6. Astrology and similar delusions are "harmless fun"
Those who say this never explain what is either funny or harmless in promoting a con-trick which preys on ignorance and anxiety. Yet even the Observer, Britain's most venerable and enlightened, Sunday newspaper, now has a horoscope page.

The same could be said for the actual news presented in each of the world's major newspapers as well as all of the advertising that's presented therein.
posted by psmealey at 8:41 AM on March 1, 2007

I like this amazon review it starts out promising:

_{It's a great book in many ways, of course. Francis Wheen is consistently amusing and shares a breadth of knowledge comparable with another journalistic polymath of our times, Christopher Hitchens.}

It goes on:

_{However, a few caveat emptors. Mr Wheen was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq. As the war has gone increasingly tits-up for the invaders, Wheen and other supporters from the left-wing, such as Nick Cohen, have been getting more and more agitated about the rightness of their cause. The result of this is that their concerns about the war, by a process of what could be termed guilty hysterical osmosis, are leaching into nearly everything they write. Mr Wheen and Cohen could be prosing about anything from shower caps to sangria these days, yet still manage to get a couple of sly digs in about the islamo-fascist-appeasing nature of the left. Just a warning, that's all.}
posted by delmoi at 8:41 AM on March 1, 2007

Wow, he seems to be pretty much spot on for every one. Good show!
posted by DU at 8:41 AM on March 1, 2007

Hardly a new book; I bought my copy last October. But it is rather good.
posted by No Mutant Enemy at 8:45 AM on March 1, 2007

Is this a list of potential delusions or right wing ideas?
posted by smackwich at 8:46 AM on March 1, 2007

New? It's been out for three years.

Still, a decent enough read, though not a patch on Wheen's biography of Marx.
posted by jack_mo at 8:46 AM on March 1, 2007

Yeah, sorry about the "new" thing. I caught that after I posted (of course). It's new if you've never seen it, though.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 8:50 AM on March 1, 2007

And my uncle had tits, he'd be my aunt. Let that sink in for a little bit.

on topic: yawn, empty paeans to appeal to people who need to know that THEY THINK RIGHTLY. talk about preying on anxiety and ignorance.
posted by solistrato at 8:54 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Empty peaen: arguing against superstitious nonsense running the country and preying on the weak.
posted by DU at 8:57 AM on March 1, 2007

Is this a list of potential delusions or right wing ideas?

Yes.
posted by octothorpe at 8:59 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

I read the book and really liked it. He gives it to both sides, especially Reagan.
posted by xammerboy at 9:02 AM on March 1, 2007

There's a certain type of person out on the far Left, who says a lot of right things, but doesn't quite smell right. It's like Christopher Hitchens, who despite a long history of left wing activism, turned sometime during the '90s to the boiled-down scum of social democracy having lost its head sometime back when Thatcher was yammering about "there is no alternative." Having lost all sense of purpose, they continue to make leftish noises despite backing the most obvious, predatory imperialist ventures (like the Iraq War). The ideological rot isn't as complete, perhaps, as with the neoconservative former Shachtmanites who supported Reaganism in the '80s, but it's still thorough. Fortunately, they've got a manifesto these days, and it's relatively easy to tell this type.

The piece, itself, isn't bad. But still: fucking Eustonites.
posted by graymouser at 9:04 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Good points.
posted by pwedza at 9:24 AM on March 1, 2007

This is stupid. Each of these points has been made, unconvincingly, by literally hundreds of writers. They all boil down to 'xyz sucks amirite.' I also love the fact that this guy is still trying to ride the 'postmodernists don't believe in reality and also they're destroying our culture' hobbyhorse, a pile of strawman arguments and sheer thickheadedness.

But hey, if self-satisfied mutual masturbation and preaching to the choir can make you some money, why the hell not?
posted by nasreddin at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2007

I once saw Francis Wheen and Christopher Hitchens greet one another at a party by falling into one anothers' arms with cries of 'The Hitch! The Hitch!' and 'The Wheen! The Wheen!' Old muckers from the New Statesman days, I think. This was in the days before Hitchens went mad (though in retrospect he was probably on the way.) I still quite miss The Wheen in the Guardian sometimes.
posted by Mocata at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2007

DU: please understand, I'm all for people thinking for themselves and such. However, you can't force someone to think for themselves. It does no good to tell someone who believes in a vengeful Christian god that their beliefs are superstitious nonsense. In fact, such a direct approach (attack in their view) only reinforces a closed mindset, since it validates that they are under siege.

My problem with the article is manifold. First off, what I usually find when people lecture others about their superstitious beliefs is that they pick low-hanging fruit. They pick the obviously-ludricrous jacknuts and focus on that extreme, holding that up as an example of all who might hold unconventional beliefs, thus salving their own minds and ignoring any sorts of shades of grey or any other belief that might be more complex than a Saturday morning cartoon.

Moreover, though, isn't someone lecturing someone else on their beliefs exactly the sort of thing this article presumes to stop? Is the author of this piece suggesting that people wiith superstitions or delusions should think more broadly, or is he suggesting that people should just think like he does? My take on it was that he took the classic rational/3rd circuit position of "if only everyone would think like me, everything would be PERFECT." It's a tone that is, to say the least, off-putting and actually quite condescending. Good luck attempting to get the "weak" to buy into that argument!

And thirdly, what if believing wacky shit works for the person? Yeah, ideologies in the hands of demagogues and other hateful fucks are evil things, but if there's some eccentric basing his/her life on a natal chart or a faith in a kooky Jesus, and if their life works for them, why change it?

I think we're fundamentally in agreement that delusion as a tool of control is a bad thing. This piece, though, is pedantic at best, and counterproductive at worst. There's a far better argument to be made than this.
posted by solistrato at 9:38 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've not read Wheen's book (or what I understand is his excellent biography of Marx that jack_mo mentions), but I enjoyed some of the back and forth amongst the chattering classes at the time, as it did seem to appeal to a certain smug mindset in bloody-minded British anti-intellectualism which gets on my tits almost as much as the stuff he apparently rightly skewered. Crooked Timber had a thread on it, and I enjoyed this comment.
posted by Abiezer at 9:45 AM on March 1, 2007

Bulletin: Santa not; never was; you suck, Ginny.
posted by Dizzy at 9:52 AM on March 1, 2007

Your favo(u)rite delusion sucks.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:00 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

RE: The lottery (the last item on the list)... Yes, you probably won't win the lottery, but I don't think people really buy tickets to win (though wouldn't that be awesome). What happens when you buy a ticket is you get to buy a little bit of hope that you will win, you get to spend the time between buying the ticket and the lottery thinking about how you would spend the money.

In a way, you're buying a ticket to dream.
posted by drezdn at 10:08 AM on March 1, 2007

solistrato: The delusion is not "astrology works", in which case you may be right that it's pointless to argue with them because you can't make them think. The delusion is "astrology is harmless fun", i.e. that con-artists and similar who bag innocents aren't something we should fight against.

The difference is that in the first case you would be preaching to people already in Hell whereas in the second you are preaching to those who haven't taken a stand either way--exactly the people that are not only most open to "changing" their minds but also the most vital that they get it right.
posted by DU at 10:13 AM on March 1, 2007

What happens when you buy a ticket is you get to buy a little bit of hope that you will win, you get to spend the time between buying the ticket and the lottery thinking about how you would spend the money.

Utility theory says that the worth of a lottery ticket is determined by what you would risk for it in a standard gamble. This is why $1 has more utility to a poor person than to a rich one. Wheen doesn't seem to understand this principle: for people whose chances of gaining a large sum of money any other way are nil, the lottery pays huge psychic dividends. It is this reliable dividend that leads to gambling addiction, not the actual money that is won.
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:30 AM on March 1, 2007

I don't understand the vitriol here. Wheen is making arguments that can be argued on their merits. He's not lecturing any more than anyone with a point of view.

Also, he is attacking beliefs and belief systems on a societal level. I don't think he (or any rational person) is against anybody being harmlessly eccentric or "misinformed" on a personal level. He believes, as do I, that delusions promulgated by the powerful to secure their power is not in most peoples' best interests. At best, it's inequitable; at worst, it's suicidal.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 10:38 AM on March 1, 2007

Wheen's book is quite entertaining if you don't mind its overweening (overWheening? Sorry) smugness. He's certainly very bright and right-on about a lot of things, but as other posters have pointed out he was one of a band of British liberals who thought they were being terribly clever and ahead of the clue-train by supporting the Iraq War. Reading the book with that knowledge in mind is a bit like hearing a Scientologist make an interesting point. You may have learned something and gained an insight, but the knowledge feels somehow tainted.

A similar, but better and more recent, book is Nick Cohen's What's Left?.
posted by WPW at 10:39 AM on March 1, 2007 [2 favorites]

Wheen doesn't seem to understand this principle: for people whose chances of gaining a large sum of money any other way are nil, the lottery pays huge psychic dividends.

This is what I'm talking about. Wheen does understand that, as do the lottery operators. The psychic reward is the bait. The hook is the fact that if the odds are 13,000,000 to 1, a $1 ticket is not even an even bet until the jackpot is $13,000,001. Again, the powerful using "delusion" to their advantage.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 10:52 AM on March 1, 2007

You know, the longer this thread continues, the more odds that someone will invoke Mage: The Ascension in some sort of nerd-Godwin fit, so I'll just do that right now.
posted by solistrato at 11:00 AM on March 1, 2007

Benny - as I say, I didn't read the book, so am commenting based on its reception at the time.
My point was he enabled a certain type of 'I am plain-talking and forthright' wannabe-Orwellism amongst people who want to dismiss, say, any post-war French theory, not because they understand it and disagree, but because it offended them for being too thinky or something, which was immensely dull.
posted by Abiezer at 11:20 AM on March 1, 2007

Those who say this never explain what is either funny or harmless in promoting a con-trick which preys on ignorance and anxiety.

Ooh, I'll step up to the bat.

The point of astrological-indifference-ism-or-whatever is not that astrology is harmless, but that it harms the right people. Specifically, it harms stupid people.

An ideal criminal justice system is not harmless; it merely harms the right people: criminals. Punishment is a disincentive to be a criminal.

Similarly, wasting your cash on astrology is a direct financial disincentive to be stupid enough to fall for it. A person who's lost money to a con-artist will make damn sure it doesn't happen again, whereas a person who merely hears about the nasty tricksters out there will never really know in his gut to look out for them. Chances are he'll be warned away from the more obvious nonsense, but his skepticism will be half-baked and unable to deal with more subtle and serious shysters, such as politicians.

Put simply, singeing your fingers on astrology is an excellent way to avoid getting more seriously burnt in the future.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 11:28 AM on March 1, 2007

Is there some sort of astrological bilk-network that I haven't heard about? I get mine for free.
posted by solistrato at 11:36 AM on March 1, 2007

Is there some sort of astrological bilk-network that I haven't heard about?

Call this premium-rate number to find out the answer to this and many other life questions ...
posted by WPW at 11:41 AM on March 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Bulletin: Santa not; never was
Oh, and here I thought I wasn't getting any presents because I was just bad.
posted by yohko at 11:57 AM on March 1, 2007

It would appear that a decent companion to Wheen's book would be the classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) (Project Gutenberg version - volumes 1, 2 and 3), if only to show how little has changed.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:18 PM on March 1, 2007

Solistrato, is this something I'd need Entropy 3 to understand?
posted by khaibit at 12:19 PM on March 1, 2007

Winning the lottery is probably the least harmful but most powerful delusion. The number of people who actually buy nationwide lottery tickets is frightening.... and the more that buy, the less sense it makes for more to buy.
posted by tehloki at 12:19 PM on March 1, 2007

nasreddin writes "But hey, if self-satisfied mutual masturbation and preaching to the choir can make you some money, why the hell not?"

What's wrong with self-satisfied mutual masturbation?!

tehloki writes "The number of people who actually buy nationwide lottery tickets is frightening.... and the more that buy, the less sense it makes for more to buy."

Doesn't the jackpot increase when more people buy, while the odds remain constant? It's an even odds bet once jackpot/odds > price. Of course, you need to consider the probability of a split pot, and the opportunity cost of not investing the money you spend playing elsewhere, but with a high enough jackpot, it can certainly be an economically sensible decision to play.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:03 PM on March 1, 2007

What's wrong with self-satisfied mutual masturbation?!

If it was really self-satisfied, it wouldn't need to be mutual.
posted by InfidelZombie at 1:19 PM on March 1, 2007

Doesn't the jackpot increase when more people buy, while the odds remain constant?

Yes. A typical Powerball lottery where you need to hit 5 numbers + a Powerball is about 120,000,000 to 1. As soon as the jackpot hits $120,000,000, a $1 ticket gives you even odds. Still an extremely shitty bet.

Keeping with the post, other mass delusions work similarly.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 1:21 PM on March 1, 2007

Benny Andajetz writes "As soon as the jackpot hits $120,000,000, a $1 ticket gives you even odds. Still an extremely shitty bet. "

Better odds than any casino game, though. If you're gonna gamble....
posted by mr_roboto at 1:26 PM on March 1, 2007

Why would the number of tickets sold have any effect on the odds of winning? I thought the odds were based on the chance of getting the 1 winning combination out of the 120,000,000 possible number combinations. If you want a 50% chance to win (1 to 1 odds), wouldn't you need to buy 60,000,000 different combinations?
posted by InfidelZombie at 2:24 PM on March 1, 2007

So then a judgemental God is, in reality, on the side of the irrational market which flourishes under the government's role in demand management, yet is sabotaged by astrology, thin air, emotional populism and the lottery. Got it.

¡°What happens when you buy a ticket is you get to buy a little bit of hope that you will win...¡±

Or, y¡¯know, help fund education if your state is into that. And if you don¡¯t play at all your odds are exactly zero. And thus you stand infinitely less of a chance of winning. Although one could argue the corrosive psychic effect of wishing for something rather than getting off your ass and making it happen is worse.
I do prefer gambling on something like the lottery (with added school fund goodness) to something with a pretense at skill like video poker (vs. live poker) at a casino. Granted one can maximize one¡¯s odds, but you¡¯re not going to break the curve. The house always wins. The most significant advantage in poker (and other more skill based games of chance) is the ability to bluff, read your opponant, etc. etc. Which is why the house only holds the games and doesn¡¯t have an actual hand in them.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:26 PM on March 1, 2007

Why would the number of tickets sold have any effect on the odds of winning?

It doesn't affect the odds of winning, but it affects the value of the win, and therefore the value of the bet. A 50% chance at winning $100 is "worth" $50; a 1% chance is worth $1, etc. (to a first approximation at least). So as the jackpot increases, the value of the risk increases, and it eventually becomes greater than the cost of a ticket.

There's a name for this kind of analysis; it slips my mind presently.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:40 PM on March 1, 2007

I can get my horoscope free any number of places. This guy wants money for his book. Who's "prey[ing] on ignorance" again?
posted by drjimmy11 at 2:49 PM on March 1, 2007

Better odds than any casino game, though.

Not even close, because the odds are still 120,000,000 to 1. Every game in the casino will give you shorter odds than that, by a long shot.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 3:03 PM on March 1, 2007

Yeah, I'm misusing the word "odds". I guess risk/payout ratio is what I'm trying to express.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:14 PM on March 1, 2007

What you're talking about is called "expected value" IIRC. You're looking for the point where a $1 powerball ticket has an expected value of $1.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:26 PM on March 1, 2007

Not to sound like a knee-jerk anti-intellectual, but so many of our so called delusions are pretty harmless. If I want to believe that my soul mate is a gemini and that all I need to win the lottery is $1 and astronomically good luck - what is the harm? I could, I suppose, spend my time pondering the impermanence of the universe - and that everything in existence will eventually end...that really cheers me the fuck up.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 3:40 PM on March 1, 2007

absolute bullshit.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:46 PM on March 1, 2007

Seems a bit narcissistic to me.
posted by owhydididoit at 4:46 PM on March 1, 2007

Is there some sort of astrological bilk-network that I haven't heard about?

One of the many things that struck me on my first visit to Manhattan was the number of astrologists who had storefronts in some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

Until that point, I'd always assumed that Americans weren't *that* different to the rest of us, but when I saw the number of charlatans being supported by the population of a single city, I couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't some sort of national predisposition towards gullibility going on there?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:15 PM on March 1, 2007

I came for the delusion. I stayed for the tits.
posted by fleacircus at 10:27 PM on March 1, 2007

"The rest of us?" Like people the world over don't have their own local irrationalities?

Look up blood types in Japan, for example.

But no, you're right, America is just exceptional in believing in delusions.
posted by Snyder at 8:38 AM on March 2, 2007