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Many attempts have been
made to describe Discordianism. Many attempts have failed.
Discordianism is a philosophy.
Some have described it as "like Taoism, but funnier." Some
people think that Discordians take serious things humorously. That
is not quite true; rather, we take humorous things seriously.
Discordianism has a lot
to do with Order and Chaos. The two are considered equals, more
or less. Discordianism isn’t about anarchy, the downfall of government,
and breaking stuff, per se. It’s about creativity, and that takes
both Order and Chaos. To quote the Principia Discordia (most wholely
holy of texts; the Better Book), "To choose order over disorder,
or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the
creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the
destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder.
To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along
with, and equal to, creative order, and also be willing to reject
destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder."
One camp of Discordians believes there is enough order in the world
as it is, and so dedicate themselves to being founts of chaos, thus
evening up the overall balance. Another camp takes things more personally,
and so looks to strike a balance between order and disorder within
the individual. They're both right.
Discordianism also has
a lot to do with subjective reality. Here’s
an example of subjective versus objective reality I once used on
my senior English class: "Let’s say I move to another state. Objectively,
you know that I still exist. I’m just somewhere else. But, I have
disappeared from your lives. You no longer know anything about me
or what I’m doing. So, subjectively – from your perspective – I
have ceased to exist. Because you can’t actually perceive me any
longer, it’s as if I no longer exist." That explanation earned me
a lot of blank stares. Here’s subjective reality in a nutshell:
if you are 100% convinced that something is real, then it is real.
If you’re actually wearing a straightjacket in the corner of a small
padded room, but you are completely certain that you are sipping
a martini in Bermuda, then you may as well be in Bermuda. You’ll
never know the difference, so it’s real, at least to you. (Just
as a side note, there are those who think they can impose their
own subjective realities on the shared, objective reality. Some
of these people are self-proclaimed chaos mages, some are crackpots,
and some are both.)
If you want to know more
than that, you’re going to have to read the
book. It’s a lot funnier than this was.
-Jaden
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