AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DICTATOR OF THIS JOINT

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Dear ECH,

You claim to mock elitism, while representing a clique based on intellectual superiority, paradigm dominance, and spiteful stereotypes of a number of groups in our society.  The justification for this is that your club "could, and should," include just about everyone; it's only a few sad cases that could never make it to your level of realness.  Apparently, some people - YOU - are just too dense to realize that fascist materialism is the definitive religion of the next millennium.

You assume that your cleverness is an indicator of understanding.  You believe that there are two extremes for how people go about life:  one can be smug, clever, and strong, or alienated by a pathetic insistence on pursuing "insignificant" questions.  You know who else did that?  Yeah.  HITLER.

You follow an actual pseudo-religion based on finding targets for mockery in any non-materialistic paradigms. You run these attributes through your propaganda machine, and the end result is a brilliant job of spin-doctoring designed to give people simplistic, pigeonholing beliefs about everyone who doesn't follow your own brand of Western Materialism.  This ongoing cultural narrative presents the selected attributes as a single stereotype, disregarding any diversity in the belief systems you attack. Most of your followers are smart enough to know that all of this is happening, but are also self-deceptive enough to think that all of this doesn't taint the ideal of honesty guiding your so-called "culture".

You mock cultish societies and beliefs, yet you: 

1) Immerse yourselves in an environment of people who constantly affirm each other's acceptance of Discordian dogma.  JUST LIKE POL POT.

2) Orient all of your thoughts about certain subjects toward bolstering basic tenets. Your drooling, fanatical followers seem to believe that they've come upon this "truth" collectively, when the fact of the matter is that the basic opinions are handed down a pyramid by YOU, who claims to know what "We" all think.  You might consider reexamining the word "They."

3) Mock others' lack of objectivity, but assume that you've hit upon a multitude of Ultimate Truths about everything from society and political ideals to the nature of reality.  Your culture's emphasis on not questioning these meta-narratives is largely justified by the belief that you "don't follow any religion." Oh no, you just agree on certain non-Truths that would be obvious to anyone with a normally-functioning brain.  Which leaves out the various devotees and hangers-on that listen to your every booze-addled gasp between bouts of vomiting that passes for your "words".

It probably wouldn't do any good for me to point out that enough non-truths about religious subjects form a solid, almost fundamentalist foundation for how you view human existence.  As if you cared.

You consider yourselves so "real"...Yet, despite pretensions of confidence that you're strong and reasonable, you have to continually affirm the idea of your worth and righteousness.  You do this with an endless stream of spiteful talk about people who you regard as inferior to yourselves at an almost inherent level (sound familiar?).  In other words: if you're so sure of yourselves, why can't you seem to SHUT UP about it for a day or two?  Lord forbid you should stray from your internal censors without the affirmation of your peers. 

You have certain implicit beliefs which you think represent some kind of innate human wisdom; for example, "if it we feel good enough about it, there must be something real going on," or "if enough of us all agree on something at the same time, the truth of that idea is confirmed."  My own take on this is that you're pursuing an almost religious mission of perpetuating attitudes which have historically subverted objective thinking in society.  Which makes NO SENSE given your supposed mission.  Which FIGURES.

Among other people, you mock those who are openly passionate about their ideas (as opposed to your own tendency to conceal opinions in convoluted masses of self-affirming, propagandistic dialogue, like STALIN used to do).

You seem especially bent on making parodies of those who oppose the suppression of social knowledge--by institution, or simply by convention.  Maybe you do this because your own culture emulates many of the patterns through which institutions, or society, can work to subvert objective thinking.  You teach people that it's OK to bask in the feel of a "power in numbers" bully complex, that Unity excuses subordination.  Like you did to that fine Irish philosopher, IANAR, when he graciously came here to take the time to explain to you what a FASCIST MONSTER you are.

I tell ya, You People have really got the human spirit all figured out.

You frown upon taking an individualistic sense of passion and inspiration about developing one's understanding.  Instead, you emphasize an almost fascist mind-set toward forming one's beliefs and attitudes.  You attach mottos such as "No Doubt" or "Question Questioning" to what's basically in-group conformity.  Dogma by any other name is still WRONG.  You are WRONG, ECH.  BAD AND WRONG.

Your culture's unity relies heavily on antagonism toward a host of designated "enemies."  The only real difference from other warmongering is that everything is worded as an endless joke.  Other than that, you may as well be INVADING POLAND, as your malicious, sardonic wit always helps out when you feel a bit of doubt, just like the Germans probably felt.  For a minute. 

Still, you do have an underlying sense of seriousness, and a clarity of purpose, which I sort of respect, despite the slight odor of zombie-like zealousness.  Contrary to popular belief, the best kind of Zombie is the kind that really knows how to laugh...Especially when they find themselves taking an "incorrect" thought too seriously.

You set up your dialogue - internal as well as external - such that ideals of true objective thought are always cast in opposition to your lauded "real" values.  Objectivity about your own dogma is depicted as the enemy of every vague but stirring ideal from "knowing what's really what" to "being there for each other."  For some reason, I don't always see the connection; it must be because I lack the intelligence to realize how utopia can only be realized through homogenous viewpoints and immutable explanations.  In this, you are like Andrew Jackson, with the sole exception being that while he only killed PEOPLE, you kill IDEAS.

You claim that "scientific logic" forms the basis for every unequivocal statement you adhere to; you don't seem to notice that also thrown in the pot is a medley of presumptuous inferences, sweeping generalizations, and many dubiously unsupported assertions.  Your faith in the righteousness of this "logic" is closer to that of a religious zealot, who eats up any "facts" that his supposedly omniscient god throws out, than that of a true scientist.

Of course, that's not to say that you're wrong about everything.  To assume that you're "not wrong" about everything, however, doesn't quite seem to capture the essence of scientific thinking.  You must be right AND wrong to be a true scientist, and you have yet to master that way of thinking.

You work to continually downplay the impact of the beliefs which really make up your cultural paradigm.  The constant barrage of attacks on Real Discordia obscures the ways that you, ECH,  have laid out a whole world view.  The technique is simple: tell people you're not asking them to believe anything, but give them so many things not to believe that you establish a whole paradigm without ever saying any of it directly.  Discordia (by which I mean "ECH") has created a veritable religion, by leading people to put their faith in "non-beliefs" about politics, biology, the human spirit, trans-material realities, and "non-ideals" for social interaction, personal ethics, and so on.

Along the same lines, ECH uses the most extreme examples of non-materialistic philosophies, and refers only to the most outrageous kinds of people from the mystically inclined segment of society.  The fallacy here is that you connect these laughable images to everyone who falls under the non-materialist FASCIST umbrella.  Considering the diversity of beliefs among all those people, it seems that your propaganda's stereotyping is deceptive:  A Beavis and Butthead dialogue justified by your dire mission of "spreading skepticism."

It's a good thing that ECH and all his brilliant skeptics don't turn their scrutiny back on their own assumptions; they might actually doubt something.

Granted, there are a slew of flaky New Agers, Ron Paul voters, and other UFO cultists out there, but a person doesn't fall into this category simply by virtue of living in a Western country and not accepting all the materialistic notions that society expects people to follow.

Sorry, ECH; I know you have a lot invested in this stereotype, but things just aren't that simple.

Many people under the umbrella of non-materialism have gotten where they are largely because they are skeptical.  They don't buy into all the dogma of their self-stereotyping cohorts, but neither
do they accept the most widely upheld perspectives on trans-material: that it is either a pathetic fantasy, or a mysterious reality that we have to die to understand.  They aren't trying to be an alienated minority, unlike those who take pride in an elitist or martyred separation from most of society.  Take Pagans, for example.  They almost never take themselves seriously about anything.  Yet there you are, mocking their consistent and deeply-held beliefs, and furthermore, cock-blocking them when they want to share a little Universal Love with trustafarians from the local universities.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of You People, however, it is becoming impossible to be a non-materialist and have most other people respect you.  A large part of your mission, as I'm sure you know, is not only to point out the alienation of certain groups, but to actually engineer it.  You might tell yourselves that you're just helping along a natural process of "natural selection" in our society, but it's more like Manifest Destiny, isn't it?  The same sort of shit that KILLED ALL THE NATIVE AMERICANS.

Rampant stereotyping of non-materialists ensures that an increasing number of people are so biased to begin with that any sign that a person has non-materialistic beliefs will set off a buzzer in people's heads; some stereotype activates itself, and the person knows they're dealing with another "flower child" or "dangerous crackpot."  Through such machinations, groups like Discordianism protect the integrity of "Normalcy" in our society, while working to suppress any social openness to alternatives. And all in the name of getting people to see things clearly...

You define your social attitudes as the antithesis of the "hive mind" which you attribute to Discordianism, as if all it takes is caring about your friends, having a sense of humor, and having lots of fun.  All these things are great (hey, I actually like 'em too), but there is a little more to it than that.

Dogmatism takes root in associations that we form in the background, while we're doing other things. You can be a drone in a group mind at some level, while also being a happy, creative individual; it's a little trick called compartmentalizing.  It seems that a lot of people in Discordianism believe that they
can't take the best aspects of their culture - the part that encourages imagination, caring, and having fun - without also accepting a slew of other beliefs and values.  The truth is that most of the time the other stuff is only related to those core values by association; you don't need one to have the other. 

To throw Discordianism's proclamation (no Discordian has actually SAID this, but you all MEAN it) back in its own members' faces: "Wake up; you could find joy and fulfillment without your religion."

My biggest problem with ECH and Discordianism is probably the way it does things that have historically worked against a society achieving freedom, awareness, and genuine peace, while
convincing people that it's the ultimate champion of those qualities, similar to the way in which DICK CHENEY convinced everyone he was working for their best interests.

Basically, you're incredible hypocrites, and most of you never stop condemning others' hypocrisy long enough to catch the irony.  Discordianism may be the pinnacle, to date, of a social mentality which directly subverts the ideals which humanity's wisest thinkers and mystics have explained.

As to why I even insist on making these observations...I guess I just figure that someone has to.  A total lack of critical discourse can be a dangerous thing. (if you disagree, I could mention all the historical examples that illustrate this point.)  I'd rather that a lot of people were doing this with me -discourse was meant to be social - but that doesn't seem to be the way the deck's stacked, so here I am.  Alone again.  Naturally.  Like Gilbert O'Sullivan.

It gets back to a certain basic division: I believe that people should be able to form their beliefs themselves, and YOU believe that people can be happy and creative and open-minded, but should also conform to a basic foundation that YOU determine.  Think about all the times in human history when similar war-lines were drawn; which side should right-thinking people root for?

Or Kill Me

[LMNO]

WOW. I am in awe




BATTEL OV TEH MIND LAZORZ!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

WOW. I am in awe




BATTEL OV TEH MIND LAZORZ!

And he MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE!

TGRR,
Bored as fuck at work today.  You'll get yours, oh my, yes.

[E.O.T.]

WOW. I am in awe




BATTEL OV TEH MIND LAZORZ!

THIS!!

          holy sh#t!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I did one against Trip a few months back, and nobody formed a torch-bearing mob.

WHICH IS FURTHER PROOF OF ECH/TRIP/FAUST'S IRON CONTROL OVER YOUR MINDS AND SOULS.

[Luna]

I did one against Trip a few months back, and nobody formed a torch-bearing mob.

WHICH IS FURTHER PROOF OF ECH/TRIP/FAUST'S IRON CONTROL OVER YOUR MINDS AND SOULS.

Trip lives on the wrong side of the big puddle, the torches would go out on the way over.

And ECH keeps hiding out on boats, same problem.

Ditto Faust.

I suppose we could do pitchforks, but it's still a long-ass swim... and I don't swim.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Torch-bearing mobs are only formed for IMPORTANT things that are IMAGINARY.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

DID YOU KNOW:

There are four massive crematoriums, three in Maine and one in Oregon, NOW complete with gas chambers and guillotines?  They can handle more than 3000 cremations EACH day.  The chief one is the old soup factory on 6th street in Portland.  The other ones are in or near Bangor (it's five stories above ground and five stories below ground on a prior airport facility), and the other two are in the New Brunswick part of Maine.  The NEW ECH ORDER symbol of the all-seeing Satanic asshole above a beer can appears above each of the steel entrance gates.  There are blue and red highway markers on the backs of road signs in these cities/areas.  These markers are for foreign troops who can not read English, because ECH hires whoever's cheapest, so he can save his money for more PBR and Ramen.  He only eats the flavor packets.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, ECH is in league with Bill Gates, to fuck up my formatting from Word to SMF.

[East Coast Hustle]

This is the best thing I've ever read.

also...

Also, ECH is in league with Bill Gates, to fuck up my formatting from Word to SMF.

NO MORE APOSTROPHES FOR YOU UNTIL YOU FALL IN LINE, MISTER.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Holy shit! 

Duck and cover, Roger has a serious case of RELIGION!

[Triple Zero]

I did one against Trip a few months back, and nobody formed a torch-bearing mob.

well it was also because you almost immediately (ok 2 days later or so) apologized with I HAVE NO IDEA WTF THAT EVEN MEANT while I was still being all


You get +1.618 Internetz for the "fine Irish philosopher" bit