priests, and scholars to the authority of the so-called Divinely Inspired who sought to control that native human impulse to further increase their own levels of power. Once such religious authorities gain political, social, and economic power, they can then back up their claims of Divinely Inspired Rule through the use of physical force against persons and property and the use of spiritual threats against the embodied sanity of one,Äôs soul. One can also find this sickening way of control paralleled in many of the modern ideas of Psychology and therapy, but not all.

How much of this are you willing to put up with? How much of this are you even willing to investigate on your own? Don,Äôt take my word for it. Learn for yourselves if there is any validity or truth to what I am saying. (At least I will not try to masquerade myself off as an ,Äòobjective truth teller,Äô. My biases and influences are clearly exposed and I will be the first to admit that they are my own.) Come to your own knowledge of it. And please disagree. Remember that the forums are always open for discussion in the limitless skies of free thought. Discordia/Eris has told you that you are free. But learn this for yourselves.

All Hail Discordia!

[presented at the first annual Discordians for Softer Sandpaper Society,Äôs symposium on libertarian thought]

(Bureaucracy 20th, 3170)