Discordianism

04 Jan 2022 05:44 - 17 Jun 2023 08:29
Open in Logseq
    • The Discordian Society has no definition.
    • A religion started in the sixties by Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley, and later popularized in Illuminatus!. Devoted to the worship of Eris, the Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, and Confusion.
    • The Discordian logo is the Sacred Chao, a representation of the mutually constitutive relationship between chaos (represented by the golden apple) and order (the pentagon).
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    • I suppose Discordianism was my first exposure to nondualism.
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    • High Weirdness does a pretty good job of engaging seriously with this inherently non-serious movement:
    • Discordianism not only played with the fictional dimension of religion, but attempted to affirm, with great humor, precisely the chaos and confusion that most religious formations are designed to combat or constrain.
    • And also retells the nutty history which impinges on the JFK assassination investigations.
    • But what kind of politics is this exactly? In her book Anti-Disciplinary Protest, the social historian Julie Stephens argues that the dominant view of sixties activism today, including the usual distinction made between the Fists and the Heads, ignores the important presence of what she calls “anti-disciplinary politics.” This style of protest rejected hierarchy and leadership, offering instead a colorful psychedelic politics of satire that was “distinguished from the New Left by its ridiculing of political commitment, sacrifice, seriousness and coherence.” This third rail included the Diggers, the Yippies! (including Wilson's Realist editor Paul Krassner), and the folks that Jerry Rubin dubbed “Marxist acidheads.”
    • My kind of people (I idolized the Yippies when I was a teenager, see The Trial of the Chicago 7 ). Although I have to admit it didn't generate a successful politics. The sort of Discordian media-hacking attitude became mainstream and turned into hipster irony and alt.right meming (Davis digs into this problem in his book)