/32/ - Psychopolitics

Can you give us a rundown of the discussion?
Sometimes links expire before we get a chance to discuss them here.

And this is definitely a good thread idea.

>>1298
Here's an archive of the thread.
https://archive.today/tKUbq

Basically OP asked if anyone is a follower of Eris. Someone asked what Eris is and got some different answers, one said it was a cult, one said it was discordianism, one said that everyone is a pope in this religion, one said it was diluted occultism and nihilism. A few people pointed out that it seems paradoxical to follow a religion with no rules. Then they started talking about the origins of this religion and that's when the thread got really interesting.

No doubt subcultures can be used to the advantage of certain groups, but I would wager that their creation is mostly organic (i.e. spontaneous).

Although if I was creating a group with the intent of gathering individuals to be manipulated, it seems like the best course of action is to start as a vague and "casual" (as in, apolitical, non-ideological) group, attracting the largest possible pool of candidates for extremification. Then, I would slowly insert my ideology, simultaneously converting the members and testing them for the required psychological vulnerabilities that are convenient to my goals (e.g. need for belonging, desire to change the world, submission to leading figures). After that it would be a matter of tweaking with the traditional cult tactics of brainwashing at whatever concentration it suited me.
Now that I think about it, this approach would best suit those who do not have the necessary resources to directly start a cult, say individuals with no governmental or commercial support; and those who don't get direct access to the followers, such as recruiting through the internet.

I don't think that discordianism is one of those cases. It's been around for too long without anything happening to it. There are more efficient ways to create nihilists and chaos worshipers in the general population than something that sounds like a cult. At the end of the day, it's nothing more than harmless fun.

There are other midcentury subcultures perhaps more appropriate for analysis in this thread. One that springs to mind are the hippies.

Though Discordianism's supposed link to yippies does mean that it is perhaps a candidate for inclusion under the header of a controlled subculture.

One that immedately sprang to mind as an inclusive subculture born out of a response of commercialization and free from co-opted control are juggalos. The subculture came into existence in the mtv era of the 90s as grunge came into the forefront of white subculture representing lower/middleclass values. ICP sought to create a musical style and subculture that could truly never become accepted in the mainstream. Acts of violence and occult imagery are grotesquely discussed in their music, and clown paint is used to destroy any serious visual aesthetic. They are the only musically based subculture I can think of which singlehandedly fuels the sale of an obscure soda and whose movement has been described as a gang by the FBI. Complete respect for ICP for exploring new musical inclusive spaces that have remained free of commercialization and cooption by other cultural groups

I have heard that The Beatles and a lot of the acts popular at the same time were created by the Tavistock Institute. It is hard to get much info on Tavistock though. Jim Morisson's dad was a naval intel officer or somesuch.