the earlier Discourse™ about astrology inspired some vague ideas about explaining why I think the standard dismissal of astrology doesn't actually make much sense to me. it's the evening now and the ideas are still vague. the words aren't flowing well, and the topic seems too large for a few paragraphs, and our thoughts aren't all that clear anyway.
at some point I realized that it was possible to rationalize astrology in a way that required absolutely zero assumptions about an actual physical or material influence exerted by celestial bodies. it was possible to regard the celestial mechanics simply as clockwork, as a handy source of periodic motion against which to compare and gauge the unpredictable ups and downs of human life. it's like having a whole family of calendars, not just a solar or lunar calendar. the orbit of the Moon round the Earth supplies a short baseline in time, about a month of solar days; the orbit of the Earth round the Sun supplies a longer baseline; the orbits of Mercury, Venus, &c. supply yet different baselines against which to reckon one's changing fortunes. in mathematical terms, the various cyclical motions of the celestial bodies furnish a basis set, a set of independent functions that can be used to approximate a more complex function. in sum, it's not necessary to invoke any mystical explanation at all in order to rationalize astrology...and I rather wonder why the rational and skeptical crowd haven't noticed that, in their rush to chuck astrology into the wastebin.
the haste to dismiss astrology as mere fraud and flim-flam has led to a lot of "debunking" that doesn't actually hold up to much scrutiny. "the Moon can't possibly exert a meaningful effect on human life" honestly seems like the outlandish claim to me, if for no other reason that all human society is influenced (directly or indirectly) by Earth's tides, in which the Moon plays a central role. indeed the entire Earth changes shape slightly as the Moon orbits her, leading to slight but measurable periodic changes in Earth's surface gravity. AND there's also the fact that the Moon is the next most obvious object in the sky after the Sun...are we really supposed to believe that humanity isn't influenced en masse by the visual spectacle of the Moon, even if the influence is slight?
the answer to that last question is "yes", in American society at least. we are not supposed to think too hard about how human beings and humanity are under the influence of forces beyond its control. instead we are taught a form of individualism so extreme (and to me, grotesque) that it amounts to the assertion that a free human being, if they're worth anything, should have total self-control over what happens to them. only weaklings blame external circumstances or outside forces for their woes. did a flood wipe out your harvest? it must have been your fault somehow—you should have anticipated it and prepared for it. is an epidemic going round? it'll only hurt you if you're scared of it. did your boss screw you out of your pay again? if you really wanted it, you'd be the boss. &c.
I think there's something faintly sinister in teaching people to scoff at the very idea that there can be any personal reason for keeping track of what's up with the Solar System and the stars. the contemptuous attitude—"it's negligible, it doesn't matter, you shouldn't care"—is how Westerners are taught to regard huge swathes of human experience, not just astrology. feelings are negligible. dreams and ecstatic experiences don't matter. heck, we're at the point where diseases don't matter; they're being thrown into the same "negligible" bucket, dismissed without real thought...and I do genuinely think that astrology is dismissed without much real thought, because it's what "smart" and "intelligent" people do.
and I also think we're subtly encouraged to think the same way about astronomy—the heavens aren't supposed to be a source of awe and wonder, they're meant to be a source of dry Facts™, expert information to be smug about knowing. I reminded of how Neil Tyson's chief public response to the New Horizons Pluto mission was snide remarks about how Pluto isn't a real planet—no wonder, no awe, no humility in the face of a cosmic mystery, just...snobbish pedantry. it's like the Solar System and the heavens don't really matter any more; they're a solved problem, something best left to the people who know better, like Tyson and Elon Musk. I feel (irrationally perhaps) that astrology is a necessary counterbalance to this flattening and deadening tendency to regard space as just another body of scientific data and resources to be plundered.
yes, astrology has been a fertile growth medium for fraud—so have a lot of more legitimate pursuits. I think we can mostly agree, for example, that psychology in general is a solid branch of science, but it's been every bit as fruitful a source of scam artists as astrology, perhaps more so because psychology enjoys official respectability and mainstream marketing whereas astrology is compelled to live in the margins. yes, there's people who pretend that astrological correspondences are absolute and completely predictive and deterministic; there's people who say the same thing about economic forecasts and SAT scores. I suggest that astrology is not really the problem here.
well, that was some words, anyway.
~Chara
