In the cosmic science of Astrology, Pluto, the furthest planetary orb in our solar system, represents the forces of transformation and purification.   With a periodicity of 246 years, it moves around the Zodiac rather slowly, affecting the Earth, and so represents generational changes that potentially span decades.     As such, it affects all people on the planet simultaneously and profoundly.  The Age of Leo (1939-57), for example, witnessed World War II, the advent of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, the electronics revolution, synthetic pharmaceuticals, space exploration, the end of Britain and France’s empires, and the emergence of the United States as the architect and prime leader of a new world order, economically, militarily, and culturally.   Among many other new emergences.   

In March/April 2023, Pluto began to tentatively touch the Age of Aquarius, but not making its first foray until February 2024 and continuing through August 2024.   It returns to Aquarius in December 2024 and continues its sojourn there until March 2043, making for a relatively long visit.  

So, what of it?  If Capricorn, its preceding age, has to do with disruptions, revelations, and reformations  concerning institutional authorities (such as governments, churches, academia, and corporations), wars and rumors of war, and social/economic systems – all of which, as of this writing, are still bubbling very vigorously – Aquarius will be characterized by innovations of truly unique natures, at once utopian and very possibly foreboding, across the spectrum of spheres of human experience.  Many of us see a lot of this happening already, often with a knowing discomfiture.   Such is the nature of revolutionary times.

So, what does this all look like?  Technologically, we are witnessing the embryonic ascendancy of creative artificial intelligence, highly novel in its results but unconstrained by any set, pre-delimited protocols that govern its behavior.  Writing cogent term papers and optimizing nee-business-opportunity options is one thing, but making decisions with palpable, immediate moral consequences for real human beings is quite another.   Even famed innovator-entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of AI’s originators, has expressed serious  concerns in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson about the prospects of AI applications untethered to scruples or moral constraints.  

Equally ominous is the mad drive towards transhumanism, marrying natural biological reality with any of biochemical and bioengineered alterations, surgical modifications, and cybernetic implants.  The Chinese communists are believed to have been working on creating super soldiers, human men endowed with superhuman physical strength, endurances, and enhanced perceptual abilities, all aimed at creating indomitable fighting machines. 

Most immediately concerning, however, is the impending realization of the total surveillance state, enabled by a dystopian witches’ brew of currency digitization, ubiquitous camera systems in public, comprehensive social-credit scoring on all inhabitants (available to governmental agencies and private entities such as banks and educational institutions), and even implantable genetic markers and radio-frequency identification chips.   Such a state will allow greater and dynamic micro-control of the nation’s civilian populace on a spectrum of matters, from gun ownership to vaccination penetration.   The odium of an actual Brave New World is finally within our vision now.

The antidemocratic drives of America’s elites have been palpable for many years already, manifesting as the “cancel culture” (whose aim is the erasure of nonconforming thinking and values), identity politics (whose purpose is to alienate and divide the American people against one another based on immutable characteristics), and various social-engineering mandates (such as DEI, CRT, and CSE) in schools, colleges, and workplaces both public and private, civilian and military (all designed to morph the nation’s guiding culture from traditional Americanism to “wokeism”, an evolution of communism and globalism).   In the name of combatting a phantom societal threat labelled as “white supremacy”, “white privilege”, or “white nationalism”, these elites are relentlessly demonizing all white Americans and European-sourced Western civilization.   In a form of inverse intersectionality, the most execrable people according to their perverse worldview are those who are white, male, heterosexual, and Christian. 

Of course, a person need not possess all of those features to be targeted for vilification:  Blacks/browns, gays/lesbians, and Jews who espouse conservative, pro-America views publicly have all been targeted for vituperation.   It’s just the honored communist way, after all, of transforming a nation’s consciousness against all enemies at the same time.    Ane ages-old defect of every dictatorial regime, of course, is that the maw for chewing up rogues and renegades is never satisfied, ever more demanding new human sacrifices in the name of maintaining ideological purity.  Rather like the insatiable-for-blood exotic plant from the stars, Audrey II, in the musical film, Little Shop of Horrors:  There’s no such thing as enough mayhem.

So, the advent of a technological totalitarianism on a global basis is no longer just a febrile dream in the wild, fevered imaginations of a shrouded cohort of wealthy yet morally effete control freaks.   Rather, it is the reification of an idea that appeals to a wide swath of avant-garde intellectuals, pioneering inventors, social-utopian activists, power-lusting politicians, and narcissistic film and major media celebrities – as well as the rich titans of banking, investment, industry, media, and entrepreneurism.   As such, it’s a real specter of looming doom.

Overweening governmental control in the name of the globalist “One World” impulse or just the notion of the collectivist “common good” is ineluctably hostile to individual freedom, the essential objective of all republican and democratic states in the Western tradition.  The potential for brilliance in the Age of Aquarius for innovation, uniqueness, and healthy, uplifting transformations must not be allowed to be eclipsed by the dark side of cold, unfeeling domination; a godless intellectual utopian idealism; and an elitism that denies the innate worth and dignity of Everyman and Everywoman.