Funny, given I was just mocking this concept...

I now know exactly what the Elements of Disharmony would be useful for. Totally useless to an evil Discord who wants to take over the world. Disharmony can't work together, by its nature, that's why it's disharmony. And that is what disharmony is useful for -- checking power that would otherwise be absolute.

Comments

[zabchan]

so....you use the elements of disharmony to break apart bastions of stability? you plant them as seeds of discontent within the hegemony? spies? artifacts of corruption? while harmony is strongest when ponies come together, the elements of disharmony work best as separate agents?

[alarajrogers]

2099759

A lot of this, yes. The Elements of Disharmony would be weaker when put together.

The way I'm thinking about using them, though, the idea would be to check and entangle a specific power to weaken it by turning it against itself.

[kudzuhaiku]

Wind is an agent of disharmony. It blows, trees blow back and forth in the wind, get microscopic cracks and fissures, and becomes stronger over time because the wind exists to test it.

[alarajrogers]

2099769

The structure of the US government uses disharmony as well. The bifurcated legislature, the separation of powers at the federal, state and local level, the separation of functions at the executive, legislative and judiciary level... it's all designed to check power, to keep any one power from being absolute. It doesn't work as perfectly as it was intended to, but it's done well enough for 200 years, mostly.

Capitalism is built on disharmony as well. When harmony exists in capitalism, we call that "monopoly", or a "cartel", or "price fixing", and it's bad.

[kudzuhaiku]

All this really comes down to is aneristic / eristic principles.

Do a google search.

The elements of harmony are actually elements of disharmony themselves.

[General Winter]

Hah! So, in the end, Discord IS an useful force - so to speak - at times

[kudzuhaiku]

I am a Discordian so I am also an element of disharmony I suppose.

Or an element of harmony and order. I can never quite tell.

Chaos is the only constant reliable force in the universe. It can ALWAYS be counted on.

[Bico]

I kind of figured Discord would basically be the Element of Disharmony. Having more than one would probably be ineffective. On the other hand, I don't think the Element of Disharmony would necessarily be the opposite of the Elements of Harmony. My thoughts are that there could be some kind of "evil" Elements (or the Elements of Harmony expressed in an evil way, like the Element of Loyalty becomes the Element of Fanaticism), which would still be instruments of harmony or "order," but would be the totalitarian kind, like the stereotypical evil empire.

[Starlight Nova]

2099766 Whatever you choose to write, I'm sure that you'll be good at it.