Principia Discordia

Taken from the Watchmen and Philosophy (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21074.0) thread:

QuoteMoore did not need Jean Baudrillard (perhaps the greatest of the postmodern philosophers) to tell him that "the idea is destroyed by its own realization," that the "extreme" development of an idea (which takes that idea beyond its own limits, end, or terminus, into "a state of ex-termination") can thereby destroy it—as, for example, sex is destroyed by "porn,"which is "more sexual than sex"; the body by "obesity,"which is "fatter than fat"; violence by "terror," which is "more violent than violence"; information by "simulation," which is "truer than true"; time by "instantaneity," which is "more present than the present," and as, in Watchmen, the hero is destroyed by the superhero, who is more heroic than any hero, but whose extreme "heroics" are no longer recognizable as heroics.  Moore seems instinctively to know (or else he has, like Watchmen's Ozymandias, studied "a hundred different philosophies") that one of the most powerful deconstructive strategies involves provisionally accepting an idea, thesis, position, or worldview, then working from inside it to extend it beyond its limits until it is eventually made to collapse under its own weight, like a plant forced to bear  fruit too heavy for its own branches.  I would call this strategy  hypertrophic deconstruction (after Nietzsche, who recognized that "a hypertrophic virtue  ...may bring about the decay of a people as much as a hypertrophic vice.").  Watchmen deconstructs the hero by developing its heroes—extending traditional hero fantasies beyond their limits—to the point where the reader comes to understand that these fantasies, realized, become nightmares.

QuoteI would suggest instead that when a genre seems to commit suicide—as philosophy did (with Kant, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein) and as the super-hero comic did (with Watchmen)—this apparent suicide is usually better understood as an attempted martyrdom, that is, a sacrifice with a redemptive intent, a would-be rebirth (even if in a different form).When the greatest representatives of a genre seek to end it, this is perhaps because they sense (on some level) that no field can long survive without being periodically revitalized by such sacrifice and rebirth. It is no coincidence that many of the comics which followed Watchmen sought to respond to its challenging deconstruction of the hero, and that the result greatly enriched the comics medium as a whole.More than fifteen years later, mainstream comics continue to occupy a post-Watchmen landscape, one in which Watchmen's ambivalence about the hero has become nearly ubiquitous.  Even in the darkest of contemporary comics, however, a careful reader can still recognize the sparks from that ongoing struggle to imagine and create the kinds of heroes who will prove themselves capable of inspiring the denizens of this complex and morally ambiguous world, a struggle which seeks to keep alive (as the dream of the hero, with all its risks, has always done) our hope for a better future.

Perhaps deconstructing Discordianism - or all irreligions - would be a worthwhile project?

Just an idea I'm throwing out there.

Could we get the Church of Google to deconstruct Discordianism?

Or at least some hardcore Subgenii.

Or maybe a fundie.

Quote from: Arafelis on June 09, 2009, 08:37:26 PM
Could we get the Church of Google to deconstruct Discordianism?

Or at least some hardcore Subgenii.

Or maybe a fundie.

The Church of Google got mostly deconstructed by Discordians... deconstructed in the sense of a wrecking ball.

Quote from: Arafelis on June 09, 2009, 08:37:26 PM
Could we get the Church of Google to deconstruct Discordianism?

Or at least some hardcore Subgenii.

Or maybe a fundie.

None of them would be very good at it, I think (Subgenii are too busy being hip and jaded, Rata has already dealt with the COG, and fundies can never do better than try to refute).

I'm thinking more like we do a series of works where we take Discordianism and the ideas presented within or practiced to their ultimate, final and logical conclusion, no matter how difficult or personally complex that may end up being.

After all, we here would probably be the best people around for it.  Maybe Irreality could have done it, if it was still around, but not many others.

Sounds like an interesting idea for a project. I'm willing to participate but I make no guarantees about the quality of my work.

Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2009, 10:20:57 PM

Quote from: Arafelis on June 09, 2009, 08:37:26 PM
Could we get the Church of Google to deconstruct Discordianism?

Or at least some hardcore Subgenii.

Or maybe a fundie.

None of them would be very good at it, I think (Subgenii are too busy being hip and jaded, Rata has already dealt with the COG, and fundies can never do better than try to refute).

I'm thinking more like we do a series of works where we take Discordianism and the ideas presented within or practiced to their ultimate, final and logical conclusion, no matter how difficult or personally complex that may end up being.

After all, we here would probably be the best people around for it.  Maybe Irreality could have done it, if it was still around, but not many others.

My question is: /whose/ discordianism?

All of them.

Any of them?

As many as we can find.

Whichever one(s) that you are willing and able to put some serious thought into deconstructing in the way Cain describes. Hopefully that will cover most flavors of it.

that sounds like one hell of a task...

thought that Student/Master thing i wrote a few days ago could be relevant?  It sort of takes one aspect of Discordianism to an extreme conclusion.

x

I guess in watchmen he did deconstruct several types of (super)heros.

I'm interested, but I'm still turning the proposal over in my head.  My experience of Discordianism is that it very often ends up with someone who no longer calls themselves a Discordian, but where it kicks them out (or rather, where they kick themselves out of it) is different and matters.

Hmmm.

I'll confess my main interest is essentially knocking it apart to put it back together again.

That's half the fun.

Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2009, 10:53:52 PM
I'll confess my main interest is essentially knocking it apart to put it back together again.

That's half the fun.

Kinda like how deconstructing heros helps you figure out what a hero really is, or what you would want a hero to be.

alright so what's the quote unquote Discordian ideal world?

_{Pretend I put this post in e-prime.}





it's

Sort of like this world

Not so much bureaucracy

creative people have tons of rights

people are generally quite self-aware and playful


what could possibly go wrong?

To extend that, Cram:  What would a majority Discordian nation look like? What would a Discordian government look like? What laws and policies would a Discordian government pass? What would be forbidden and what would be allowed? What would be the unintended consequences of these laws?

I honestly have no idea where to go with this yet. I'll have to contemplate it for awhile.

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 10, 2009, 02:29:56 AM
To extend that, Cram:  What would a majority Discordian nation look like? What would a Discordian government look like? What laws and policies would a Discordian government pass? What would be forbidden and what would be allowed? What would be the unintended consequences of these laws?

I honestly have no idea where to go with this yet. I'll have to contemplate it for awhile.

If they ever form a Discordian State, I shall tear it down.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 10, 2009, 02:32:53 AM
If they ever form a Discordian State, I shall tear it down.

And that, my friend, is the ultimate paradox of Discordianism. Even if all of our dreams came true we still wouldn't be satisfied. We don't want to win. We don't actually want to take over the world. If we were offered the crown we would outright refuse it. We aren't the kings and we never want to be. We are the rat bastards behind the throne. We are the advisers that lead the emperor around by the nose while constantly trying to find ways of poisoning his sons. We are the jesters in the corner poking fun of the king right to his fucking face and getting away with it.  We are the insane monk leading the flock to certain ruin.

No, if we were ever in charge we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. That's why we choose to always be on the fringes. We are the subversives who are constantly throwing rocks at the Establishment. It doesn't even matter who the Establishment is, they were stupid enough and greedy enough to get into power. That alone means that they are corrupt down to the little black hearts. We know because we would do the exact same thing if we had that power. We don't know the crown because we know that it isn't worth it. It's much more effective to work the edges and hope for total chaos.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 10, 2009, 02:32:53 AM

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 10, 2009, 02:29:56 AM
To extend that, Cram:  What would a majority Discordian nation look like? What would a Discordian government look like? What laws and policies would a Discordian government pass? What would be forbidden and what would be allowed? What would be the unintended consequences of these laws?

I honestly have no idea where to go with this yet. I'll have to contemplate it for awhile.

If they ever form a Discordian State, I shall tear it down.

You'll have about 14 seconds from the time it's formed to tear it down yourself. After that I expect it will implode of its own accord.

Yeah, there's that too. No one should ever trust us with power, ever.

I think Iason is right. There never will be a Discordian State, at least not at the present level of human development. You would have to be able to follow a government that you couldn't take seriously...wait that's what we have now.

Scratch that. You'd have to follow a government that doesn't take itself seriously. Wouldn't work.

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 10, 2009, 05:02:25 AM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 10, 2009, 02:32:53 AM
If they ever form a Discordian State, I shall tear it down.

And that, my friend, is the ultimate paradox of Discordianism. Even if all of our dreams came true we still wouldn't be satisfied. We don't want to win. We don't actually want to take over the world. If we were offered the crown we would outright refuse it. We aren't the kings and we never want to be. We are the rat bastards behind the throne. We are the advisers that lead the emperor around by the nose while constantly trying to find ways of poisoning his sons. We are the jesters in the corner poking fun of the king right to his fucking face and getting away with it.  We are the insane monk leading the flock to certain ruin.

No, if we were ever in charge we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. That's why we choose to always be on the fringes. We are the subversives who are constantly throwing rocks at the Establishment. It doesn't even matter who the Establishment is, they were stupid enough and greedy enough to get into power. That alone means that they are corrupt down to the little black hearts. We know because we would do the exact same thing if we had that power. We don't know the crown because we know that it isn't worth it. It's much more effective to work the edges and hope for total chaos.

We're simple contrarian nihilists a la Lebowski?

Shit, I don't think I got that memo.

The trickster is never King... if he ever tries to be King, he fails miserably. However, the trickster is always necessary.. as the Court Jester is one of the few who can burn the bums of the King, his friends and their neighbors and survive because well, they're 'jest the Fool'.
So then, perhaps the extreme conclusion would be that all jesters, fools and tricksters would take the path of Eris. That might be ugly.

But there is always a king.

In the land of the jesters, who is the king?

QuoteBut there is always a king.

In the land of the jesters, who is the king?

The poor bastard whose job in the act is to get pie thrown in his face. The Victim.

Quote from: Arafelis on June 10, 2009, 05:50:00 AM
But there is always a king.

In the land of the jesters, who is the king?

There is no land of the Jesters for they would all be out of work bums singing songs at each other, hoping for some food and a bed and a wench... OH MY GOD ITS US!!!!

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

I'm not out of work. I just lack a learner's permit...

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 10, 2009, 05:37:12 AM
We're simple contrarian nihilists a la Lebowski?

Shit, I don't think I got that memo.

You don't even know what nihilism is, do you?

It is also the job of the trickster to do all the things you're not supposed to do, and get fucked over by doing them so you see that if you do things you're not supposed to do then you, too, shall be fucked over.  Of course, that's just when the people who don't want you to do those things are telling the story.

It isn't nihilism to want to cure a disease.  That counterculture responds to the mainstream rather than forsaking and ignoring it shows there are values hidden underneath, a concern for and interest in others.

blah blah blah dialectics blah blah blah

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 10, 2009, 07:03:08 AM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 10, 2009, 05:37:12 AM
We're simple contrarian nihilists a la Lebowski?

Shit, I don't think I got that memo.

You don't even know what nihilism is, do you?

:ronpaul: + :chickenhawk: x  :spluff: = nihilism

Absurdism ≠ Nihilism. They are similar but not exactly the same.

Quote from: Iason Ouabache on June 10, 2009, 08:53:29 AM
Absurdism ≠ Nihilism. They are similar but not exactly the same.

I may be in a weird way, but I couldn't detect anything besides Nihilism in your "Discordian Gubmint."

I also stand by my assessment of Nihilism as being a combination of Ron Paulian "freedom" combined with a naive violent impulse multiplied by the unintentional facial that Nihilists bring upon themselves.

I like where this is going.

Just pointing out it need not be political though.  Consider the implications of the law of fives for...pretty much anything, especially when you consider the Information Revolution and the logical problems Quine presented to the world (namely, there is so much information now, and since you can make logically consistent arguments that come to different conclusions from the same information, you could be wildly wrong without ever realizing it). 

Or, what sort of person is attracted to Discordianism.  Who would become a Discordian, and why?

Politically, the best thing Discordianism could go for, I think, is something like the Lord of Misrule or the King of Fools: a temporarily acquired position of power that makes a mockery of everything for a short period.

Discordianism is seeing the ridiculous for what it is and point blank refusing to go around taking it all srsly like you're expected to. Whether the ridiculous be political, social convention or any other situation where herd mentality rules.

Discordianism can't rule because discordianism is all about how ridiculous the whole concept of rules is.

*disclaimer* ridiculous =/= unnecessary, but hell, even the fact that rules are necessary is pretty fucking ridiculous

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on June 10, 2009, 12:01:42 PM
Discordianism is seeing the ridiculous for what it is and point blank refusing to go around taking it all srsly like you're expected to. Whether the ridiculous be political, social convention or any other situation where herd mentality rules.

Discordianism can't rule because discordianism is all about how ridiculous the whole concept of rules is.

*disclaimer* ridiculous =/= unnecessary, but hell, even the fact that rules are necessary is pretty fucking ridiculous

I agree, which is why I think the closest thing Discordianism would get to leadership would be a farcical parody of leadership, like the Lord of Misrule:

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_MisruleThe Lord of Misrule, known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots, was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the Feast of Fools. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia. The Church held a similar festival involving a Boy Bishop. The celebration of the Feast of Fools was outlawed by the Council of Basel that sat from 1431, but it survived to be put down again by the Catholic Queen Mary I in England in 1555.

While mostly known as a British holiday custom, the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from antiquity. In ancient Rome, from the 17th to the 23rd of December, a Lord of Misrule was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the good god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rules of life were turned topsy-turvy as masters served their slaves, and the offices of state were held by slaves. The Lord of Misrule presided over all of this, and had the power to command anyone to do anything during the holiday period. This holiday seems to be the precursor to the more modern holiday, and it carried over into the Christian era.

Only thing is, it wouldn't be expected or ordained by society. A Discordian "leadership" would essentially be a huge, elaborate prank on the society it presided over. Because most Discordians (I think) understand the concepts of leadership, government, and authority as nothing more than social fictions, they could not (without some serious doublethink) take a position of power seriously. Intentional or not, I think the entire system would end being one big attempt to get the people under its governance to realize that it, like all forms of leadership, only has the power that they, the people, give it.

And since a Discordian leadership would probably be full of spags and asshattery, they'd be wise not to give us any power at all. :lulz:  Government roont!

I think you're all placing too much emphasis on the political element of this.  Even the idea that Discordianism can rule is, quite frankly implausible, and not really what deconstruction is meant to be aiming for.

Instead you have to think of it as Discordianism Unleaded.  Discordianism at 120%.  Read the PD again, take down notes of the concepts, and follow them through to their logical conclusions.  Then think about what sort of effects that would have.  "Discordianism ruling" is not really a viable example because the point is to try and take the ideas in Discordianism to their excess, and I don't remember anything about ruling or political structure in that at all.

I'm fascinated by this idea... But I don't have much practice with Deconstructing ideas (I wish I could go back to college again).

For now, I'll just stay off to one side and watch.  If I get the feel for it, I'll jump in.


But I'll just mention this: there are more than a handful of intentional paradoxes in the PD (e.g. Fifth Pentabarf).  Taken to extremes, doesn't that imply insanity?

That was one of the options I considered, yes.

Also, nihilism, as a possible (if unintended) outcome, as shown by the discussion between Net and Cram and Iason.

Maybe this will help http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction

I'll see if I can find more examples.

In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think it might work better in a fictional format.

Already on it.  Unfortunately I suck at writing...  but I think I have some good ideas...

I thought your previous poem was a stab in the right direction, btw.  Sorry, I missed that last night, thought I should mention that now.

QuoteAbsurdism ≠ Nihilism. They are similar but not exactly the same.

The two are not always similar. Nihilism can also be damn depressing mode of belief. There are plenty of nihilists whose actions border on the hedonistic or psychotic, all due to their belief that there is not point to existence.

Nihilism states that there is no God, no meaning to life, no meaning or purpose to anything and if you go look for meaning, you're wasting your time.

Absurdism states that there probably is no God, if there is a meaning or purpose to life we cannot know it. We can make up our own purpose in life and we can go looking for purpose. It's not possible to find the purpose, but the seeking may have value in and of itself. It's not necessary, but it might be useful/valuable/fun.

Absurdism is really just a slightly more positive view of nihilism. They both contend that God and Meaning/Purpose are likely non-existent. Absurdism just accepts that making shit up in your head is as good an option as any, while nihilism sees it as a waste of time. Maybe we could call it Pragmatic Nihilism?

The Black Iron Prison fits the absurdist paradigm, because it holds that you can rearrange your cell AND that its valuable to do so. One of the reasons I created the Submarine/Spaceship/BiP metaphor was because I wanted to stress the absurdist view that "Purpose is whatever you make it out to be".


Now back to Deconstructing Discordianism

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 10, 2009, 03:46:54 PM
Nihilism states that there is no God, no meaning to life, no meaning or purpose to anything and if you go look for meaning, you're wasting your time.

Absurdism states that there probably is no God, if there is a meaning or purpose to life we cannot know it. We can make up our own purpose in life and we can go looking for purpose. It's not possible to find the purpose, but the seeking may have value in and of itself. It's not necessary, but it might be useful/valuable/fun.

Absurdism is really just a slightly more positive view of nihilism. They both contend that God and Meaning/Purpose are likely non-existent. Absurdism just accepts that making shit up in your head is as good an option as any, while nihilism sees it as a waste of time. Maybe we could call it Pragmatic Nihilism?

The Black Iron Prison fits the absurdist paradigm, because it holds that you can rearrange your cell AND that its valuable to do so. One of the reasons I created the Submarine/Spaceship/BiP metaphor was because I wanted to stress the absurdist view that "Purpose is whatever you make it out to be".


Now back to Deconstructing Discordianism

Your point on Nihilism, whilst being essentially true of the general nihilist, is something I never really understood. When I arrived at the nihilist pov (never read anything about it - more kinda worked it out for myself) I thought it was great. Made my whole life a lot more fun, without the pressure of living up to some externally imposed mystery meaning.

Years later I discovered nihilists and was genuinely shocked at how depressed they seemed to get about it.

This made me laugh like an idiot, for ages. I still chuckle occasionally. I maintain - Nihilism is a perfectly valid model but most self proclaimed nihilists are doing it wrong :lulz:

I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

Quote from: LMNO on June 10, 2009, 04:07:34 PM
I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

Possibly:

The Absurdist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... but you can try and in trying there may be value/purpose that you have personally created for yourself."

The Nihilist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... rearranging/remolding etc is a waste of time and a fool's errand."

At a meta view, certainly both positions are based on the perceptions of the 'prisoner' and what they can see from their BiP. That is, its part of their BiP to think that remodeling is or is not useful.

IMO, this is a good example of the difference between 'constraints' and 'prison' in my view. That is, the nihilist seems to be in a prison that he cannot change, because he believes he cannot (shades of Nopants, ITT). However, the Absurdist is not imprisoned in a system that cannot be changed, rather he can manipulate it and have fun on the way (Submarines, Spaceships, GSP etc). Both are still confined to experience reality through filters and constraints... one just manipulates it for fun, while the other sits on the prison floor masturbating over the emoness of it all.  :lulz:

I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 10, 2009, 04:17:43 PM

Quote from: LMNO on June 10, 2009, 04:07:34 PM
I would argue that Nihilism is contained within the BIP.

If BIP is (partially) the thoughts and behaviors that filter existential reality, then the Nihilist view is how one person's BIP is constructed.

Of course, that means the the BIP is also contained within the BIP, which is.... Prisons, all the way down.

Anyway, my point remains that because BIP can be considered mechanism rather than viewpoint, Nihilism is therefore a single possibility within the myriad ways to look at existence.




Shit.  Cain, should I have started a new thread here?  Feel free to split if it's derailing the OP.

Possibly:

The Absurdist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... but you can try and in trying there may be value/purpose that you have personally created for yourself."

The Nihilist would say "You'll never escape, you'll never see everything outside of your confinement 100% clearly... rearranging/remolding etc is a waste of time and a fool's errand."

At a meta view, certainly both positions are based on the perceptions of the 'prisoner' and what they can see from their BiP. That is, its part of their BiP to think that remodeling is or is not useful.

IMO, this is a good example of the difference between 'constraints' and 'prison' in my view. That is, the nihilist seems to be in a prison that he cannot change, because he believes he cannot (shades of Nopants, ITT). However, the Absurdist is not imprisoned in a system that cannot be changed, rather he can manipulate it and have fun on the way (Submarines, Spaceships, GSP etc). Both are still confined to experience reality through filters and constraints... one just manipulates it for fun, while the other sits on the prison floor masturbating over the emoness of it all.  :lulz:

This is not nihilism - it's most primates reaction to the nihilistic principle

Nihilism ends at meaninglessness.

Weeping like a little biotch is what happens when a whiny fucing pussy discovers nihilism and it sometimes leads to suicide and this is as good for the gene pool as it is amusing to behold.

Laughing and feeling like that's a load off your mind and feeling generally liberated is how a proper person adopts nihilism. How many of those have you met?

So there's my point - most nihilists are doing it wrong

Quote from: Cain on June 10, 2009, 01:09:10 PM
In fact, the more I think about this, the more I think it might work better in a fictional format.

I thought that that was the plan in the first place. ;)

Quote from: Cain on June 10, 2009, 01:07:58 PM
That was one of the options I considered, yes.

Also, nihilism, as a possible (if unintended) outcome, as shown by the discussion between Net and Cram and Iason.

IMHO, anyone who ends up at nihilism because of Discordianism is missing the point but we can run with that if it makes the plot more interesting.

QuoteMaybe this will help http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction

I'll see if I can find more examples.

I thought that this sentence was especially helpful: "Deconstructions are about playing things extremely straight, often pointing out how bad (or possibly not so bad) things are if they were real."

I think that in a Discordian world, everything would keep on going.

What is a Discordian world? You need the Hodge to balance the Podge, right? And both are equally Discordian, right?

After all, remember the Law of Eristic Escalation, and also remember that the opposite is also true.

Quote from: Cain on June 10, 2009, 04:28:39 PM
I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

This is why I've always felt that TFYS and KYFMS go hand in hand.

Sudden (somewhat related) thought - Discordianism might benefit from a martyr, like all the proper religions have.

Someone who thought for him/herself but didn't account for the (very real) danger that acting this way would put them in from society at large

Quote from: Cain on June 10, 2009, 04:28:39 PM
I don't think its necessarily unconnected, LMNO, but what if we look at it this way:

Both the Nihilist and the Absurdist are ultimately short-sighted because they focus on the self or individual.  Rearranging your bar cells may be great...but is it really of much use when your entire culture refuses to go along with it?  As Doloros would say, putting her Marxist twist on it, you can consider yourself a Chaos Marxist all you want, but you still have to live in a capitalist society. 

You may realize that you can rearrange your bars, but when the rest of society disagrees, and furthermore, insists those bars are totally real and punishes those who transgress them...well, of what use is this, really?

That is the sort of thing I'm trying to do.  Pointing out limitations, failings, dangerous flaws that we have all overlooked.

Also, P3nT I think Absurdism and Nihilism get mix/mashed in most western thinking. ;-)
Excellent point!

Realist Anarchism states that the Individual is free, but understands they live in a non-free system. They choose to obey the laws of the system, until they law conflicts with their desire. Then they do a risk analysis on what's more important, their desire, or the risk of punishment. Absurdism seems similar, if we use the BiP metaphor.

The awakened Black Iron Prisoner knows that they can change the bars and bricks at will, but understands that there are consequences tied to those modifications. A consequence of me abandoning "the Truth", was an aversion to the concept of truth. A consequence of abandoning a bar that society demands, might be incarceration.  However, in some cases the consequence may be worth it... the action may cost a lot, but that cost may be justifiable for some people.

Society leaves a lot for us to "change" in our Prison, religion, philosophy, kinds of data you decide to process etc. Society also has some hard core bars, like 'If its under 16 you can't fuck it'. This is interesting because there are multiple ways one could change such a bar... the individual could just engage in underage sex... and face the consequences of prison, being labeled a sex offender etc. Or, a person could philosophically remove the bar, without acting on it... like Uncle BadTouch, for example. He too faces consequences for changing that bar/brick. That is, it provides a label for people to attach to him without knowing anything else about the guy. Maybe for him, the freedom of thought is worth the consequence of being outcast by his tribe. I think that nothing Uncle BadTouch says would be accepted here... even if it had nothing to do with sex or Really Real Discordians. If Uncle BadTouch were to post here like most of us, the name would still attach to the label "He broke that BAR of the Prison!!!" and the opinion of him, the value of his comments would be nullified.

Thats a high cost for a minor modification to one's Prison... I dunno if it was worth it to him or not. It wouldn't be worth it to me, even though I agree that arbitrary age isn't a good way to define anything about the maturity of humans... it may be the only way to do it within a system but its not something I feel strongly enough about to face consequences for, so the bar remains.

Quotehttp://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21108.msg713597#new

a start... maybe?  I'm not best pleased with it, but its mostly just for the general idea i think.

started in a different thread becasue I thought i'd leave this thread for the development of themes rather than discussion of actual works...

x

Quotea start... maybe?  I'm not best pleased with it, but its mostly just for the general idea i think.

started in a different thread becasue I thought i'd leave this thread for the development of themes rather than discussion of actual works...

Read it. Liked it.

I think we need to get away from the idea of a discordian world. The Watchman wasn't a world for superheros, it was a world that /contained/ superheros, heros that were the ultimate conclusion of all the masked hero archetypes (the patriot, the detective, the atomic man, the heroine, the genius, the inventor) and the deconstructions thereof. They CHANGED the world by being present in it, but it was still more or less our world.

So how would people react to a Discordian state?

QuoteI think we need to get away from the idea of a discordian world.

Agreed.  Sort of.  I think there's too much focus on that concept, at least, especially compared to how much we would actually get out of it.

Keep in mind that some of Moore's other works deconstructed the superhero in other ways.  Take Supreme, for instance.

Then there's Promethea. That wasn't so much about superheroes as reality, mysticism, symbolism, and stories.

If I'm understanding this whole concept of deconstruction properly, we probably ought to choose, or at least outline, the Discordian ideas which we are going to take to their extreme. I just scanned through my dead tree copy of the PD and took some notes. I'm hoping that some of the ideas presented in the PD will be interesting to see deconstructed:

• Pg. 00013: "Heaven is down. Hell is up. This is proven by the fact that the planets and stars are orderly in their movements, while down on earth we come close to the primal chaos." In other words, order is a hellish existence.
• Pg. 00032: "There are no rules anywhere."
• Everyone is a Pope, and "a Pope is someone who is not under the authority of the authorities."
• The general state of the world is that people take things too seriously think that there is a true order to everything, and that order must be adhered to.
• Pg. 00046: The Orders of Discordia--those elements which emphasize order are antagonistic (i.e. they are the Bad Guys). They are blinded by the Aneristic Delusion, but Discordians are not blinded.
• Pg. 00074: "The human race will begin solving its problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously."

I think these ideas can be taken to an extreme fairly easily. Obviously, many of us, as Discordians, will be tempted to point out that the ideas presented above have been taken out of context, but I think that's okay. It's acceptable to take the ideas out of the context of Discordianism as a whole and see what they look like if taken too far.

I particularly like the fifth one I mentioned above, the one on page 46 about the Orders of Discordia. The attitude that "we know the truth; we know what's really going on, but They don't" is one that would be exceptionally weird if Discordians took it to an extreme.

I haven't read this whole thread yet, however I wanted to mention an idea I had this morning which coincidentally fits the idea of a fictional reductio-ad-absurdam of discordianism quite well. Since I can't be arsed to actually *write* the damned thing, maybe I can spit it out and have one of you spags work on it.

Goes like this: This guy gets pranked in some absurdly surreal way (I'm thinking typical MIB fare -- two suited men go into a mcdonalds and have to be instructed on what to do with a hamburger, or something), and follows them back. Later manages to find out that there is some absurdly technologically advanced group of pranksters orchestrating nearly all the fortean phenomena and as-of-yet-unexplained pranks in existence, saying that they need to break people out of the status quo or the system will become fragile. They take the place of an evolutionary competitor to mainstream humanity, so that humans as a race don't atrophy and die off. Main character joins them and helps them. Finds out they are actually government funded. Turns out that their constant pranking and mixing people up is the only thing keeping people intelligent and open-minded enough that the whole status quo doesn't fall apart and something better takes its place -- by using minor psychological shrapnel to attack stratified thought they have strengthened the status quo and actually retarded progress because a system that is outdated has been artificially strengthened so as not to fall apart and give way to something better from the ground up.

Quote from: Enki-][ on June 11, 2009, 04:44:16 AM
I haven't read this whole thread yet, however I wanted to mention an idea I had this morning which coincidentally fits the idea of a fictional reductio-ad-absurdam of discordianism quite well. Since I can't be arsed to actually *write* the damned thing, maybe I can spit it out and have one of you spags work on it.

Goes like this: This guy gets pranked in some absurdly surreal way (I'm thinking typical MIB fare -- two suited men go into a mcdonalds and have to be instructed on what to do with a hamburger, or something), and follows them back. Later manages to find out that there is some absurdly technologically advanced group of pranksters orchestrating nearly all the fortean phenomena and as-of-yet-unexplained pranks in existence, saying that they need to break people out of the status quo or the system will become fragile. They take the place of an evolutionary competitor to mainstream humanity, so that humans as a race don't atrophy and die off. Main character joins them and helps them. Finds out they are actually government funded. Turns out that their constant pranking and mixing people up is the only thing keeping people intelligent and open-minded enough that the whole status quo doesn't fall apart and something better takes its place -- by using minor psychological shrapnel to attack stratified thought they have strengthened the status quo and actually retarded progress because a system that is outdated has been artificially strengthened so as not to fall apart and give way to something better from the ground up.

You are certifiably insane, Enki.

Should I take that as a "Good job, we'll get right on that"?

If Discordianism can be thought of as simply, "think for yourself, schmuck" it presupposes at some point that thought dependent on an external authority is undesirable.

However, when and where exactly does this occur?

Applying the principle to language itself clearly leads to Pinealism, since external authorities (the dictionary and historical consensus) are integral to language.

Is it even possible for anyone to not think for themselves? Isn't the continual act of deferring judgment to an external authority a choice made at every instant by the individual?

Is it even possible for someone to behave in a way that they do not believe serves their best interest? I don't think it is. At every moment that is all you can do.

"Think for yourself, schmuck is an empty slogan then, a glittering generality.

I know this is for Deconstruction, but I have to say it anyway:

For me, "TFY,S" is another way of saying "double check and independently verify your sources."  As social creatures, we are almost invariably taught and informed by others; and as self-deluding creatures, we are constantly convincing ourselves that what we do is "right".

"TFY,S" seems to be a way to take a step back and contemplate your actions/beliefs.

I'm with LMNO here...

TYF,S! doesn't mean Think Completely Original And Unique Thoughts. It simply means that you have to THINK for yourself rather than blindly follow what others tell you. A person can think for themselves and quote from others. A person can think for themselves and include other people's memes. Hell, TYF,S! came from Illuminatus! and that books borrows memes, writing styles, ideas and quotes from many other individuals.

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 11, 2009, 04:50:18 PM
I'm with LMNO here...

TYF,S! doesn't mean Think Completely Original And Unique Thoughts. It simply means that you have to THINK for yourself rather than blindly follow what others tell you. A person can think for themselves and quote from others. A person can think for themselves and include other people's memes. Hell, TYF,S! came from Illuminatus! and that books borrows memes, writing styles, ideas and quotes from many other individuals.

A corollary might be "Do The Fucking Research".

But, it must be remembered, that Net's post was intended to Deconstruct, so it's not like he actually holds that position, nor do we have to defend TFY,S.

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 04:58:08 PM
But, it must be remembered, that Net's post was intended to Deconstruct, so it's not like he actually holds that position, nor do we have to defend TFY,S.

Should no one discuss the validity of the premise of anyone else's deconstruction? What, then, is the point of this exercise?

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 04:31:48 PM
I know this is for Deconstruction, but I have to say it anyway:

For me, "TFY,S" is another way of saying "double check and independently verify your sources."  As social creatures, we are almost invariably taught and informed by others; and as self-deluding creatures, we are constantly convincing ourselves that what we do is "right".

"TFY,S" seems to be a way to take a step back and contemplate your actions/beliefs.

What do you mean by "double check and independently verify your sources"?

Why don't you just say that instead of the vague phrase, "TFY,S"?

So you're saying WHENEVER this doesn't occur, you're not thinking for yourself?

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 05:05:55 PM

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 04:58:08 PM
But, it must be remembered, that Net's post was intended to Deconstruct, so it's not like he actually holds that position, nor do we have to defend TFY,S.

Should no one discuss the validity of the premise of anyone else's deconstruction? What, then, is the point of this exercise?

I'm not saying that, i just wanted to point out that he was Taking It To Extremes on purpose.

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 06:16:08 PM

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 04:31:48 PM
I know this is for Deconstruction, but I have to say it anyway:

For me, "TFY,S" is another way of saying "double check and independently verify your sources."  As social creatures, we are almost invariably taught and informed by others; and as self-deluding creatures, we are constantly convincing ourselves that what we do is "right".

"TFY,S" seems to be a way to take a step back and contemplate your actions/beliefs.

What do you mean by "double check and independently verify your sources"?

Why don't you just say that instead of the vague phrase, "TFY,S"?

So you're saying WHENEVER this doesn't occur, you're not thinking for yourself?

The original usage of the term was stating that one should not simply follow some set of rules. "Think For Yourself, Schmuck!" was on a painting of Moses, coming down from Mt. Sinai with the tablets of the Law in his hand. However, instead of 10 laws from God, there was only one. "Think For Yourself, Schmuck!"

It was God telling people to use their brains rather than depending on Him to tell them what is Right, Wrong, Permissible or Not.

Which I think is a bit more than 'Verify your sources', but not as far as "Throw off all other views and make up your own completely unique view". It encompasses both, potentially... I think.

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 06:25:13 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 05:05:55 PM

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 04:58:08 PM
But, it must be remembered, that Net's post was intended to Deconstruct, so it's not like he actually holds that position, nor do we have to defend TFY,S.

Should no one discuss the validity of the premise of anyone else's deconstruction? What, then, is the point of this exercise?

I'm not saying that, i just wanted to point out that he was Taking It To Extremes on purpose.

Well, yeah...

So, why don't we run with it?  What would happen if you took TFY,S to it's logical conclusion?

My first thought is an entire society that does nothing but archive bibliographys...

Yeah, and a society of OCDs. 

Quote from: LMNO on June 11, 2009, 07:07:43 PM
So, why don't we run with it?  What would happen if you took TFY,S to it's logical conclusion?

My first thought is an entire society that does nothing but archive bibliographys...

but surely the opposite would occur - all books would be burned because

"A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he Reads."

[quick reality check {maybe} yes I know that its not a damned paradox just a timely enjoinder to keep you wits about you when being assailed by weasel words - and the weasels who wite them and that's not weasy to say

If TYF, S! were drawn to its logical conclusion... in an extreme, of course:

There would be no political parties. Almost no one agrees 100% with their party, often they pick the 'least horrible' option. Talk radio, news reporting etc as we know it would not survive. No one would have assumed Dan Rather had a letter from GWB's boss in the military. Rather, everyone would have been suspicious and many people might have found the font failure for themselves.
However, no one would believe the scientists. Global Warming, Evolution and other large scale systems would be more complex than most people could process (since they weren't trained for it).

When you think about it, it seems that all of us, at least sometimes, don't think for ourselves. Some things are just too weird, complex or out of our area of understanding. In those times, we often take the word of someone else. I personally haven't gone to the poles to measure temperatures. I haven't personally studied each and every fossil we have available and I'm not at all sure I would have any way of drawing conclusions about them.

That could create a very bad place to live for the human population.

No one would really believe anything, because the evidence they were able to access would always be incomplete. Everything would be e-primed... "I consider it possible based on evidence thus far" would replace "I think", and editorials would vanish because, man, that's just one guy's opinion and I haven't researched his sources.

Journalism would be distilled to a bare-bones recitation of documented fact.

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 07:27:14 PM
Journalism would be distilled to a bare-bones recitation of documented fact.

I am torn... would that be a bad thing, or not?

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 11, 2009, 07:42:50 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 07:27:14 PM
Journalism would be distilled to a bare-bones recitation of documented fact.

I am torn... would that be a bad thing, or not?

I'm OK with it.

QuoteI am torn... would that be a bad thing, or not?

It would have both good and bad parts. I mean we wouldn't be able to read Gonzo journalism, which would suck. But we also wouldn't have to worry about conservative/liberal bias crap. Maybe it would be just that people who wrote GOnzo and other biased stuff would have to state that it had a bias...

However, i would want it hyper-linked to all relevant additional information.


Facts are useless without context.

i don't get the don't believe what you read logical extension to cant read things? why couldn't you read for enjoyment or to increase the number of views you are aware of but don't believe ?

Quotei don't get the don't believe what you read logical extension to cant read things? why couldn't you read for enjoyment or to increase the number of views you are aware of but don't believe ?

Maybe afraid of being influenced?

i think there is some warning that living in fear is the domain of the grayface (or should be if there isn't)

Interesting... of course, if we all 'TYF,S!' is doesn't necessarily mean that journalists couldn't write editorials etc. After all, they are allowed to TYF,S! as well and there's no law against telling other people what you thought for yourself ;-)

Perhaps it would put an end to journalists that survive only because of the True Believers... Bill O comes to mind. If all of his listeners would TYF,S! the majority would likely find too many inconsistencies in his views to think he was worth listening to. On the other hand, someone like HST, is being read explicitly for his opinion (and for recreation ;-) ).  That is, people that read HST aren't looking for the Truth, but rather a view of experiences.

I think. So perhaps it would make journalism much more difficult because your audience would expect either 'Just The Facts' (and context for LMNO), OR some unique perception of experiences, ideas etc.

i think for my self about that thing ratta wrote about the stuff he thought for himself..

Quote from: fomenter on June 11, 2009, 07:49:44 PM
i don't get the don't believe what you read logical extension to cant read things? why couldn't you read for enjoyment or to increase the number of views you are aware of but don't believe ?

I think there would still be lots of reading and lots of writing, but probably less opinion writing simply because there wouldn't be much of a market for it.

Or, opinion writing would come across much more as data analysis, with lots of citations.

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 11, 2009, 07:56:32 PM
Interesting... of course, if we all 'TYF,S!' is doesn't necessarily mean that journalists couldn't write editorials etc. After all, they are allowed to TYF,S! as well and there's no law against telling other people what you thought for yourself ;-)

Perhaps it would put an end to journalists that survive only because of the True Believers... Bill O comes to mind. If all of his listeners would TYF,S! the majority would likely find too many inconsistencies in his views to think he was worth listening to. On the other hand, someone like HST, is being read explicitly for his opinion (and for recreation ;-) ).  That is, people that read HST aren't looking for the Truth, but rather a view of experiences.

I think. So perhaps it would make journalism much more difficult because your audience would expect either 'Just The Facts' (and context for LMNO), OR some unique perception of experiences, ideas etc.

They wouldn't disappear because they would be outlawed, they would disappear because there wouldn't be a market for them if they didn't have an audience of people willing to believe what they were told and take on the opinion of the teller.

Or opinion writing would be recognized as 100% subjective, and not meant to influence people towards a particular way of thinking.

or as much opinion writing but heavily eprimed and citationed,  there would still be interested in peoples opinions but the market would tend to expect them to be self aware of there own status as opinions.

Quote from: fomenter on June 11, 2009, 08:13:33 PM
or as much opinion writing but heavily eprimed and citationed,  there would still be interested in peoples opinions but the market would tend to expect them to be self aware of there own status as opinions.

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 08:06:54 PM
Or, opinion writing would come across much more as data analysis, with lots of citations.

So what is the point of this exercise again? 

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on June 11, 2009, 08:23:37 PM
So what is the point of this exercise again? 

For everyone to share their opinion of what would happen if Discordianism as they perceive it was taken to its logical extreme

in other words, a bunch of pointless wankery.

Yes to all of the above. I think that is exactly what would happen. FOX, MSNBC and other obviously biased news orgs would dry up from lack of viewers. Opinion pieces that are obviously opinions may well survive. Journalism that covers experiences (Nat Geo etc) would probabkly continue without problems... I see no reason Andrew Zimmern would have to stop eating cheese with maggots in it, just because he audience was smart enough to use their brains ;-)

Indeed, Planet Earth, Bizarre Foods, Myth Busters etc as a genre might flourish because they aren't making claims, but rather they are relaying experiences... which they present to the audience with evidence. (Here's me eating maggot cheese. Here's me blowing up 600 pounds of C4. Here's a flock of migrating frogs.)...

If one read a book where the author said "Cheese with maggots exists and I ate it and liked it" TYF,S! might doubt such a claim. If however, there is a video, where we see cheese and maggots and we see the individual stick it in his mouth and say "Oh, this is really yummy!" it gives us more information to examine.

TYF,S! would probably stop us from claiming that maggty cheese IS yummy, but it might inform your choices if you ever get presented with a piece of maggoty cheese.

Mostly I like saying maggoty cheese.

(http://www.travelchannel.com/static_files/tc/imgs/show/bizarre/zimmern_ss_nicaragua_007.jpg)

Okay, because what I'm reading sounds like you guys went from TFY,S and went to such an extreme that you've ended up back on the other side of the spectrum at assembly-line opinion making.  

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on June 11, 2009, 08:27:30 PM
Okay, because what I'm reading sounds like you guys went from TFY,S and went to such an extreme that you've ended up back on the other side of the spectrum at assembly-line opinion making.  

Well, anything taken to an extreme would generally get you back the the opposite side, wouldn't it?

Yes, which gets me back to my initial question. 

Quote from: Cain on June 09, 2009, 08:31:16 PM
Taken from the Watchmen and Philosophy (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=21074.0) thread:

QuoteMoore did not need Jean Baudrillard (perhaps the greatest of the postmodern philosophers) to tell him that "the idea is destroyed by its own realization," that the "extreme" development of an idea (which takes that idea beyond its own limits, end, or terminus, into "a state of ex-termination") can thereby destroy it—as, for example, sex is destroyed by "porn,"which is "more sexual than sex"; the body by "obesity,"which is "fatter than fat"; violence by "terror," which is "more violent than violence"; information by "simulation," which is "truer than true"; time by "instantaneity," which is "more present than the present," and as, in Watchmen, the hero is destroyed by the superhero, who is more heroic than any hero, but whose extreme "heroics" are no longer recognizable as heroics.  Moore seems instinctively to know (or else he has, like Watchmen's Ozymandias, studied "a hundred different philosophies") that one of the most powerful deconstructive strategies involves provisionally accepting an idea, thesis, position, or worldview, then working from inside it to extend it beyond its limits until it is eventually made to collapse under its own weight, like a plant forced to bear  fruit too heavy for its own branches.  I would call this strategy  hypertrophic deconstruction (after Nietzsche, who recognized that "a hypertrophic virtue  ...may bring about the decay of a people as much as a hypertrophic vice.").  Watchmen deconstructs the hero by developing its heroes—extending traditional hero fantasies beyond their limits—to the point where the reader comes to understand that these fantasies, realized, become nightmares.

QuoteI would suggest instead that when a genre seems to commit suicide—as philosophy did (with Kant, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein) and as the super-hero comic did (with Watchmen)—this apparent suicide is usually better understood as an attempted martyrdom, that is, a sacrifice with a redemptive intent, a would-be rebirth (even if in a different form).When the greatest representatives of a genre seek to end it, this is perhaps because they sense (on some level) that no field can long survive without being periodically revitalized by such sacrifice and rebirth. It is no coincidence that many of the comics which followed Watchmen sought to respond to its challenging deconstruction of the hero, and that the result greatly enriched the comics medium as a whole.More than fifteen years later, mainstream comics continue to occupy a post-Watchmen landscape, one in which Watchmen's ambivalence about the hero has become nearly ubiquitous.  Even in the darkest of contemporary comics, however, a careful reader can still recognize the sparks from that ongoing struggle to imagine and create the kinds of heroes who will prove themselves capable of inspiring the denizens of this complex and morally ambiguous world, a struggle which seeks to keep alive (as the dream of the hero, with all its risks, has always done) our hope for a better future.

Perhaps deconstructing Discordianism - or all irreligions - would be a worthwhile project?

Just an idea I'm throwing out there.

Just to remind everyone why this thread was started.

Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Quote from: LMNO on June 10, 2009, 01:01:21 PM
I'm fascinated by this idea... But I don't have much practice with Deconstructing ideas (I wish I could go back to college again).

For now, I'll just stay off to one side and watch.  If I get the feel for it, I'll jump in.

Bump for why I should have kept my mouth shut.

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 08:52:10 PM
Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Where do you get the idea that that's everyone's (or indeed, anyone's) idea of deconstruction? Reductio ad absurdum is, in my opinion, one tool useful in desconstruction, and a perfectly fine place to start.

Have you read Derrida's definition of deconstruction?  :lulz:

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:04:27 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 08:52:10 PM
Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Where do you get the idea that that's everyone's (or indeed, anyone's) idea of deconstruction? Reductio ad absurdum is, in my opinion, one tool useful in desconstruction, and a perfectly fine place to start.

Have you read Derrida's definition of deconstruction?  :lulz:

Quote from: WikipediaWhen asked "What is deconstruction?" Derrida replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4).

That doesn't mean you can just make up whatever you want and call it deconstruction.

Reducto ad absurdum is the simplest and most easily accessible form of deconstruction, and thus, probably the one my first and possibly only contribution to this series will involve.

My hope for this project is that it starts in deconstructing Discordianism, proceeds after a bit of practice to deconstructing other irreligions, continues on to deconstructing the deconstructive process we're using, and finally ends up deconstructing Discordianism.

Because then we'll have finally started.

It is most delightful:

QuoteWhen asked "What is deconstruction?" Derrida replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4)

Also:

http://books.google.com/books?id=QH91072JCpoC&pg=PA369&lpg=PA369&dq=%22I+have+no+simple+and+formalisable+response+to+this+question&source=bl&ots=yii-nvFh4c&sig=VmZUnMAULos1PvgWnV3L58F2-k8&hl=en&ei=rGUxSpjdLZOctgOfyLTdAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#PPA368,M1

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 09:10:48 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:04:27 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 08:52:10 PM
Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Where do you get the idea that that's everyone's (or indeed, anyone's) idea of deconstruction? Reductio ad absurdum is, in my opinion, one tool useful in desconstruction, and a perfectly fine place to start.

Have you read Derrida's definition of deconstruction?  :lulz:

Quote from: WikipediaWhen asked "What is deconstruction?" Derrida replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4).

That doesn't mean you can just make up whatever you want and call it deconstruction.

No one is making anything up.

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:21:45 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 09:10:48 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:04:27 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 08:52:10 PM
Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Where do you get the idea that that's everyone's (or indeed, anyone's) idea of deconstruction? Reductio ad absurdum is, in my opinion, one tool useful in desconstruction, and a perfectly fine place to start.

Have you read Derrida's definition of deconstruction?  :lulz:

Quote from: WikipediaWhen asked "What is deconstruction?" Derrida replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4).

That doesn't mean you can just make up whatever you want and call it deconstruction.

No one is making anything up.

Speak for yourself... I make everything up...



at least somebunall of the time  :lulz:

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 11, 2009, 09:24:51 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:21:45 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 09:10:48 PM

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 09:04:27 PM

Quote from: Ne+@uNGr0+ on June 11, 2009, 08:52:10 PM
Uh, where do you guys get the idea Deconstruction = Reductio Ad Absurdum?

My impression is that it's more subtle and insidious than that.

Where do you get the idea that that's everyone's (or indeed, anyone's) idea of deconstruction? Reductio ad absurdum is, in my opinion, one tool useful in desconstruction, and a perfectly fine place to start.

Have you read Derrida's definition of deconstruction?  :lulz:

Quote from: WikipediaWhen asked "What is deconstruction?" Derrida replied, "I have no simple and formalisable response to this question. All my essays are attempts to have it out with this formidable question" (Derrida, 1985, p. 4).

That doesn't mean you can just make up whatever you want and call it deconstruction.

No one is making anything up.

Speak for yourself... I make everything up...



at least somebunall of the time  :lulz:

:lulz:

You all are Dream Theater fans aren't you? 

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on June 11, 2009, 09:33:23 PM
You all are Dream Theater fans aren't you? 

(http://api.ning.com/files/TJOeykdjajmZIi9YlbqFO5si2spXewBMAC0CIya*FBqJen0S7NU7rk1ALXu4g*8YeLEfqxx*qDoahlxPBdk7iV3kt7B9yLtc/dream_theater_japan.jpg)

?

I was enjoying the discussion several pages ago

please stop filling it with dildos

Quote from: Cramulus on June 11, 2009, 09:58:51 PM
please stop filling it with dildos

That's what your prom date said....

Quote from: Arafelis on June 11, 2009, 09:18:24 PM
Reducto ad absurdum is the simplest and most easily accessible form of deconstruction, and thus, probably the one my first and possibly only contribution to this series will involve.

My hope for this project is that it starts in deconstructing Discordianism, proceeds after a bit of practice to deconstructing other irreligions, continues on to deconstructing the deconstructive process we're using, and finally ends up deconstructing Discordianism.

Because then we'll have finally started.

Maybe you're right. All that I've read about Derrida suggests it's more about observing the ambiguous meanings in language and how they subvert the larger message.

Using the Reductio Ad Absurdum approach imposes external logic on the text, while Deconstruction implodes it based on the idea of "Differance" or meaning being endlessly deferred to other words.

I guess I see Reductio Ad Absurdum as a wrecking ball aimed at an idea and Deconstruction as assault on both the idea and the language used to describe the idea, a mini-black hole implosion, see.

At least that is my impression, and I could be utterly wrong.

The reductio ad aburdum is definitely in the spirit of Deconstruction, my response earlier wasn't well considered.

Sorry to open a bag of dildos on you guys.

sometimes its hard to tell when a dildo might be just the right tool for the job  :wink:

Quote from: Nigel on June 11, 2009, 08:24:54 PM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on June 11, 2009, 08:23:37 PM
So what is the point of this exercise again? 

For everyone to share their opinion of what would happen if Discordianism as they perceive it was taken to its logical extreme

in other words, a bunch of pointless pointed wankery.

I stand by my book burning because taken all the way TFYS would be not only the final death of the author but the death of society. We are a social creature, our lives and lifeways are intimately bound up with our our systems of communication. Without some ability to use our fellow schmucks to share the knowledge load that our very modern existence demands we would be forced to 'remake the wheel' on a virtually daily basis  . .

wut..

i still don't follow this, why do books and society end because people think for themselves? are you saying TFYS means every body must invent there own language and stop all communication with others? that the wheel and all human creations/advancements would be invalid to use unless you dissect it rebuild it for yourself?

Overliteralism ITT. My kid does it on a daily basis. It is more annoying than pinealism.



:thumb:

Quotei still don't follow this, why do books and society end because people think for themselves? are you saying TFYS means every body must invent there own language and stop all communication with others? that the wheel and all human creations/advancements would be invalid to use unless you dissect it rebuild it for yourself?

I think that they're taking it not to it's logical conclusion but to a hypothetical extreme. Where TFYS is so dominant in everyone that they refuse to take in any information that they didn't think up themselves. Or at least that's what I think is the idea.

Quote from: Cramulus on June 11, 2009, 09:58:51 PM
I was enjoying the discussion several pages ago

please stop filling it with dildos

^ What he said.

Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on June 12, 2009, 07:05:34 AM

Quotei still don't follow this, why do books and society end because people think for themselves? are you saying TFYS means every body must invent there own language and stop all communication with others? that the wheel and all human creations/advancements would be invalid to use unless you dissect it rebuild it for yourself?

I think that they're taking it not to it's logical conclusion but to a hypothetical extreme. Where TFYS is so dominant in everyone that they refuse to take in any information that they didn't think up themselves. Or at least that's what I think is the idea.

Now that's rather interesting. One interpretation of TFYS,S! taken to a rational* extreme results in solipsism. It's the BIP without the Barstool.


*btw, I prefer the term "rational" over "logical" in this context for reasons that I can't quite remember because my coffee hasn't kicked in yet

Whichever works for you.

Quote from: Cainad on June 12, 2009, 03:18:07 PM
*btw, I prefer the term "rational" over "logical" in this context for reasons that I can't quite remember because my coffee hasn't kicked in yet

Okay, I think I've got it now. "Logical" tends to suggest an undeniable conclusion based on the information present. Applying that to deconstructionism sort of seems like Vulcan Logic to me. "Rational" tends to suggest a train of thought that, when explained, seems to make sense, but is not necessarily irrefutable.

This, however, is probably just a personal thing based on the connotations I associate with the words. So this can all be ignored.

Fair enough. But back to the original discussion...how else might TFY'S end up?

It occurs to me that I have not seen any mention of "V" in this thread, and yet, it does at least one form of almost exactly what we are looking for... just extend the probable outcome of anarchy to the situation described in the novel.

how about if you combine the ultra-skepticism of extreme TFYS with Discordian Pranksterity?

you could have citations-checking, logical-conclusion-making, for-themselves-thinking Discordians form complicated networks of AWS-style disinfo cabals, trying to outwit the other disinfo cabals, in order to put up tests to see if they're Really Real enough and Think through the disinfo, or have fallen for the fake news. Partly like a competition, partly for control of the "infosphere" (or whatever) and also partly out of religious duty, because the holy Operation Mindfuck is what keeps everybody on their toes, after all they have to be constantly wary that they are not tricked.

But little do they know (of course) that the longer O:MF is going on, the more reality is breaking down, nobody knows what's true anymore, and it doesn't really matter shitfuck anymore if you think for yourself or not, because everything is false, nothing is true :lulz:

Quote from: Triple Zero on June 15, 2009, 10:19:38 AM
how about if you combine the ultra-skepticism of extreme TFYS with Discordian Pranksterity?

you could have citations-checking, logical-conclusion-making, for-themselves-thinking Discordians form complicated networks of AWS-style disinfo cabals, trying to outwit the other disinfo cabals, in order to put up tests to see if they're Really Real enough and Think through the disinfo, or have fallen for the fake news. Partly like a competition, partly for control of the "infosphere" (or whatever) and also partly out of religious duty, because the holy Operation Mindfuck is what keeps everybody on their toes, after all they have to be constantly wary that they are not tricked.

But little do they know (of course) that the longer O:MF is going on, the more reality is breaking down, nobody knows what's true anymore, and it doesn't really matter shitfuck anymore if you think for yourself or not, because everything is false, nothing is true :lulz:

But, then, how does this differ from today? Well, other than the intent, perhaps, on the part of FOX, CNN, etc.  :lulz:

I posit that FOX news is in fact an extremely lucky OM project gone out of hand, like Perl.

Quote from: Enki-][ on June 15, 2009, 04:08:49 PM
I posit that FOX news is in fact an extremely lucky OM project gone out of hand, like Perl.

:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:

Quote from: Enki-][ on June 15, 2009, 04:08:49 PM
I posit that FOX news is in fact an extremely lucky OM project gone out of hand, like Perl.

:mittens:

also, Rat, if the end result is like today or not doesnt matter. the point is the mechanics and reasons of the discordians behind it. unless I got the wrong idea, pushing stuff to their extreme conclusions, in this case pranksterism and skepsis, is the point? and if this conclusion happens to (superficially) resemble the current world, well, I would personally say that sounds like a very interesting find.

Quote from: Triple Zero on June 16, 2009, 02:54:07 AM

Quote from: Enki-][ on June 15, 2009, 04:08:49 PM
I posit that FOX news is in fact an extremely lucky OM project gone out of hand, like Perl.

:mittens:

also, Rat, if the end result is like today or not doesnt matter. the point is the mechanics and reasons of the discordians behind it. unless I got the wrong idea, pushing stuff to their extreme conclusions, in this case pranksterism and skepsis, is the point? and if this conclusion happens to (superficially) resemble the current world, well, I would personally say that sounds like a very interesting find.

I agree....

Prehaps there has been a long running Discordian infiltration of the System...

Here's what I want to know from this thread:
Are we looking for a Deluze style deconstruction, or a TvTropes style deconstruction? Because one is an analysis, and the other is a narrative based on/creating the analysis. Both is fine with me; I just don't want to be posting one while everyone else is thinking of the other.

Quote from: Enki-][ on June 16, 2009, 04:27:43 AM
Here's what I want to know from this thread:
Are we looking for a Deluze style deconstruction, or a TvTropes style deconstruction? Because one is an analysis, and the other is a narrative based on/creating the analysis. Both is fine with me; I just don't want to be posting one while everyone else is thinking of the other.

:pax:

Good luck sir.

I think there are more ways to deconstruct discordia than I could shake a baby at.

Want to see Discordianism deconstructed?  Read this thread from beginning to end, following the concept from its formation and into its various interpretations, detractions, and elaborations.  That is Discordianism deconstructed.

Apply to whichever facet of the religion you wish.

That interpretation certainly makes me feel better about our efforts ITT :lulz: