Maybe I was too harsh. Maybe I should have exercised, in my criticism, more of the diplomacy you “accused me of” : ) in the first comment on this post, above. If I had been addressing the author directly, probably I would have been more diplomatic, since in that case I would have had the purpose of convincing him of a better approach.

The reason for my condemnation was not that I am extremely passionate about exterminating astrology. I am not half as passionate about it as you are.

Part of what made me condemn it so harshly is my current irritation with people’s very common tendency to do what I described above: completely fail to be goal-oriented in the way they discuss things with others; pretend to be trying to convince someone when they are really just venting; write things as if preaching to the converted rather than those they wish to convert; write with no attempt to understand their reader.

The article just provoked in me such a strong sense of “no no no, that’s not how you do it!” that I had to get that down on paper. And did so with more conviction than diplomacy ; ) … c’est la vie.

I find your criticism of the article far too harsh. The only justification for your condemnation appears to be that you are extremely passionate about exterminating astrology. But you don’t seem to want to admit to that. So you’re being unfair.

If you’re really interested in turning him around, then you will talk to him, much as it nauseates you; understand him, figure out what makes him do what he does, what makes him tick. And work from there. And it’s noble, dirty work, and neither one of us would really want to do it. But that has some slight chance of success.

But if all you want is to vent your own anger by telling him how much he sucks, or by just skipping the talk and bashing his skull in, then go right ahead. He deserves it. And it will not change him.

Just be clear on the fact that these are two completely separate goals: venting your anger, and fixing the ill your anger is directed at. Sometimes people are more interested in the former than the latter. What I am criticizing is any effort that claims to aim at the latter goal, but fails because it is really only aiming at the former.

My purpose in my blogging, aside from trying to write less about astrology from now on :), is to have fun, share interesting or amusing stuff I come across, and hopefully learn something about myself and others, with time.

My assumptions as to the purpose of Phil Plait are already obvious: I assume he wanted, on the surface, trying to convince astrology-enamored folks that their love was misplaced, and I assume that under the surface he just wanted to vent his anger. And I assume that he was not aware of the extent to which the latter desire determined the way he wrote his article.

What is your purpose with your blogging? Are you making any assumptions as to the purpose of Phil Plait?

As for that article … yep, it prompted yet another astrology blog post. Dagnabbit! I trust you will find that new post less than diplomatic.

I like the word foma too.

It’s all fine to joke about being arrogant, but the thing is, there is something wrong with arrogance from a utilitarian perspective as well … as I address slightly in my new posting. There is something fundamentally broken about ostensibly wanting to convince people of something, but speaking to them in an obviously counterproductive style, peppering one’s arguments with arrogance and besserwisserism that will swiftly close their minds to anything you have to say. You are free to do it, of course, and there is nothing ethically wrong with it; it just defeats your stated purpose. So if you do that, then what is your real purpose in opening your mouth? Just venting?   : )

Any astrology believers that are prepared to consider the possibility that astrology is hogwash should read this (check the references too if you are still reluctant to shed your foma*).

But then, astrology believers are more likely to want to cling to all their silly little beliefs and shed their skepticism if they have any.
They say “I challenge you to make me doubt it” rather than “I challenge you to make me believe it”. Such attitudes not only do not promote progress, they hinder it by justifying ignorance. Like a sculptor who instead of chiselling his marble block until a work of art emerges throws loads of silly putty at the block and calls it art.

We should not be lenient toward obvious mind pollutants such as astrology – there’s plenty of more subtle pollutants that are harder to criticize.

Maybe cousin’s books define astrology as something completely different from what I take it to mean. Maybe it means “any endeavor to decrease human ignorance” in which case I’m all for it. If however her books on “good astrology” persist in trying to correlate the arrangement of lumps of mass light-years away at the time of a person’s birth with physical, psychological or social attributes of that person or past, current or future events in his/her life, then that constitutes the propagation of ignorance that was perhaps understandable 300 years ago but is unforgivable now.

*I like the word foma. It was invented by Kurt Vonnegut and means “harmless untruths”, as in Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy. However, I tend to think few untruths are really harmless. It probably isn’t a coincidence that foma is an anagram of foam, which emanates from the heads of pseudoscientists such as astrologers.

By the way, anyone who says I’m being arrogant is just plain stupid.

And all fanatics should be shot.