Author: Ophelia Benson

I’ve been reading the Introduction to Astrology, Science and Culture: Pulling Down the Moon, by Roy Willis and Patrick Curry. Patrick Curry teaches in the astrology programme at Bath Spa University College which you may have noticed in Flashback. The introduction is truly fascinating, in the way a gangrenous wound might be fascinating to its owner. I’ll quote from it a little, so that you can see what I mean.

Very little in the debate about astrology is entirely new. The word itself means the ‘word’ (logos) or ‘language’ of the stars, and is now customarily
contrasted, as a pathetic remnant of primitive superstition, with the academically respectable science of astronomy. This latter term means
‘measurement of the stars’, and accurately reflects Galileo’s famous contention that only that which can be measured is truly real. Quantity is primary, quality secondary. This book maintains the converse proposition, daring to privilege sensory quality over a row of digits, and is devoted to investigating and recovering a stellar language of apparently immemorial antiquity; a mode of communication that is part of our common heritage as human beings..This is a primal faculty that seems to be embedded in our genes, ironically the very entities now commonly presented, in the current version of reductive materialism, as the sole and invisible masters of our personal and collective destinies (cf. Dawkins 1989).

That’s in the first paragraph, and it’s admirably representative of what the introduction is like. The self-attribution of ‘daring’ for instance. Always check your wallet when academics start telling you how brave and daring and bold and fearless they are. The chances are good that that’s the preface to a piece of nonsense. And then that ‘row of digits’ – oh that’s clever. Original, too. I used to say things like that in the 4th grade (and the 7th, and the 10th, and the 12th) to explain why I was so stupid at math. I didn’t want to think it was just because I was stupid at math, now did I.

And then the absurdity about this ‘primal faculty’ that seems to be embedded in our genes. Eh? It does? It ‘seems’? To whom? You? And anyone else? You just made it up, that’s all. So where does the ‘ironically’ come in? First you invent the idea that chatting with the stars is ’embedded’ in our genes, then you say how ironic when genes are usually such a horrid reductivematerialist item on the scientistic agenda. And then what do you mean ‘sole’? And what’s ‘invisible’ got to do with anything? And what do you mean ‘destinies’? Nothing; you don’t mean anything; you just want to take a very hackneyed slap at a usual suspect.

Another bit. I’ll leave you to ponder its wonders for yourselves.

Here let us note certain fundamental consequences of our dialogical
reading of human nature. In its essential, necessary openness – the
inherent duality of dialogue which is also, and most fundamentally, a
many-voiced plurality – this reading permanently guarantees us against
any possibility of collapse into monolithic solipsism. However, it also
means we must perforce abandon for ever all ambition to theoretical
closure, the dream – or nightmare – of a final, all-embracing theory of
everything, the breathtakingly arrogant project so dear to materialist
and reductionist science.

Openness and many-voiced plurality, hurrah; materialist and reductionist science, boo. Isn’t rhetoric great?

Interesting developments. And people sometimes ask me, whether plaintively or (more often) crossly, why I insist on trying to argue with metaphysical beliefs, which is a futile and even meaningless thing to do. Well, this sort of thing is one reason. Because ‘metaphysical’ beliefs seem to be the kind that prompt people to feel outraged, ‘offended,’ attacked, insulted, disrespected, challenged in the very core of their identity. I think that’s not a mere coincidence, I think it’s kind of the whole point. When people can’t point to evidence in reply to critics and skeptics of their beliefs, what can they do instead? They can of course do nothing, or they can shake their heads over the benighted ways of the heathen and then go on with their lives. But they can also get very worked up. They can find the home phone numbers of BBC executives on the ‘Christian Voice’ website and use them to make threatening and abusive phone calls. And then other believers can express a certain amount of approbation .

And although I don’t have strong feelings about blasphemy myself – Catholics are used to being scoffed at, and learn to be robust about it – I am glad that many Christians did make their feelings known about the transmission. I don’t say I like to see Roly Keating, the controller of BBC2, having to flee with his wife and family from his home, lest he be subjected to threats or unpleasantness. But it is gratifying when the BBC panjandrums have their cages rattled a little.

Hmm.

There is a penalty to be paid if you insult Islam; you may, like Theo van Gogh in the Netherlands, end up with your own mocking words pinned bloodily to your chest. But there is no penalty for insulting Christianity – Christians will meekly accept it all (which, inconveniently, is just what the New Testament commands). When Sikh militants successfully got Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play Behzti closed at the Birmingham Rep last month, it was certainly an encouragement to offended Christians whose anger against the desecration of their taboos has been simmering away over the years…There is still a big debate to be had on how a society combines freedom of speech with respect for the values of others. An artist has to push boundaries, and offend sometimes; but the artist also has to recognise that there will be consequences of his actions.

Yeah, like getting stabbed in the chest and then having Mary Kenny gloating over the fact. Now that’s what I call respect for the values of others!