What I Hate

Introduction

When I was young, I listened to a lot of Passenger, as his hit song Let It Go was a true marvel at the time. His music did not only stop with this specific track. He has a song called I Hate. It is/was rather popular during his gigs. The song would tell and discuss all aspects that he hated in life. As a token of honouring this tradition, I would like to dedicate the following article to something that I genuinely despise. You may wonder what this could possibly be. Well, I hate people who tell other people who they are.

What am I even talking about?

Where can I even start to express what makes me tick? For starters, there are certain people who firmly believe in that the day you were born determine how and what you are. They imagine that the standing of the stars opposed to the earth determine how a person should behave and is like. These are naturally called Zodiac signs. They were already popular signs and omens during the Middle Ages.

However, the true origins of the Zodiac signs rest in ancient Babylonia. Yes, they are that old! Mary Ellen Snodgrass wrote the following: ‘Because the Babylonians venerated the external world as divine or as a god, they believed that an understanding of the heavens contributed to their knowledge of all nature, which functioned as a unit. Scientists and priests became adept at interpreting dreams, which they revered as mystical messages from the gods’.¹ Because they were seen as ‘mystical messages from the gods’, we still feel inclined to lean on them nowadays. Is this not a pagan thing to do? I am quite aware that Zodiac signs remain popular among many Christians (from the past to modernity). How did these pesky signs even survive until now?

The Zodiac signs played such an important role during the Middle Ages that Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales referred to them freely throughout his plot. What else? The English language appears to have been the first Germanic language that had vernacular versions of the Zodiac signs. Whereas the rest of the Germanic languages stayed loyal to their Latinate forms, Middle English demonstrated the following alternatives:

1. Rame — Aries
2. Bull — Taurus
3. Twynlyngys — Gemini
4. Crabe — Cancer
5. Lyon — Leo
6. Virgyne — Virgo
7. Belauns — Libra
8. Scorpyoun — Scorpio
9. Schoter — Sagittarius
10. Capricorne — Capricorn
11. Aquary — Aquarius
12. Fysches — Pisces

These forms can all be found in Richard of Wallingford’s Declaraciones abbatis Sancti Albani. The man lived from ca. 1292 to 1336.

The Early Modern period substituted these vernacular forms for the Latinate forms again. This is the main reason why these versions seem so peculiar to a modern English speaker now. Their essence proved to be the same as modern ones though. However, during the Middle Ages, they also served to explain the astral constellations and the stars. The Middle Ages used these Zodiac signs as a way to determine the movements of the planets and establish the liturgical year.²

Why do I find such resentment?

In light of Passenger’s song, I hate Zodiac signs, because they tend to push people into a specific frame of mind and being. Who does not know that individual that always asks what Zodiac sign you are? After the big revealing, this individual shall gladly say who you are and what you like to do in life. It is as if they have an entire analysis ready for you merely because you said what your Zodiac sign is. Could you already see what my problem is? This particular usage of Zodiac signs restricts how we think about other people.

In a way, this manner of reading human behaviour aligns splendidly to having and creating stereotypes and prejudices. People become stereotypes just because they were born under a certain constellation. Did you even know that many of the Western Zodiac signs are not even scientifically accurate? Or, to put it into better words, the Zodiac signs do not correspond accordingly anymore to the real constellations present in the sky. This may have been the direct result from the fact that the earth, and the stars and planets around it, keeps on rotating and moving. It does not correspond anymore to the same constellations that the Babylonians drew 3000 years ago.

If the stars and planets do not correspond accordingly to these constellations anymore, why would somebody, who has been born 3000 years later, still do so? It does not make any sense at all. Additionally, since these practices were already present during the Middle Ages, society and cultural aspects change significantly over time. This means that the readings of centuries ago are not meeting the same cultural aspects of modernity. Why do I want to say by this? Well, I want to specify that these ‘readings’ are not actually corresponding to modern society. In their defence, most of them, if not all, are so general and universal tendencies that everyone could agree with them. For example, a straight out of the book horoscope would tell a certain Zodiac sign the following: ‘You are someone who raises so much doubt in yourself that you are consistently questioning whether you have made the right choice or not’. They will then address this horoscope to a Virgo or a Sagittarius (for example). But does not everybody feel like this? These predictions are so general that it makes any attempt of doing so invalid towards the Zodiac sign that is being framed.

Verdict

This article discussed the topic of what I dislike in life. I hope to make a series out of this (just like many other upcoming series ideas). The first edition talked about my profound hate concerning [modern] Zodiac signs, and how they are used to frame a person’s feelings and personality.

We have seen that Zodiac signs originate from ancient Babylonia, where they were used as a tool to make sense out of the planets and stars. They believed that mastering this knowledge could lead towards having the knowledge of all nature. In a way, this particular line of thought could still be traced to how horoscopes tend to use these Zodiac signs today.

It was fun to learn that the English language was the first Germanic language to deviate from the Latinate forms. These vernacular forms did not survive through the Early Modern period, where they became the Latinate Zodiac signs that we all now know.

All in all, I stand by my earlier point that Zodiac signs are things that are inaccurate. These constellations were drawn 3000 years ago. The planets, stars and earth have been moving ever since that point: resulting into inaccurate information. Furthermore, most, if not all, predictions are so general that anybody could agree with them. With all that said, I want to just like Passenger say ‘I hate’ Zodiac signs and their predictions.