Pluto 5: Bones and Phones
Pluto in Capricorn: 2008-2024, technology and our bodies, Simone Weil's The Need for Roots, uprootedness, Pluto's upcoming 20 year trip through airy Aquarius
Upcoming classes: Psycho-Cosmos and Simone Weil
*This is the fifth post in an ongoing series on PLUTO, astrological planet and lord of the underworld, in culture and the cosmos, who will move into Aquarius on November 19th after sixteen years in Capricorn. Today, a very long post on Pluto in Capricorn and Aquarius, Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots, and Fassbinder’s Love is Colder than Death. For full access:
“…a culture very strongly directed towards and influenced by technical science, very strongly tinged with pragmatism, extremely broken up by specialization, entirely deprived both of contact with this world and, at the same time, of any window opening on to the world beyond. Nowadays a man can belong to so-called cultured circles without, on the one hand, having any sort of conception about human destiny or, on the other hand, being aware, for example, that all the constellations are not visible at all seasons of the year.” — Simone Weil, The Need for Roots
At one point in Fassbinder’s Love is Colder than Death (1969), I’m struck by the main character’s (played by Fassbinder himself) posture. He’s hunched over while moving his fingers over and over an object. At first, I mistake it for an iPhone. But of course, it’s not. This is 1969 and it’s a gun. Though sitting at the kitchen table, he looks, while running his finger over his gun-phone, utterly antisocial—closed. While I rarely see that posture in older movies—-it’s everywhere now. This smartphone posture—made ubiquitous during Pluto’s long transit through Capricorn—actually looks pretty dumb.
Pluto’s been in Capricorn since 2008—sign of the Sea Goat—half-goat, half-fish, a zone where we learn to hold both our earthly goals and oceanic infinitudes. How to be in two worlds. Analog-digital, hard limits and seemingly unlimited, glimmering vision. Soon, Pluto will move into Aquarius—a fixed air sign. How has being so plugged-in, online, inside and over our phones—changed our postures, bones?
During Pluto’s trip through the feminine earth sign of Capricorn (2008-2024) the internet seeped into our bodies. Google was launched in 1998 and went global in 2004, and YouTube launched in 2005. Apple released the iPhone in June of 2007. In January of 2007, when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, he called it a “revolutionary and magical product.” The Amazon kindle: November 2007. In 2008: Retail DNA tests, Tesla Roadsters, Hulu, and the New Mars Rover. 2011: MacBook Air. 2013: Google drive and dropbox. 2014: Apple Watch. 2015: solo drones. 2019: Apple AirPods Pro. Our gadgets weirder, smoother, glassier. How our bodies stretch, cramp, and buckle under such changes.
Alone-together with our hot-cold phones—“revolutionary and magical”—recalls one of those stereotypes about Aquarius—where Pluto will soon go: “loves humanity, hates people.” Aquarius is the Saturn-ruled sign that focuses less on the past—its tangible archives and sensory intel, and more on the airy, ethereal future. What the water-bearer washes away, attempting to clear the slate. From computers and TVs we move around to computers and TVs that move around in our pockets, perma-attached. Pluto in Aquarius: what and where are the roots of air? The deracination that comes from apparent boundlessness and unlimited access is air’s underworld….
