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[...] People always wanted to learn from occult signs what to expect and do; in fact, superstition is largely a residue of animistic magical practices by which ancient humanity tried to influence or control the course of events. But the sobriety, nay the overrealism, of our material at the expense of anything remotely reminiscent of the supranatural seems to be one of its most paradoxical and challenging features. Overrealism in itself may be, in some directions, irrational, in the sense of that overdeveloped and self-destructive shrewdness of self interest, pointed out before. In addition it will be proved during the course of our study that astrological irrationality has largely been reduced to a purely formal characteristic: abstract authority.
[...] Hardly ever does the practical advice tendered to the reader transgress the limits of what one finds in any column dealing with human relations and popular psychology. The only difference is that the writer leans on his distinctly magical and irrational authority which seems to be strangely out of proportion with the common-sense content of what he has to offer. This discrepancy cannot be regarded as accidental. [...]
[...] The fact that one cannot countenance two contradictory desires at the same time, that, as it is loosely called, one cannot have one’s cake and eat it too, induces the advice that irreconcilable activities simply should be undertaken at various times indicated by celestial configurations. This again feeds on realistic elements: the order of everyday life takes care of a number of antinomies of existence, such as that of work and leisure or of public functions and private existence. Such antinomies are taken up by the column, hypostatized and treated as though they were simple dichotomies of the natural order of things rather than sociologically conditioned patterns. Everything can be solved, so runs the implicit argument, if one only chooses the right time, and if one fails, this is merely due to a lack of understanding of some supposedly cosmic rhythm. [...]
bi-phasic approach section
By dichotomies of this kind a pseudo-solution of difficulties is achieved: either–or relationships are transformed into first–next relationships. Pleasure thus becomes the award of work, work the atonement for pleasure.
As to pleasure, it is, according to the bi-phasic approach, mainly reserved for P.M. and for holidays as though there were an a priori understanding between celestial revelations and the present calendar system. For the sake of variation and in order not to make the bi-phasic monotony too obvious, there are exceptions to the rule.
work and pleasure
he later castigates the idea of "pleasure" as being a means to an end (maintaining status, rational self-interest); just like @ me next time adorno
You really are explosive during morning without any apparent reason. It’s just the planets testing your self-control. Keep calm. (31 December 1952, Cancer)
from the astrology column. incredible
[...] The possibility of acquiring money and property, or even the chance of making a start for it, is much more limited for most people today than it was rightly or wrongly supposed to be during the heyday of classical liberalism. [...] If one cannot gain property as of old, it is suggestively implied that by clever disposition of what one has, by planning and scheduling in a manner appealing anyway to compulsive persons, the same success may be achieved that is now denied to expansive business enterprise. Making charts, timetables, schedules, and similar formalistic ventures severe as substitutes for the actual money making. [...]
constant reference to property matters despite most readers not owning property, some sort of aspirational role? uniquely american, temporarily embarrassed millionaires, they feel like it speaks to them because they will own property one day
[...] He is neither expected to believe that he could earn it nor to accept that he can never have it. Thus he is spoken to and given unreasonable promises like a child. Obviously the columnist figures out that the reader’s wishes in this direction are so strong that he can get away with even such unreasonable promises on account of the momentary gratifications they provide though the reader knows in the depth of his heart that the promise will never be fulfilled. At this point the column profits from the same mentality which draws people to gambling, horse betting and similar devices for making easy money. Propensity for irrational material gain seems to be contingent upon the shrinking chances of making big money as a pioneer or on a rational basis of calculation [...]
[...] reassured that their background provides “correct answer to preoccupations, glumness.” On the surface this means that they can draw on their traditions in order to solve their problems – certainly not a very convincing promise. The real psychological message is rather “Think about the marvelous family you come from and you will feel elated and superior to those on whom you depend and who might have annoyed you.” [...]
family background provides correct answer to glumness which means remember how superior your lineage is (white, presumably)
The latter advice is sometimes administered under the viewpoint that one is able to overcome one’s own difficulties by identifying oneself with someone even worse off. Thus even humaneness is treated as a means rather than an end. It is as though finally the sphere of the internal itself were to be incorporated into the range of externalization by manipulating the active and passive phases of understanding. Inwardness is integrated into the machinery.