Author: Ophelia Benson

Phrasemaker, Scruton, isn’t he.

Freud, who assumed the mask of the objective observer, who presented his results as the inescapable conclusions of arduous empirical study, who repeatedly claimed that his psychological discoveries would one day be grounded in biology, is now widely accepted at mask-value…Someone must have reminded him that not all children are boys; but he had an easy way with his critics, which was to throw the Greeks at them. Thus was born the Electra complex, conjured from a thigh-bone of Oedipus…At every point where scientific method might impose its logic on the argument, Freud stepped sideways into metaphor, asserting with dogmatic intransigence that this is how things are because this is how they must be.

Stepping sideways into metaphor – perfect way of putting it. That’s quite a familiar dance step these days, beloved of bishops and postmodernist theologians alike, not to mention astrologers.

And in his case studies he presented unforgettable portraits of wrecked human beings, about whose flailing carcasses he patrolled like a jackal, tearing off pieces and holding them up to the light, which he imagined to be a light of science, but which was in fact a light of the imagination, transfiguring all on which it fell. Freud suffered from the ‘charm of disenchantment’. Like Marx he was irresistibly drawn to explanations that demean us, and which turn our world-view upside down – or set it, as Marx insisted, ‘on its feet’.

Yeah. I used to suffer from that charm too – I’m sure most of us did. Although I wouldn’t say ‘explanations that demean us’ – I don’t think that’s quite accurate (though it’s close). I think it’s more a matter of trying to see past explanations that sentimentalize or prettify us, to get at the uglier (more demeaning) truth underneath. Of course that’s not always mistaken, to put it mildly (advertisers aren’t actually always in the business because they want to educate us); but it’s also not always the case that the most repellent or unnerving explanation is invariably and necessarily the right one. Freud often does seem to be convinced that the most irritating intepretation he can come up with is indeed necessarily the right one. Probably because of his toilet training.

Okay and now that we’ve got it straight that I have no choice but to go on being smugly complacently in favour of rational inquiry as opposed to the other thing, let’s drop in on the Independent and see what it has to say about astrology.

The massive power of waves and the tides that cause them are, it is universally accepted, a direct consequence of the gravitational influences of the Moon and the Sun upon Earth. We also know that the Moon sometimes determines animal behaviour and has long been linked with aspects of our lives as diverse as a women’s menstrual cycle and mental disturbance, hence the word lunatic. Is it, astrologists argue, therefore completely impossible that the other planets also exert influences on our lives and personalities, to greater or lesser degrees and in varying combinations?

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen anything quite as ridiculous as that, at least in a respectable newspaper. (Okay, not counting Bunting.) Note the discrepancy between ‘it is universally accepted’ in the first sentence and the much vaguer ‘we also know’ in the second. Who’s we, bub? And what do you mean ‘know’? And once we’ve got that clear – what on earth do you mean by ‘the Moon sometimes determines animal behaviour’? You mean like wolves howling at it? Or you mean like the moon turning bats into vampires? And then when we’re clear about that, what in the sam hill do you mean by ‘has long been linked with aspects of our lives as diverse as a women’s menstrual cycle and mental disturbance’? Eh? What do you mean ‘linked with’ for a start? You mean correlated with? You mean somebody has said ‘Hey, Clara went barking mad when the moon was almost full, and that other woman across town went a little funny during an eclipse’? Saying the moon has ‘long been linked with’ women’s ‘mental disturbance’ is perfectly compatible with simply saying that a lot of people who didn’t know much about either the moon or women’s brains have made random speculative correlations between the moon and women flipping out – which isn’t saying much. (Neither is ‘hence the word lunatic’. We know whence the word lunatic, you prat, that doesn’t constitute evidence that the moon does in fact make women go crazy, it just constitutes evidence that people thought the moon made people go crazy.) And then the descent into complete raving in the last sentence. Who knows whether it’s ‘completely impossible’ or not, but that’s not the issue; the issue is that there’s no reason to think so. Woolly thinkers always babble about proof and certainty and completely impossible, when those are not what’s at stake. Anyway – how did Terry Kirby get from the waves and the tides to ‘influences on our lives and personalities’? (By sly stages, that’s how. Waves and tides, to animal behaviour, to aspects of our lives such as menstruation and mental disturbance, to influences on our lives and personalities – as if they were all pretty much the same kind of thing. Well they’re not. If Kirby knows of some evidence that gravity influences our personalities the same way it influences the tides, I’d be curious to see it.) And then there’s ‘the other planets,’ meaning in addition to the moon and the sun. Err…

And that, having been around in various forms since the ancient Babylonians first began to describe celestial omens 4,000 years ago, astrology deserves more respect than the derision commonly accorded it by the rational scientists and the established churches[?]

Well there’s a stupid ‘argument’. Lots of things have ‘been around’ for four thousand years or more, but that doesn’t automatically mean they ‘deserve’ ‘respect’ – why would it? Stupid ideas don’t become less stupid as they get older; often the contrary is true, as better information becomes available. The four humours were around for a long time too; does that mean they ‘deserve’ ‘respect’ now?

Marlene Houghton, an astrologer for more than 30 years, puts it another way. “Astrology is a metaphysical doctrine, not a science, and cannot be easily judged by the narrow instrument that is science.”

Yupuhuh. Also known as the easy out. Astrology is a ‘metaphysical doctrine’ – okay, but then if it claims that distant planets do in fact ‘exert influences on our lives and personalities’ then it is making non-metaphysical truth claims, and doesn’t get to wiggle out of noticing disconfirming evidence with handwaving about metaphysical doctrines. That is, in the vernacular, cheating.

I’ve never seen astrology as a prop or a belief system but, as Ms Chalklin says, simply a tool to better understand the ups and downs of everyday life and help explain something about ourselves and the people we meet. It’s not rocket science, in fact, it’s not science at all. Whether you are an Aries or a Pisces, it is ultimately about people and what makes us what we are.

But if it’s a crap tool with all broken teeth and twisted prongs and dull blades and bent shafts, then what’s the point of it? How does it help anyone better understand the ups and downs of anything if it’s a great whirling cloud of vapor? How does it explain anything about ourselves and the people we meet when in fact it doesn’t explain anything at all because it’s pure raving nonsense?

Ah, the hell with it. With people like that around and the Indy publishing them, I’ll just have to go on being smug and complacent, I can’t possibly do anything else.

Sastra makes a relevant point, or set of points, in a comment on ‘No Exit’.

Bottom line, science is the method you use when you want to force yourself to seriously consider the possibility that you might be wrong. It’s designed to eliminate bias and test views as much as possible. It’s structured to force a change of mind. If that is allowed to pass as just a “different kind of dogma,” then being undogmatic would mean refusing to consider the possibility you might be wrong, embracing your biases, and not testing your beliefs. Don’t change your mind. Stay firm. Otherwise, you might be in danger of the smugness of scientism.

Just so, and that’s where the regress comes in, and I just can’t see any way out of it. For one thing, as Sastra indicates, taking things on faith itself involves a kind of smugness. In fact you could say that it doesn’t involve smugness, it is smugness. The refusal to consider disconfirming evidence (and that is what faith is, by definition) could be seen as the very essence of smugness. Again, I reach a dead end where I just don’t see what the alternative can be. Making a virtue of refusing ever to change one’s mind, no matter what, is not an anti-smug stance.

But then it’s smug of me to say that. We’re saying (we have a consensus) that rational inquiry and science, which always include the possibility that we might be wrong, are better forms of inquiry than their opposites, which exclude the possibility that their practitioners might be wrong; we’re saying this method is better than that method; therefore there is a potential for smugness. Sure; there is; but the remedy for that can’t be to take up a much smugger, more self-protective way of thinking. I don’t know what the remedy is, other than the usual ones of trying to be vigilant, aware, self-critical, and so on; but I’m pretty convinced of what it’s not.

I’ve been thinking about consensus and complacency. I know of people who think that B&W has too much in the way of consensus and thereby risks smug complacency. That’s true enough, but I don’t quite know what can be done about it, or even if anything should be done about it (that’s what I’ve been thinking about). It seems to me that as soon as I try to figure out what (if anything) can be done about it, I immediately get into a regress, which engenders feelings of deep hopelessness and futility (along with hunger). It may be that from a moral point of view, feelings of hopelessness and futility (and hunger) are preferable to smug complacency; but from other points of view, I’m not sure they are.

Here’s why I get into the regress. It seems to me that B&W’s* only really basic commitment – and thus all it can really risk being complacent about – is to rational inquiry. To rational inquiry of whatever kind; to using whatever tools and methods are needed to investigate whatever particular question needs investigating – including whether or not B&W is smug and complacent, and whether consensus on the need for and value of rational inquiry necessarily leads to smug complacency. And right there, two seconds into the inquiry, we smack into the regress, and I don’t see how we can get out of it. How can we tell whether or not B&W is smugly complacent except by trying to find out? By trying to find out by inquiry? But if we do that we’re just displaying the consensus again, smugly and complacently. But what else can we do? What is there other than rational inquiry? Faith? Revelation? Authority? Intuition? Blind commitment? Hunch? Insight? Mystical experience? But those simply don’t seem the right (the most reliable, the most testable, the most likely to be accurate) way to find out the truth of the matter. No doubt it’s smug and complacent of me to say and to think that – I can see that in a way it is by definition – but I still don’t see any good alternative. To rely on faith or revelation would be credulous and reckless and fundamentally incompetent, in the sense of using the wrong tools for a particular job.

So I seem to be stuck. It seems to me that B&W is not (necessarily) smug and complacent, because the basic idea it is committed to is, to the best of its (my) knowledge, the only one that’s a valid option – so it’s a forced choice – so not really a source of smugness. We don’t really feel smug when we pick up a garlic press instead of a chainsaw when we have some garlic to squash. Not unless we’re terribly hard up for reasons to feel smug (in which case no one should begrudge us, because really, how sad, don’t you think?).

It’s as if someone said, ‘what colour is that shirt?’ You have two choices – you can guess, or you can look. You think you’re more likely to give an accurate answer if you look. Is it smug and complacent to think that?

The other issue is that in a world where lots of people guess, and not only guess but make a virtue of guessing, and chastise people who look instead of guessing – the result may well be that the people who look will feel superior to the guessers (and, as a matter of fact, the guessers will feel superior to the lookers). If that is the sense of smug and complacent that is meant, it’s true enough: no doubt that is a risk. But how can it be helped? What is to be done? Should we start arguing in favour of guessing in order to avoid feeling superior to guessers? (What of the risk then of feeling superior to lookers? Should we just alternate every few minutes? But then wouldn’t we get dizzy and start dropping things?) But is that a good reason to do that? If we think rational inquiry really is the best way to find out things (and we think finding out things is worth doing) then is it sensible to do the opposite simply to prevent ourselves from (possibly) feeling superior? Isn’t that doing a large bad in order to prevent a comparatively trivial bad?

And the logic of doing things we don’t actually believe in in order to avoid smugness is tricky – because anything can prompt such feelings – so at that rate we should never do anything. Never learn anything, acquire any skill, form any opinion – we should be so humble and self-abnegating that we don’t exist at all. Which seems safe, but a bit pointless.

*I keep saying B&W, which is a bit absurd, because B&W c’est moi, there isn’t anyone else here – so why don’t I just say ‘I’? It seems coy to say B&W if I mean me. But I don’t really mean me, I mean B&W, so that’s what I say. B&W seems like something bigger than mere me – which it is, actually, because a lot of other people write for it, and I assume they do that because of the nature of B&W, which is created partly by those very people who write for it, in a continuing expansive process. Okay that’s why I say B&W. Though it’s also because it was two people when it was founded, so I formed the habit of thinking of it and referring to it that way; it’s taken me a long time to break the habit of using the plural first-person pronoun.