I am not the counterculture.

[Pæs]

Updated. Original for comparison: http://pastebin.com/Vaipdg9A

I am not the fucking Counterculture™.

Rejection of elements of The Mainstream™ does not require acceptance of their exact opposites. Shocking, I know... but I've found a way to process reality without breaking everything into binaries. That your counterculture doesn't include a rejection of the assumption that polarising issues is the best way to understand them suggests to me that your "anti-mainstream" doesn't do what it says on the box. It seems a very superficial rebellion, built on the framework of the existing system, only refusing to conform where it is safe and otherwise leaving it untouched.

That communities cannot exist without some form of social hierarchy, I have accepted. My brain is wired for that. It's not a bug, it's a feature... but I can choose the kind of hierarchy I want the apemeat in my head to recognise. The Mainstream™ and the Counterculture™ (which defines itself in terms of the mainstream) recognise hierachies that I cannot bring myself to care about my natural place on. I think that one of the reasons for this is how easy it is to buy a social status upgrade. I get a nice car; +1 to Mainstream Status. I grow dreadlocks; +1 to Counterculture Status. Fixed gear bike. Big-screen TV. Smartphone. FairTrade Tibetan clothing. I can exchange my currency for the unearned respect of my peers. But fuck those people. I'm not restricted to their unconscious deference or petulant dominance-asserting rejection of one set of rules to convince my brain to reward me with the warm fuzzies.

So just because I identify as a Discordian doesn't mean that I'm going to jump at the chance to attend your anarchist circlejerk, agree with blanket disagreements with the government or dismiss things that other people liked just because other people liked them. That's nonsense. Once you recognise these systems, conforming to them no longer does you any good anyway, because your submission to them is so transparent as to negate the rewards.

I still like the warm fuzzies, though, so I need a way to tell myself that I'm making progress.

Being a Discordian, to me, is being a member of the metaculture.

We are a community who respects the understanding of our primate functions and manipulation of the bizarre rulesets that emerge from these. When it's useful, we can forge social status though our awareness of the values of the groups we find ourselves in. Ideally, this would be the full extent of our observance of these damned monkey value systems. The primary hierarchy we recognise and expect to be rewarded for progressing through is based on the knowledge of how we relate to these systems and their inhabitants. Those who better understand these relationships are more valuable to our group.

I find that this is a far healthier method of status-seeking. When we approach conflict from this perspective, neither side benefits from misrepresenting the facts to support their position because being honest is seen as more important than being right. Being willing to respond to new evidence isn't seen as submission to the person presenting this information, it's commendable and a boost to your status to acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them.

But we're social mammals too. Sometimes it seems nice to think that in our superiority we have entirely exorcised the phantom of status-seeking outside of our specific specialisation, but it's more of a work in progress. It's a constant effort to maintain. Sometimes the primate brain screams "ASSERT YOUR DOMINANCE" with the full force of any other mammal's will to survive and (often without being conscious of our folly) we lose our shit because to this apemeat that governs us, failing to do so is a threat to our survival.

And we do it because we're good at it. This understanding of the rules, for example, gives me a unique opportunity to condescendingly highlight the dominance-seeking of others while masking my own. I know that this is posturing and if I catch it consciously, I aim to avoid it, but there are very real neural connections which have been reinforced by years of experience in successfully using this strategy of intellectual oppression. Why change what works? The simpler brain has difficulty recognising the value of these abstract truth-seeking ideals.

None of us is a Discordian bodhisattva. At least, not in the sense that we have entirely mastered our animal brains with clever abstractions... but that's not what it means to grok Discordianism. We're talking about Chaos, for fuck's sake. You'll find no Ultimate Serenity, nor Oneness, nor True Peace. Life isn't so tidy as all of that. So sometimes we scream, shout and throw things about. We make a mess and we get in amongst it.

Why not? If a thing like this is worth doing at all, it's worth doing right.

Or Kill Me.

[Luna]

Good stuff, this.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like this.

[Freeky]

Yeah, that was really good. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

PREACH IT, PAES!

[Phox]

Paes... WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING AWESOME? Seriously.

[Pæs]

 

Mostly I'm just spitting out the same theme with a few variations, while I process "I, Mammal".
It still needs styling because I feel like I'm JUST SAYING all of the above.

[LMNO]

I nominate this for the BIP wiki. It has a heavy value of Truth.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

Mostly I'm just spitting out the same theme with a few variations, while I process "I, Mammal".
It still needs styling because I feel like I'm JUST SAYING all of the above.

I'm also reading that book.  I thought I recognized a few familiar themes in there.

Good rant.  +1 to your Discordian status.

[Chairman Risus]

You're not going to be wearing the opponent's colors: just because you aren't on their side doesn't mean you aren't playing their game.
You don't have to pick a team, is what you realize. It's your moment to forget the uniform and streak across the field, if you want.
It's the position you stand where when the fat man starts to lean, you don't have the one pushing back, you can just let the fucker fall.
It's a way of getting out of the foot traffic and cutting across to get where you're going, untying yourself from the line that you would have to tow along behind you, the one eventually gets tangled up, trips you up and drags you down away from where you're trying to go.
Fuckit. Forsake flags and parties. They all have their own baggage, and none of them mean you.

[Pæs]

I think the part that I'm missing is actually more criticism of our community because I'm sure we DO act like apes in a way which isn't so useful. Some of it is conscious monkey business because fuck it we're having fun, but there's some less intentional influence from the apemeat in our skulls that I intended to put in the rant but which never found its way out.

[Phox]

I think the part that I'm missing is actually more criticism of our community because I'm sure we DO act like apes in a way which isn't so useful. Some of it is conscious monkey business because fuck it we're having fun, but there's some less intentional influence from the apemeat in our skulls that I intended to put in the rant but which never found its way out.

Isn't that typical though? It's hard to criticize yourself. And even harder to criticize people whom you respect and/or look up to. And that's the point though. We aren't any beter than the rest of the monkeys. We're just a different kind of stupid. I am not sure how quite to elaborate right now.

[Pæs]

I think the part that I'm missing is actually more criticism of our community because I'm sure we DO act like apes in a way which isn't so useful. Some of it is conscious monkey business because fuck it we're having fun, but there's some less intentional influence from the apemeat in our skulls that I intended to put in the rant but which never found its way out.

Isn't that typical though? It's hard to criticize yourself. And even harder to criticize people whom you respect and/or look up to. And that's the point though. We aren't any beter than the rest of the monkeys. We're just a different kind of stupid. I am not sure how quite to elaborate right now.

Yeah, I thought when I started writing it that I had some way to express a few observations about us but I lost hold of it before I got to the part where it was relevant to the piece.

[Triple Zero]

I nominate this for the BIP wiki. It has a heavy value of Truth.

Good idea, more stuff should be added there anyway, things hardly need a nomination btw, just go there and edit/add. Who's gonna do it? Paes/LMNO you both got an account there right?

[LMNO]

I don't know how to do that shit.  I'm a cranky old man.