Another Chink in Wal-Mart’s Veneer

Leave it to a girl to take all the fun out of sex discrimination. – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

One of the biggest beacons of artificially imposed order is going to be facing the Supreme Court in the United States over its treatment of female employees. The company is being accused of systematic discrimination ranging from issues of pay equity and being passed over for promotions, to being segregated on company trips. It's remarkable that Wal-Mart has been accused of many things ranging from destroying small businesses to slavery, most of which has been substantiated, and yet they continue to grow with the support of the masses behind them. Why is that? The most likely answer is ignorance. Or most people hold contempt for other human beings bordering on true evil.

Most people justify shopping at Wal-Mart by citing the prices. In some cases, this might make sense. The things that Wal-Mart sells that are true necessities are food and clothes. The clothes tend to be very cheap and the food tends to be 1-2 cents cheaper than a grocery store. Almost everything else they sell is consumerist junk that nobody needs. Yes it's such a big deal to get that XBOX for a few cents less. In many cases, Wal-Mart isn't any cheaper. So many people who shop there do so exclusively and will overpay for all kinds of things while believing they are getting a deal. The real question is: Do Wal-Mart shoppers consider the whole price?

Ignorance. Sometimes the only way to have faith in humanity is to believe that they are morons who think about nothing except food and television. The alternative is that the humble Wal-Mart shopper picks up that discounted thing-a-ma-bob and says to themselves "this is an excellent price, well worth knowing that women were raped and forced to have abortions so that I could get such a good price" or "I'm comfortable knowing that this is made from wood taken from a protected habitat and an endangered species may go extinct if people continue to buy these products". Having faith in humanity means believing that if they knew what they were paying for, they would spend their money on something else. But then you have to confront why so many people are ignorant about something that has been so well documented. Most people ARE aware that Wal-Mart gets at least some of its products from sweat shops. Unfortunately, most people believe that the worst qualities of sweat shops are long hours, little pay, and a lack of air conditioning. They tend not to know about the rape, murder, slavery, and extortion, for example.

Wal-Mart is an embodiment of destructive order, and people wait in line for their turn to pay the machine. As with so many things, ignorance is the enemy. When someone you know shops at Wal-Mart, ask them if it was worth the price. Then ask them if they knew that God is a Crazy Woman.

American Dream in Chaos

Out of the darkness, the chaos of time,\The whirlwind gave birth to the Mother sublime -Jean M. Auel, The Land of Painted Caves


There seems to be a great deal of anxiety when people's lives' take a turn for the unexpected. We have been taught that there is a particular pattern that one's life should follow and that following the pattern is "success" is its purest form. However, the trip to the suburban lifestyle is not always an easy one, and, as it turns out, it's not supposed to be.

Following the expected path to picket fences is the surest way to be knocked off the path by someone more ambitious. Success is a war, and the people who share the battlefield are no longer allies, if they ever were. Despite the continued expectation that people go to college to get a good job, there are still high school dropouts who become successful business owners. The corporate buzz-phrase "thinking outside of the box" is, in fact, a Discordian idea. Of course, in the corporate context, they are comfortable knowing that there is a box, and prefer to just pop their heads outside once in a while to make sure things are moving in the desired direction.

If you are an individual who wants to succeed outside the corporate structure, the most effective way is to burn the box. If taken literally, that pretty much involves re-enacting the movie Fight Club to its conclusion. This may not be the best approach as it involves putting yourself in considerable danger. You should, however, be willing to take a risk. The current state of the American Dream has so many people going for the same goal in the same way that it is propping up a disproportionate amount of order in the universe. Chaos wants to have its chance, and if you take a big enough risk doing something unconventional enough, with a unique goal, Eris may very well reward you with success.

Of course, Eris doesn't define success in terms of suburban dreams, so it's best to truly have a unique goal. Best to close your eyes, spin in circles, then just start walking, because an object in motion will remain in motion, and you don't want to get stuck at a red light at the intersection of life.

Baby causes chaos for public transport

Suffice to say that Eris is not hateful of malicious. – Principia Discordia

A bizarre bit of news caught my attention today. Apparently a woman and her child in Australia were kicked off of a bus because the baby was laughing too loudly. The situation is pretty fascinating to anyone who has ever ridden public transit: of all the things that have ever happened to justify kicking someone off a bus, this driver had to pick on a happy baby.

Sometimes, I guess people just have to find some way to impose order and this baby was an easy target. It is, after all, difficult to find more evidence that people are predisposed towards chaos than by observing small children and babies.  They will laugh, cry, wet themselves, and demand to be fed, without regard for cultural standards, where they happen to be, or what anyone will think of them. For someone who has dedicated themselves to order, a baby is an easy target. 

The driver didn’t even target a crying baby, which everyone knows is beyond anyone’s power to quiet reliably without causing serious injury. Instead, the target was a happy baby, and it is easy to make a baby unhappy, so this mother was targeted for not using her power to make her child unhappy. It certainly makes me wonder what kind or narcissist this bus driver must be to think that her whim should be enough for a mother to interfere with a child’s happiness. 

By trying to keep some extreme version of order on her bus, the driver has probably thrown her own life into chaos: the kind of uproar that has resulted after this incident usually sees results. The predictable result will be that the driver will lose her job. This is usually the easiest way for an organization to deal with high-profile complaints.

Changing tone for a moment, I would like to explore some scenarios in which the bus driver may have been in the right:

1. The bus was being high-jacked and the driver wanted to protect the child without drawing dangerous attention to the high-jacking.
2. The bus had failed to pass an emissions check and the passenger’s area of the bus was found to be filled with a level of toxic fumes dangerous to children.
3. It was not a baby at all, but a bomb concealed in baby clothes.
4. The baby had a sonic-based super power, and the laughing was causing glass to break and ears to bleed.

Chaos in Libya

There is serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane - Principia Discordia


As a Discordian, I see a lot of my beliefs being manifested in world events today. Not just simply because there is so much Chaos, but in the way people are responding to it. I'm seeing the inner Discordians of people from all walks of life manifest.

If you are a fellow Discordian, then you probably see it already. If you are not a Discordian, you may be curious about what I am referring to. 

Today I want to discuss what's going on in Libya. The people of Libya are rising up to depose Muammar Gaddafi, who has been in charge for 42 years. On its surface, there's nothing more Discordian than wanting to shake things up, particularly if they have been stagnant for 42 years. What I find particularly interesting about this is the international reaction: People are largely supportive of the protests, as well as concerned that a new government will just be more of the same. 

The concerns that the typical Discordian would have about this type of uprising is in regards to the ideology that will take over. In the cycle of Chaos and Order, after a series of protests now verging on all-out war, there will likely be a strong desire for stability in the region, and that's where the inner Discordians should be very concerned: Instead of putting someone in power who wants all the things they were protesting for, they could easily pick someone simply to put things back to normal. That could easily mean they would forget the freedom they were fighting for and choose someone based on their ability to establish the status quo, likely through wealth or international contacts. It seems unlikely that the Libyan people took to the streets to get themselves a self-serving puppet dictator, so hopefully they can keep their eyes on the prize when the dust starts to settle.