This is thinking-in-process ramble rather than leading to any firm conclusions, may be over hopeful and not very astrological. But there feels as if there are the first whiffs of a sea-change in the air – perhaps with Saturn having had its first four-month foray into Aquarius though it’s now in retreat back in Capricorn till late December.
From this New Year into 2021 Jupiter moves through Aquarius hand in hand with Saturn for a year, with Saturn there till 2023 after which it passes the baton to Pluto moving through Aquarius till the mid 2040s.
The ‘woke’ culture is being called out for its narrowness of outlook – the semi-fascist think-like-us, speak-like-us or we’ll-destroy-you mentality. And the populists who lied to the incredulous masses to get themselves into power – Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro etc – are stumbling in the face of hard reality. Maybe just maybe it is the first inklings of a shift into Aquarius from Saturn having sent out a shark tooth to deflate their balloon.
When the Internet was launched in 1991 it gave a platform to the disenfranchised voiceless majority – with some good and other not so good results. The “online mobs” can build up a critical mass, not there before, to effect positive change. But there is also the risk – in the words of political theorist Gaetano Mosca – that “an organised minority inevitably forces its will upon the disorganised majority.” So the screamers get free rein to set the agenda – for a time.
The World Wide Web was launched in 1991 when Saturn had just put a toe into Aquarius so is now on its First Saturn Return which is grow-up-and-get-real time. Twitter and Facebook were born with idealistic and delusional Neptune in Aquarius and self-righteous Pluto in Sagittarius in the early 2000s – giving a gift and, on occasion, a toxic chalice to the vox populi.
What got me thinking was the review of a new book, Twilight of Democracy, by journalist Anne Applebaum in the Guardian. URL below. Her husband is Polish and she watched as their friends who had fought against the Stalinist dictatorship gradually turn into right-wing nationalists and conspiracy theorists.
She makes some telling remarks, by the by, about Boris Johnson, an Oxford peer of her husband, whom she met years back: ‘She noted his laziness and “all-consuming narcissism”, as well as the undoubted charisma that was to seduce and then ruin his country. In those days – he was alarmed by the global challenge to democracy and wanted to defend “the culture of freedom and openness and tolerance”. “No one serious wants to leave the EU,” he said.’
Her theory is that the nationalist counter-revolution did not just happen. Behind it were opportunistic, mediocre politicians hungry for office, second-rate journalists sniffing a chance of recognition after years of obscurity, and Twitter mob-raisers and fake news fraudsters, all propelling causes that would make their name. In my terms, a case of the ‘hoist their flag up a pole’ and see which way the wind would blow to grab them attention.
‘Populist activists are outsiders only in that they feel insufficiently rewarded. And their opponents should never underestimate what their self-pitying vanity can make them do.’
She writes: “Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie – it’s to make people fear the liar.” Acknowledge the liar’s power, and your career takes off without the need to pass exams or to display an elementary level of competence. The end result being, as was true of communists and fascists, that they replaced “first-rate talents” with “crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity” was the best guarantee of their loyalty. (Hannah Arendt.)
As true of Boris as of Trump. The Applebaum review is worth reading (URL).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/12/anne-applebaum-how-my-old-friends-paved-the-way-for-trump-and-brexit
Her argument about recent political shifts is – kind of at a stretch – the same as the internet phenomenon. The lowest common denominator got a voice on the WWW as a side-effect of the laudable attempt to give a platform to the previously silenced majority. Lying populist politics harnessed social media to foster the careers of second-raters on an expedient and unprincipled trip. [While admitting that politicians have always lied through the ages and most often not been top notch.]
I’m trying not to be elitist and say the deplorables should be shut up and sent back into their box. But there is a bewildering sense of the mob taking over, which has been a fear through most societies since Roman times and before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy Looking up a few examples mentioned in wiki for mob violence, transiting Saturn square Neptune seems to be a constant as was the case for Brexit and Trump – though as it comes round relatively frequently it must be as an add-on to larger influences. In its better guise Saturn Neptune helps the cause of the underdogs – workers and women.
Ancient Greek political thinkers labelled ‘bad’ forms of government as tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy as opposed to ‘good’ forms of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Good government acted in the interest of the whole community while bad government acted in the exclusive interests of a group or individual at the expense of justice. So presumably they had experience from history of all such forms which constantly fluctuate.
On the brink of the exit of Pluto from Capricorn into Aquarius in 2023, with the forward scouts of Jupiter Saturn leading the way from late this December there is hope of a shift from the disintegrating days of Capricorn into ??????
On previous occurrences of Pluto in Aquarius (approximately every 250 years):
1778 -1797: The USA declared independence in 1776 with high ideals about a new form of government, followed by the French Revolution of 1793 also visionary (at the start) about the rights of the common man. It was a productive period for philosophical and social thinkers – Emmanuel Kant and Thomas Paine (Rights of Man.)
1532 – 1552: The Roman Catholic versus Protestant schism got under way in earnest, which started to pull power away from an omnipotent and corrupt Vatican.
796 – 816: Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, united most of Western Europe, lays the foundations for modern France and Germany and institutes political reforms. [For more on Pluto in Aquarius see post August 24 2019.]
In the churning chaos of this years’ triple conjunction of Saturn, Pluto, Jupiter, especially with nailed-down Saturn Pluto in place, there’s a sense of stasis and hopelessness as if the present situation was never going to change or at least the deterioration of values was going to worsen. And a rebalancing may not come immediately as the recent Poland elections with the Nationalists back in power indicate. The previous Saturn Pluto Jupiter conjunction in the 19th Century took two or three years to have an impact on economic rebuilding for example.
But I travel hopefully – from small beginnings come greater things. Democracy may be in a twilight phase but the pendulum will swing.
PS: Anne Applebaum was born the same year as Boris, Dan Brown, Christopher Steele though a few weeks later. 25 July 1964. She has the same Mutable Uranus Pluto in Virgo opposition Saturn and Mars Venus in Gemini plus the Jupiter opposition Neptune – so better able to understand the Boris mindset than most, though she’s much less scattergun than him.