This is building off the idea proposed in this thread (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=15845)that Discordianism may be a little too American-centric (hey, we came to a similar conclusion, only related to the time it was created not so long ago, so I'll go with this) and that a good idea to help spread it may be to study subversive mythology, stories, folk heroes and ideas from other cultures, then try to fix them into a Discordian context.
A few things on culture before I start. If we want to work from the most basic level, I would say Discordianism, as it is now, works best in a postmodern, Western culture. Principally the USA, but also to a lesser extent Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel and New Zealand. We can homogenize these as a "Western culture" for now, although there are significant differences we should explore later.
Following on from that, if we use Samuel Huntingdon's somewhat flawed macro-cultural model, we can divide the world up into several zones of related cultures, like this:
# Western civilization, centered on Western Europe (particularly the European Union) and North America, but also including other European-derived countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Huntington also includes the Pacific Islands, East Timor, Suriname,[citations needed] French Guiana, and northern and central Philippines.
# The Orthodox world of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine.
# Latin America. It's a hybrid of the western world and the local indigenous people. May be considered a part of Western civilization, though it has slightly distinct social and political structures from Europe and North America. Many people of the Southern Cone, however, regard themselves as full members of the Western civilization.
# The Muslim world of Central Asia, North Africa, Southwest Asia, Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Somalia, Mindanao, and parts of India.
# Hindu civilization, located chiefly in India, Nepal, and culturally adhered to by the global Non-resident Indians and People of Indian Origin, the diaspora.
# The Sinic civilization of China, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. This group also includes the Chinese diaspora, especially in relation to Southeast Asia.
# Japan, considered a hybrid of Chinese civilization and older Altaic patterns.
# The civilization of Sub-Saharan Africa is considered as a possible 8th civilization by Huntington.
# The Buddhist areas of Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Arunachal Pradesh, Kalmykia, parts of Nepal, parts of Siberia, and the Tibetan government-in-exile are identified as separate from other civilizations, but Huntington believes that they do not constitute a major civilization in the sense of international affairs.
# Instead of belonging to one of the "major" civilizations, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Turkey are labeled as "Lone" countries. Israel could be considered a unique state with its own civilization, Huntington writes, but one which is extremely similar to the West. Huntington also believes that former British colonies in the Caribbean constitute a distinct entity.
# In some cases, the Sinic, Hindu, Buddhist and Japonic civilizations are merged into a single civilization called Eastern World.
While this is a flawed thesis, it may give us regional areas to concentrate on, and hopefully build around. Say we cant find many trickster/rebel ideas located in South Korea, we could hopefully build from others in the region to make something that could express those ideas in an intelligible and familiar way - even if its not from the actual country involved.
Wow. Now I wish I knew more languages and cultures.
I think this is an excellent excuse to explore the idea I had not long ago of Chaos Judaism. It's gonna take a while because I don't have any books that explore Judaism as a philosophical framework. I may have grown up surrounded with it but I'm pretty sure I missed out on all the cool parts of the religion.
Or maybe I'll find a copy of the Jewish Bible and read it, haven't done in ages (and never in whole).
"Kaballah".
Or, more specifically, SSOOKN.
I wonder why Huntington's division seems reasonable and galling at the same time.
Dito the idea to transplant Discordianism into other cultures. Surely there must be other subversive concepts (for lack of a better word) and persons identifying with them with whom Discordians can communicate.
Its galling because Huntingdon is the dick who came up with the quasi-fascist Clash of the Civilizations thesis, which is the intellectual grounding for most right-wing whinging about "Mooslims taking over teh wurld!"
But yes, I started warming to the idea after reading Trickster Makes World for the Pranks and Pranksters course at Maybe Logic. Lots of different tricksters there, from Yoruba, Greek, Native American, Indian and Chinese culture.
Quote from: Cain on April 09, 2008, 09:30:41 PM
Its galling because Huntingdon is the dick who came up with the quasi-fascist Clash of the Civilizations thesis, which is the intellectual grounding for most right-wing whinging about "Mooslims taking over teh wurld!"
But yes, I started warming to the idea after reading Trickster Makes World for the Pranks and Pranksters course at Maybe Logic. Lots of different tricksters there, from Yoruba, Greek, Native American, Indian and Chinese culture.
thnx. I was not sure if it was the book or me being 15 when I read it.
:lulz:
I fully support this concept! Perhaps people can volunteer to research a specific culture and then present some findings to the forum?
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 09, 2008, 10:03:45 PM
:lulz:
I fully support this concept! Perhaps people can volunteer to research a specific culture and then present some findings to the forum?
Which one will you be doing?
I have vague informational background about "Eastern" (aka look we ripped off china!) cultures. Particularly Japanese, which I can theoretically speak.
My largest problem with this project is I keep thinking "Oh, we can use this!" and then realising that the mythology I was thinking of probably hasn't been taught to people in thousands of years. Curse you, knowledge of ancient mythologies! :argh!:
edit: I think a large part of my problem here is that I have no idea in most countries if the ancient mythologies are in fact still taught to kids. In the "East" this isn't so much a problem, because I know that traditional storytelling and fables are still popular in Japan and China, at least.
In keeping with the "PD is kind of dated" theory as well as the "Americo-centric" one, we should probably try to use current stories and things from various cultures, instead of necessarily sticking to the more "traditional" types.
Of course, an interesting approach might be to replace Eris altogether with (Chaos/Trickster Deity of Choice) and represent the IPD (International Principia Discordia) or WDP-X (Where X is country-abbreviation of your choice) as a 'conversation' between {Deity} and {Modern cultural values}. Or, you know, not.
edit: It might also be useful to look at the various forms of publication used. Modifying the content is well and good, but it's not going to help if it's laid out in a completely foreign way than people are used to. Since I imagine our main method of dissemination of these works is going to be via the internets, it'd be a good idea to get a grasp on the usual web page designs of your chosen country. Japan, for instance, uses a lot more text-heavy pages than the US does.
With this in mind I propose that we simultaneously design a framework for the WDP-Xs, which each will follow while containing different content. This is quite an Aneristic approach, but it will make the task considerably easier on the people doing the research. They could also then serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for various cultures! Want to learn about [subversion in] another culture? simply read their WDP-X!
A wiki might work better for this than a forum thread, as well. There's going to be a lot of information floating around before it's all done. I can set one up on my domain space unless somebody wants to put it up somewhere with similar resources (like where the BIP is hosted, or even just as a "portal" within the BIP wiki)
I don't suppose anybody knows a discordian or 5 from one of the non western cultures we could try to get to come over here?
There's a bit of fear that even if we don't botch interpreting a different culture, that the kind of mainstream culture you'd be able to research may not click at all with the kind of people who ultimately respond well to the basic concepts of discordianism.
The only "non mainstream" culture I can think of in Japan is the Otaku groups. Frankly, though, they're scary (think 4chan times infinity). They could be found on 2chan, though, which is the group 4chan spun off of.
I know a little bit about Japan's counter culture, not much. Something about a gen-x/millenial grouping of 'other humans' (or something similar), kindof a goth/faux-punk fashion sense to those, no idea about them beyond that.
OK, since we are looking at Japan....what about the Yakuza? I know, they are scary thugs for the most part, but don't they also have certain rituals and ways of identifying each other that would be considered anamethema to the average Japanese person (such as the irezumi)?
Also, if we are looking historically, it is always worth looking at ronin, certain temple masters and other individuals like that. Musashi would be one, the Sword Saint who taught himself and went around slaughtering (according to the myths) giant lizards (zomg reptilian conspiracy).
Japan's highly class structured and feudal historical organization would have to have produced an equally uncontrolled and unstructured outside element. What of those people who refused to play by the rules of the Houses and Japanese etiquette? The ninjas may be another avenue, if you can stomach going through 20,000 pages of crap to find any gems. Also, Japan must have had a crazy leader at some point...
I agree with TSO that we should probably come up with a sort of Rosetta Stone standard of what we want the format of each book to be, then slot in the appropriate myths and figures. It would give as a guide as to the sort of thing we need to look for.
Quote from: Dido on April 09, 2008, 10:17:42 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 09, 2008, 10:03:45 PM
:lulz:
I fully support this concept! Perhaps people can volunteer to research a specific culture and then present some findings to the forum?
Which one will you be doing?
Well, I was thinking originally of seeing what African cultural references I could pick up... but then I realized I'm surrounded by Indian, Sri Lankan, *insert other Hindic/Muslim IT Consultants here* and they all like me. I'm gonna write up a quick survey and send it to a few of the people I know well. See what sort of social memes they see as popular and 'discordant'. Check on mythology and fable... especially look for any well known crazies (Norton I level) that might appear in popular culture or counterculture.
So mark me down for India/Sri Lanka/general Indo area for now... I'll see what I can find.
Young Krishna may be a good start, just as a hint. He was an unrelenting thief and womanizer, but in a good way.
http://ompage.net/ChristKrishna/krishna.htm (http://ompage.net/ChristKrishna/krishna.htm)
Now that is so ripe for manipulation to our needs it is sooper Funnay!
http://www.uexpress.com/tellmeastory/index.html?uc_full_date=20050515
Yasoda, standing not far away, smiled when she heard these words. She had come to understand that her son, Krishna, would always reveal two sides. He was chaos, certainly, but more than that, he was a blessing, a gift to this world.
It appears that Krishna was supposedly at the height of Bureaucracy... signifying the descent into Aftermath?
I think I'll be off to the library this weekend....
Quote from: Cain on April 10, 2008, 02:54:32 PM
OK, since we are looking at Japan....what about the Yakuza? I know, they are scary thugs for the most part, but don't they also have certain rituals and ways of identifying each other that would be considered anamethema to the average Japanese person (such as the irezumi)?
The Yakuza though, pretty much are just thugs when you get right down to it.
Traditionally speaking, poets and zen types, ronin (again, in many cases just thugs), is all I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, there are also the Eta, but they're so outside the "normal society" that people still, I believe, look upon them with some disdain. In fact, apparently so disdained that the term I just used there is actually derogatory and is still the most common so far's I know :eek:. Well worth a mention or two, though.
As for Ninja, I honestly don't think they qualify as being "outside" normal society in the sense we want. Historically speaking, they were so sworn to loyalty to the lord they served that it wasn't even funny. Not exactly great harbingers for the words of Eris.
Speaking of Zen types, I once found this wonderful blog post or something online that was called "Koan or Cruelty?". It had 4 Koan in it and 4 stories that were just priests being cruel, and invited the reader to to guess which was which. Fun stuff.
More recently, and back on topic, there is the counter-culture movements of the 60s-today, which are essentially japanized versions of the 60s here. Lots of things got a lot more westernised, lots of coffe-house tomfoolery, western music, jazz, rock, etc. There were a lot of student riots in the late 60s about various things, mostly involving left/right political things and student rights.
As an excerpt:
"Several thousand students fought with police in Tokyo on 7 November in
the course of an attempt by students to storm the official residence of the
Prime Minister. Police used water cannon and tear gas to repel the
students, who were equipped with helmets and staves. Students were
demanding the return of Okinawa to Japan, the end of the Japanese-American
defence treaty and the repeal of the riot control act. There were more than
400 arrests."
In fact, Toudai (tokyo university) was actually
occupied by students for about half a year (maybe more). And that's occupied in the sense of barricades and fights with the police.
A good source of (modern) Japanese counterculture is Murakami Haruki. Think of him as a slightly less extreme Kerouac. Sort of. He also has the benefit of actually being popular in the mainstream, I believe.
I defer to your judgement in such things. I was just thinking of groups from outside of Japanese mainstream culture, historically, as starting points for further discussion.
Sounds very similar, the Tokyo University takeover, to the Sorbonne one as well. Which ties in with Situationists, who were very Discordian in some ways.
Well, I'm not Japanese either, so I may be totally wrong. One of my friends here in LA has a japanese host student staying with them, so maybe I'll confuse him horribly and ask him about this sort of stuff. He wants to play the drums in a rock band over here, or something, so I don't think he's exactly a normal Japanese person.
Pretty much all I know about Japan I learned from too much anime and manga. Judging by the heroes of their media, they're (or at least the youth who watches/reads that stuff) are starting to backlash against the cram-school and the constant drive for perfection - we see a lot more laid back, against the grain type protagonists and less training, training, training and striving to uphold the world order against deviant threats type heroes.
Our family hosted a foreign exchange student from Japan not to long ago; she and all of her friends had dozens of t-shirts covered in Engrish. I think that wanting to be American is the "in" thing over there. I won't ask her though, because her english was pretty much limited to pointing and grunting, and my japanese is limited to exclamations. (I believe in you! Do your best! I... I... I LOVE YOU! Eeehhh? Pervertpervertpervertperver!! Dumbass! Fool! Moron! Bonkurazu!)
In the latest of a number of far-too-long posts about Japan from me...
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on April 10, 2008, 08:51:50 PM
Pretty much all anybody online knows about Japan they learned from too much anime and manga.
This is the single biggest problem with Japan and the internet. :cry:
Suzumiya Haruhi
would be a good nomination for sainthood, but including anime characters in a PD equivalent seems weird to me unless they really do have a huge grounding in pop culture (e.g. Doraemon). Additionally, remember that we don't want to just reach the sort of people who are likely to have already come up with the same ideas on their own. What we really want to get a hold of is people who haven't thought of this yet, so we can show them what a good idea it is.
Since the vast majority of the human audience is in "adult-hood", it might not be a bad idea to include some older pop culture from Japan though. This way you can appeal to the "Remember when you were a child? Well,
you still can be!" impulse. Doraemon, though I came up with him at random, might actually be a pretty good spokesperson... spokesthing for Japan, since everybody (and I do mean
everybody) in Japan knows who he is, and he represents the "creative and magical aspects of childhood" or some such BS.
A big part of the "counter-culture" in Japan involves going against the grain. Everybody is supposed to be polite nice bland workaholic professional reliable normal people, even to the extent of self-sacrifice (the latter being a big theme in Japanese culture). This of course means that prominent "rebels" are normally labeled as supreme malcontents and dangerous people.
--TheStripèdOne
Anti-weaboo since 2004
Quote from: Ratatosk on April 09, 2008, 10:03:45 PM
:lulz:
I fully support this concept! Perhaps people can volunteer to research a specific culture and then present some findings to the forum?
I would be happy to provide any relevant information regarding the Caribbean basin, particularly the ex- and current british colonies and the American colonies.
they're not as strategically significant as most other civilizations, but they're geographically close to america, predisposed to "trickster"-archetype behavior, and my experience is not only firsthand and experiential, but from the perspective of a member of the West Indian diaspora.
What are the main archtypes down there? I would guess Papa Legba and Eshu, but I suspect there are several I am missing.
Also, once I've finished my (bloody) essays, I'll get on creating a template PD or two, in order to guide our research etc
I'd point out that we don't necessarily need to have an icon people have heard of. Eris is only in one well known myth, and even then most people don't know that part very well. (Paris and the three goddesses kinda steal the scene).
Not being very well known can work to our advantage too, if nobody has strong preconceptions about a meme then they're going to be more open to whatever interpretation it gets assigned.
Quote from: Cain on April 09, 2008, 02:04:07 PM
This is building off the idea proposed in this thread (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=15845)that Discordianism may be a little too American-centric (hey, we came to a similar conclusion, only related to the time it was created not so long ago, so I'll go with this) and that a good idea to help spread it may be to study subversive mythology, stories, folk heroes and ideas from other cultures, then try to fix them into a Discordian context.
Sounds good. I bet some Finnish would-be-Discordians would like to have some Kalevala stuff fixed into Discordianism.
Being Australian, we're used to feeling like the geeks at school who gathered in their teeny group far away from everyone else at lunch time... but that's not my point.
If anyone is interested, look into Australian Aboriginal mythology. Their stories and beliefs are SO strongly based upon metaphor and are sometimes extremely funny.
...If I remember correctly, the 'creator' is a giant rainbow snake.
On another note, happy 888 my friends. :lulz:
Zen buddhism comes to mind for japan but i have no real grasp of the connection (if there is one) . i will do a little asking on Russia / orthodox world and get back to you if i find something
Quote from: 7RY57 on August 08, 2008, 02:10:51 AM
On another note, happy 888 my friends. :lulz:
it's not 8/8/8 for another two hours, auspag! :argh!:
update - Bulgaria/croatia area were Greek influenced so the Eris story should work in that part of the world . Russia i don't have any idea yet, folk stories and superstitions would have the most promise for a connection but my source can't recall any at the moment ..
Offhand, I'd say Baba Yaga.
I did a quick search for baba yaga more of the witch eats children flies around lives in house in woods etc architype than the trickster creator of discord. There are a few variations on the story in some she will give advice (she demands good manners) in most she is the bad guy against whom the hero struggles. the fox (female ) is the trickster in Russian folktales, i haven't found any examples yet. still no parallels for chaos/discord
the following is a Link for trickster stories folktales from around the world, may be useful
http://www.mythinglinks.org/ct~tricksters.html
edit to add - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veles_(god)
She lives in a frickin house with giant chicken legs. C'mon!
:lulz: the chicken legs are good did you check the wikipedia entry ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Yaga
We-Gyet in the Pacific Northwest... Everything he does shakes shit up.