Decentralized Eristocracy

[Noble]

For this post I'll only discuss principles discussed within the Principia, no other documents. Please mind that these ideas might be highly biased and are only my interpretation of the Principia.

The Principia Discordia describes the Discordian Society as a form of secret society with a semi-religious tone. Many assume Discordianism to be no more than a joke, or not even a religion at all. It is this doublespeak and paradoxical state of being that permits the Discordian Society to be everything at once, therefore The Discordian Society has no definition.
It's also important to note that this manifestation of the Discordian Society is based on POEE, which is the primary sect, unitary to the POEE manifestation of the Discordian Society. We'll only be talking about this manifestation.

Since 0 YOLD or the start of the curse of Greyface, Chaos has been artificially split into two, known as Order and Disorder. Ever since then, The Sacred Chao has been out of balance. The Sacred Chao can be described as a pendulum, somehow similar to the pendulum theory of the Overton window. This pendulum theory is very similar to the Law of Eristic Escalation, which is not named in the Principia Discordia (except wrongly explained in the intro) but hinted at and later named as such, it is the idea of the following.

Imposition of Order = Escalation of Disorder

Many believe (and it is hinted in the Principia) that the world has been more orderly than disorderly since the Curse of Greyface came about. Since then, the Sacred Chao (and therefore the world) has been a pendulum, ever swinging back and forth between Disorder and Order in an attempt to bring the world back to its natural form of unity between the two, being Chaos.
The pendulum swings back and forth because the equation works both ways, and is therefore in an everlasting loop.

Escalation of Disorder = Imposition of Order

It's my belief that the pendulum is currently swinging back towards an imposition of order, since the western world has known little of it since the end of the cold war. This is not to imply that there can't be multiple pendulums at once, describing every detail of reality as a relation between order and disorder or a magnitude of chaos.

Since the Principia was written in a time when the pendulum was swinging towards an Escalation of Disorder, it's my guess that the most orderly parts of the Principia have mostly gone ignored by most Discordians. I believe the Principia to be the perfect balance of Chaos ever seen in writing. Chaos does not have to be nonsensical, but it can be if it wants to be.
If intepretations of the Principia really are becoming more serious, then it's time to look at the different hints the Principia makes at a structured society.

The Principia describes a hierarchy as described in the POEE Disorganizational Matrix. It contains several houses, with house V (The House of Apostles of Eris) being the most important one. Through various paperwork signed by the House of Apostles of Eris we can assume that this hierarchy goes downwards, with the members of the House of Apostles of Eris being the Eristocrats of the Discordian Society.
The Eristocracy can both refer to a form of government or to the Social Class within the Society. In any case it can be assumed that all of the following are the Eristocrats of the Discordian Society.

A. The Five Apostles of Eris
B. The Golden Apple Corps (KSC)
C. Episkoposes of The Discordian Society
D. POEE Cabal Priests
E. Saints, Erisian Avatars, and Like Personages

It seems fairly obvious that the houses have an up-down hierarchy, while this can't be said for sure for the inner part of the houses, for instance, it's uncertain whether the Apostles have more power within this structure than one powerful Episkopos, due to the fact that this information is not given anywhere, we'll assume all manners within the houses are resolved in an adhocratic manner.
Since all Pope cards are authorized by the highest house, it's also unknown whether the highest house could in the same way undo said decision of authorization.

I personally fell in love and obsession with the Eristocratic model because of its decentralization. The Discordian Society is a global phenomenon with no certainty to whether it already exists or not, anyone may feel free to become an Episkopos and do things their own way if their success allows it. Based on the presumption that the Eristocracy would work on a basis of influence, this would mean that any group of people could band together and do things their own way and perhaps even influence the rest of the Discordian Society if their work was influential enough.

Of course, with this much decentralization it would be a huge mess if there was not a unitary system, which this hierarchy perfectly embodies. Since this manifestation of the Discordian Society is based on POEE principles, it's to be assumed that POEE ( who have their own hierarchy of priests and such) may serve as the unitary part of the society. In other words, those that have the most influence within the highest house - the Eristocracy - has the most say in the Discordian Society.
Though this may be completely disregarded if you choose to become your own Episkopos and become 100% autonomous of the decisions of other Eristocrats, this would mean that you would also not be able to influence said decisions.

The rest of the Hierarchy also serves useful, where the 4th house is about the Disorderly power of the masses/disciples of Discordia, the 3rd house for the Orderly Bureaucratic Affairs that must be kept up to validate the Eristocracy, and the 1st house for all miscellaneous Discordians including the Fifth Column.
To this day I have no idea what the 2nd house truly represents, though anyone may feel to add to this, I think it's something esoteric which prevents the Immanentization of the Eschaton.

I truly believe the Eristocracy to be a viable alternative political system or even Ideology. It allows for Decentralization, unitary functioning, powerful leaders, the given power to outrank those powerful leaders and more. It is both orderly and disorderly, causing it to be a perfect mix of Chaos ripe for implementation.
Discordian Sects/cabals are perfect because they require no definition, they're truly autonomous dynamic entities to the point where they could be companies, cults, websites or even a postcard. Anyone can make them, even the episkopos' doesn't have to be real person.

The following is highly personal and my reasoning for liking this system.
I'm a nationalist by heart, but then you are you come across nothing but authoritarian people, people who want nothing but more centralization. Too often it's come to my attention that provinces and municipalities have no choice but to listen to the orders of the big national government, which defeats the purpose of having elections for those lower governments in the first place, since they won't have the authority to do anything with the power they hold over their small territory within the nation. Since then I've come to reject centralization and fell in love with Decentralization.
I truly believe the Eristocracy to be a good decentralized alternative because it allows for individuals to do as they please, though said power can't be enforced if their claims to power are illegitimate. It might just be a fiction fantasy, but I love the idea regardless.

I hope to dedicate this thread to ideas that could further the idealization of the Discordian Society's political system.

Hail Eris!

[Doktor Howl]

I'm a nationalist by heart,

Knew it.

[Noble]

I'm a nationalist by heart,

Knew it.

I'm a nationalist but understand that globalism is too useful and powerful to overcome, however I'm not a fan of americanization, so putting power in decentralization, and therefore in the little guy, is the best I can do.
It'd be a shame if culture would go to waste for a McDonalds.

[rong]

If you take away everyones countries, only nationalists will have countries.

[LMNO]

It's interesting to see what the mirror of the PD reflects for different people.  I'll do my best to address your post without adding too much of my own interpretation, and only using PD as a source document.

It's also important to note that this manifestation of the Discordian Society is based on POEE, which is the primary sect, unitary to the POEE manifestation of the Discordian Society. We'll only be talking about this manifestation.

This will figure in later, but I should note I have not been able to find any formal accounting of how many Discordians are, or claim to be, part of the POEE faction. 

Since 0 YOLD or the start of the curse of Greyface, Chaos has been artificially split into two, known as Order and Disorder. Ever since then, The Sacred Chao has been out of balance. The Sacred Chao can be described as a pendulum, somehow similar to the pendulum theory of the Overton window. This pendulum theory is very similar to the Law of Eristic Escalation, which is not named in the Principia Discordia (except wrongly explained in the intro) but hinted at and later named as such, it is the idea of the following.
Imposition of Order = Escalation of Disorder
Many believe (and it is hinted in the Principia) that the world has been more orderly than disorderly since the Curse of Greyface came about. Since then, the Sacred Chao (and therefore the world) has been a pendulum, ever swinging back and forth between Disorder and Order in an attempt to bring the world back to its natural form of unity between the two, being Chaos.
The pendulum swings back and forth because the equation works both ways, and is therefore in an everlasting loop.
Escalation of Disorder = Imposition of Order
It's my belief that the pendulum is currently swinging back towards an imposition of order, since the western world has known little of it since the end of the cold war.

Sorry, wanted to break in here and ask in what way you believe that the western world has not known order since 1991. Carry on.

This is not to imply that there can't be multiple pendulums at once, describing every detail of reality as a relation between order and disorder or a magnitude of chaos.
Since the Principia was written in a time when the pendulum was swinging towards an Escalation of Disorder, it's my guess that the most orderly parts of the Principia have mostly gone ignored by most Discordians. I believe the Principia to be the perfect balance of Chaos ever seen in writing. Chaos does not have to be nonsensical, but it can be if it wants to be.

I'm wondering how you reconcile the above with pages 50 and 63.
Page 50 clearly states that the division of order and disorder are merely illusions; so any imbalance between Order and Disorder is also an illusion.  Which means, the pendulum does not exist, and means the Law of (An)Eristic Escalation is false and subjective.
Page 63 declares that splitting life into Order and Disorder is the Curse of Greyface, in that it ignored the aspects of Creation and Destruction which are both inherent in the illusion of order, as well as in the illusion of disorder.  So, to look at the world as a battle between order and disorder, one is in fact perpetuating greyface behavior.

If intepretations of the Principia really are becoming more serious, then it's time to look at the different hints the Principia makes at a structured society.

The Principia describes a hierarchy as described in the POEE Disorganizational Matrix. It contains several houses, with house V (The House of Apostles of Eris) being the most important one. Through various paperwork signed by the House of Apostles of Eris we can assume that this hierarchy goes downwards, with the members of the House of Apostles of Eris being the Eristocrats of the Discordian Society.
The Eristocracy can both refer to a form of government or to the Social Class within the Society. In any case it can be assumed that all of the following are the Eristocrats of the Discordian Society.

A. The Five Apostles of Eris
B. The Golden Apple Corps (KSC)
C. Episkoposes of The Discordian Society
D. POEE Cabal Priests
E. Saints, Erisian Avatars, and Like Personages

It seems fairly obvious that the houses have an up-down hierarchy, while this can't be said for sure for the inner part of the houses, for instance, it's uncertain whether the Apostles have more power within this structure than one powerful Episkopos, due to the fact that this information is not given anywhere, we'll assume all manners within the houses are resolved in an adhocratic manner.
Since all Pope cards are authorized by the highest house, it's also unknown whether the highest house could in the same way undo said decision of authorization.

Ok, back to this one.  It makes sense that if we're only talking about POEE, we're only talking about people who are a part of POEE.  Which means the structure of the POEE chart only applies to those in the POEE.  Which is kind of tautological, sure.  But remember, out of all the Discordians out there, this only pertains to a minority.

Also, I'm really interested where you saw that there is a power structure in that chart, and that level V is "the most important one".  You say you can assume this from "documents signed by The House of Apostles of Eris," but I don't see that in the PD, which is supposed to be our only source material. 

Further, the house names are clearly a reflection of the calendar, Chaos/Discord/Confusion/Bureaucracy/Aftermath.  As such, the grid should not be seen in a linear way, but a circular one.  Each house has equal importance, especially as it is explicitly stated on page 29, "POEE has... no by-laws, no articles, no guides". 

Overall, in regards to the Eristocracy, whether or not you are correct about them being a form of government or social class, while they might govern over the Discordian Society (if you believe that it is structured around the POEE), if a Discordian doesn't recognize POEE, then they are not bound by any of POEE's structures, regardless of what they are. The Discordian Society is not all discordians in society, of course.

And even then, as stated on page 39, "AN EPISKOPOS OF THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY is one who prefers total autonomy, and creates his own Discordian sect as The Goddess directs him. He speaks for himself and for those that say that they like what he says."  The fact that there is a POEE chart in no way means that anyone involved, adjacent, or on the other side of the room needs to recognize it if they don't want to.

To sum up, you appear to have taken partial definitions, misunderstood them, based assumptions off the misunderstanding, then attempted to codify them into a hierarchy that just happens to resemble the viewpoint you had before you started.  Which is fine, that's your Discordia. 
But it should be pointed out, you're building your church on the antithesis of POEE Discordian teachings.

[Con-troll]

Could I get a tldr in a less greyfaced form?

[LMNO]

Could I get a tldr in a less greyfaced form?

No.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm a nationalist by heart,

Knew it.

I'm a nationalist but understand that globalism is too useful and powerful to overcome, however I'm not a fan of americanization, so putting power in decentralization, and therefore in the little guy, is the best I can do.
It'd be a shame if culture would go to waste for a McDonalds.

Why on Earth would a self-identified Discordian be a nationalist? 

Also, the little guy is as fucking stupid as the government, which is all little guys with accumulated resources.  They are just as mortal as you or I, they do things in just as fucked up a fashion.  The only difference between The Man™ and some pobucker from Kentucky is that The Man™ has been trained in how the apparatus works.  A dumbass that understands the machine is slightly more desirable than a dumbass that doesn't know where the clutch is, or in the case of our current untrained orange dumbass, doesn't know that the engine needs oil.  But, hey, everybody else's job looks EASY, right?  Anyone COULD govern, even on a local level, if only they were given a chance.  Right?  Right right right?

The little guy thinks tax cuts are for him, too, so he willingly defunds schools, roads, and libraries, thus ensuring that his children will be even dumber and poorer than he is.   

The Man™ knows that everyone is fucked up.  The little guy thinks everyone is fucked up except him.

The little guy thinks there are simple solutions to everything, despite not understanding the process.  The Man™ has at least an experiential knowledge of what friction is (in the Clausewitz sense).

The Man™ has an idea of what the velocity of currency means.  The little guy thinks that, against all evidence, small governmental units and NGOs work better than massed resources.

Most importantly, the little guy sees a tiny part of the elephant's toenail and tries to formulate a workable policy on how to spay elephants based on that tiny part.  The Man™ sees enough of the elephant to understand the need to drug the elephant ahead of time, because he is paid to look at the larger picture.

[altered]

Also, the little guy is as fucking stupid as the government, which is all little guys with accumulated resources.  They are just as mortal as you or I, they do things in just as fucked up a fashion.  The only difference between The Man[emoji769] and some pobucker from Kentucky is that The Man[emoji769] has been trained in how the apparatus works.  A dumbass that understands the machine is slightly more desirable than a dumbass that doesn't know where the clutch is, or in the case of our current untrained orange dumbass, doesn't know that the engine needs oil.  But, hey, everybody else's job looks EASY, right?  Anyone COULD govern, even on a local level, if only they were given a chance.  Right?  Right right right?

The little guy thinks tax cuts are for him, too, so he willingly defunds schools, roads, and libraries, thus ensuring that his children will be even dumber and poorer than he is.   

The Man[emoji769] knows that everyone is fucked up.  The little guy thinks everyone is fucked up except him.

The little guy thinks there are simple solutions to everything, despite not understanding the process.  The Man[emoji769] has at least an experiential knowledge of what friction is (in the Clausewitz sense).

The Man[emoji769] has an idea of what the velocity of currency means.  The little guy thinks that, against all evidence, small governmental units and NGOs work better than massed resources.

Most importantly, the little guy sees a tiny part of the elephant's toenail and tries to formulate a workable policy on how to spay elephants based on that tiny part.  The Man[emoji769] sees enough of the elephant to understand the need to drug the elephant ahead of time, because he is paid to look at the larger picture.

Thank you for this, because it's a great explanation of the problem with a loooooot of shit that I come across in leftist circles. Permission to share when applicable? Attribution every time is to be assumed.

[Noble]

It's interesting to see what the mirror of the PD reflects for different people.  I'll do my best to address your post without adding too much of my own interpretation, and only using PD as a source document.

Once more, thanks for your continued interest.

I'm wondering how you reconcile the above with pages 50 and 63.
Page 50 clearly states that the division of order and disorder are merely illusions; so any imbalance between Order and Disorder is also an illusion.  Which means, the pendulum does not exist, and means the Law of (An)Eristic Escalation is false and subjective.

I can accept the pendulum not being realistic in that sense that the existence of order and disorder are merely illusions laid upon us by the curse of greyface. You could call it hypocritical to still believe in the imbalance, but the law of eristic escalation is still very much real. It is not called as such in the principia (only in the intro, which can be disregarded as it confuses chaos with disorder). The core law is hinted at the top of page 00046.

Sorry, wanted to break in here and ask in what way you believe that the western world has not known order since 1991. Carry on.

I suppose it could be attributed to just the overton window that keeps balancing back and forth, which each generation reacting to the previous generation with the opposite. I'm not saying disorder has reigned since 1991, I'm saying the world has become lots more progressive since the end of ww2, since order has played such a huge part in the world in the first part of the 21st century, it's only natural that there should come a reaction to that in progressive form, i believe this to have taken off in the 60s with the hippies and like progressive movements, but were repressed by the pressure of the cold war, til the point where the Sov union fell apart and the military stress weakened, when progressivism started thriving, aka now. I believe a reaction to all this progressivism/craving for freedom will be something very orderly and repressive. I don't like how it seems like this rhythm is slowly radicalizing.

Page 63 declares that splitting life into Order and Disorder is the Curse of Greyface, in that it ignored the aspects of Creation and Destruction which are both inherent in the illusion of order, as well as in the illusion of disorder.  So, to look at the world as a battle between order and disorder, one is in fact perpetuating greyface behavior.

POEE claims that Creative disorder is good and that destructive order is bad, they don't say much about the opposite other than that it is bad. The division of Chaos into disorder and order may be considered greyface, but the POEE sees no problem in doing it themselves. The Principia itself is highly hypocritical, which is why it's hard to consistently build upon it.

Ok, back to this one.  It makes sense that if we're only talking about POEE, we're only talking about people who are a part of POEE.  Which means the structure of the POEE chart only applies to those in the POEE.  Which is kind of tautological, sure.  But remember, out of all the Discordians out there, this only pertains to a minority.

The Discordian Society described in the Principia is just the POEE manifestation of it (Page 00001), it doesn't matter if you're part of POEE or not, since they allow for autonomous movement within their hierarchy. You don't have to be a part of POEE to be a part of the POEE manifestation of the Discordian Society. The hand of Eris is part of POEE too, it is regarded as a global Discordian symbol. If you were to redefine the entire Discordian Society, you'd be busy for a while writing a new discordian bible.

Also, I'm really interested where you saw that there is a power structure in that chart, and that level V is "the most important one".  You say you can assume this from "documents signed by The House of Apostles of Eris," but I don't see that in the PD, which is supposed to be our only source material. 

All documents included in the principia are signed by the house of apostles of Eris, even the pope card. If pope cards have to be authorized by House 5, and the popes themselves are in House 1, doesn't that mean that house 5 authorizes the existence of house 1? Moreover they're described as POEE popes, which means that all popes are basically POEE popes, since we're all part of the POEE manifestation of the Discordian Society.

Further, the house names are clearly a reflection of the calendar, Chaos/Discord/Confusion/Bureaucracy/Aftermath.  As such, the grid should not be seen in a linear way, but a circular one.  Each house has equal importance, especially as it is explicitly stated on page 29, "POEE has... no by-laws, no articles, no guides". 

I see nothing on page 29 like that, I doubt the house names are reflections of the calendar, since the calendar is just a reflection of another page in the principia, as page 45 states, the book of uterus.

Overall, in regards to the Eristocracy, whether or not you are correct about them being a form of government or social class, while they might govern over the Discordian Society (if you believe that it is structured around the POEE), if a Discordian doesn't recognize POEE, then they are not bound by any of POEE's structures, regardless of what they are. The Discordian Society is not all discordians in society, of course.

This is correct, you can make up your own manifestation of the Discordian Society, but then you'd have to rewrite everything. the POEE manifestation allows for you to do your own thing (autonomous sects by episkoposes) and mostly ignore the POEE parts if you so wish, I don't see any need for that though. I quite like all the things the POEE manifestation made up, like ddate and the hierarchy.

And even then, as stated on page 39, "AN EPISKOPOS OF THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY is one who prefers total autonomy, and creates his own Discordian sect as The Goddess directs him. He speaks for himself and for those that say that they like what he says."  The fact that there is a POEE chart in no way means that anyone involved, adjacent, or on the other side of the room needs to recognize it if they don't want to.

You can be an Episkopos of your own autonomous sect within the discordian society, but if that discordian society is not the POEE manifestation of it, then what is it? Don't forget that episkoposes are brought up in a document describing the POEE manifestation of the discordian society, so you can be both within the POEE Discordian Society and ignore the POEE part of it at the same time, you have that privilege. This is why POEE is such a paradoxical part of the Discordian Society, since it accounts for so much of it. Without the Matrix there wouldn't be popes, episkoposes or anything. If you want to make up something that's not POEE-related, go ahead and start your own manifestation of the Society.

To sum up, you appear to have taken partial definitions, misunderstood them, based assumptions off the misunderstanding, then attempted to codify them into a hierarchy that just happens to resemble the viewpoint you had before you started.  Which is fine, that's your Discordia. 
But it should be pointed out, you're building your church on the antithesis of POEE Discordian teachings.

I understand that I've come to misunderstand certain parts of the Principia, especially since english isn't my first language and it's hard to decypher those cryptic texts.
That aside, I think you too have a certain misinterpretation of what POEE is to Discordianism

[Noble]

Why on Earth would a self-identified Discordian be a nationalist? 

Because I want to be.
The rest of your post was something about socialism or something unrelated, which I don't really see as relevant.

[altered]

Why on Earth would a self-identified Discordian be a nationalist? 

Because I want to be.
The rest of your post was something about socialism or something unrelated, which I don't really see as relevant.

No, it was specifically about how

putting power in decentralization, and therefore in the little guy,

Is a stupid fucking idea.

[Noble]

It's not my fault you two had such strong emotional connection to the word "little guy".
I'm a fan of decentralization as it stops one entity from grabbing all the power for itself and not allowing other movements to play in its shadow. Anyone could make a sect for themselves, if this lazy dumb selfish little guy you are thinking of wants to do that, then i doubt they'd get very far without thinking of their sect first.
It's the same in capitalism i'd say, anyone can start a company, few can make it a success.

[altered]

It's not my fault you two had such strong emotional connection to the word "little guy".
I'm a fan of decentralization as it stops one entity from grabbing all the power for itself and not allowing other movements to play in its shadow. Anyone could make a sect for themselves, if this lazy dumb selfish little guy you are thinking of wants to do that, then i doubt they'd get very far without thinking of their sect first.
It's the same in capitalism i'd say, anyone can start a company, few can make it a success.

And capitalist success comes on the broken, bloody spines of the worker and consumer. Just as any "little guy" in a position of power is traditionally an evil little shit, and please see 99% of cults, communes, any large family with a patriarch at the center, and so forth for proof.

History proves me right, and proves you to be either an optimistic fool or a sociopathic monster. I would like to assume the first, but you're a nationalist so it's all but certainly the second.

[Noble]

And capitalist success comes on the broken, bloody spines of the worker and consumer. Just as any "little guy" in a position of power is traditionally an evil little shit, and please see 99% of cults, communes, any large family with a patriarch at the center, and so forth for proof.

History proves me right, and proves you to be either an optimistic fool or a sociopathic monster. I would like to assume the first, but you're a nationalist so it's all but certainly the second.

Speaking of biased...
In my eyes you're just shouting like an angry hippie, if you don't want to work then go die in a ditch I suppose. It's up to you.
The reason the guy at the top of the hierarchy in capitalistic societies is as cruel as they are is because capitalism favors those without remorse, if you want a society which favors something else, then go ahead and try to make that work out.
I mainly despise capitalism because it is global, defies local culture and power corrupts, since the more corrupt a society becomes, the less morals it has, the less morals, the more profits on products.
Manipulative charismatic cunts are gonna be manipulative charismatic cunts, what are you gonna do about it?