Beware perceptions from any inner circle. They are just perceptions.
No need for a science history lesson here, but I’ll remind you that Ptolemy believed Earth lay fixed in the center of the universe. He thought all the other planets revolved around it. To account for their seeming reversals of motion, he drew epicycles (little circles) on orbital circumferences. The circles on circles accounted for the ostensible changes in direction he observed during a year. For him and those he influenced for a millennium and a half, the planets moved “forward” and then “backward” before resuming a “forward” motion. Think “eastward” and “westward.” *
The same apparent reversal of motion appears from a moving Earth, which lies on an inner circle compared to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, three of the five “wanderers” known to Ptolemy, their positions marked by movement against the farther, and seemingly fixed, stars and constellations as the illustration shows.
Of course, the retrograde motion is, as we know, just an illusion. Planets don’t switch directions in their orbits. The views from the inner circle and false assumptions create the illusion.
Put Washington, D.C. in the place of Ptolemy’s Earth. Or put it on an “inner circle.” What happens? Those in Washington believe they are, if not the center of the universe, at least very near it. And for them, the people outside the inner circle just can’t keep pace and actually travel “backward.” Such is the view from the inner circle. Such is the view from any “inner circle,” political, social, organizational, religious, financial, cultural, and, unfortunately for many outside its mind-shaping circle, editorial.
Thus, small-government conservatives appear to be “backward-moving” from the perspective of big-government progressives. Social conservatives appear to move backward from the perspective of anarchists. People in the “flyover” section of the United States appear “backward-moving” to those on the two coasts.
Just keep in mind that retrograde motion is an illusion. Unfortunately, those in the “inner circle” won’t learn from a Copernicus or Galileo that their perspective is, in fact, an illusion. It took more than a millennium to educate those adherents of Ptolemy in the inner circle that their world did not stand in the center of the universe. Let’s hope that their twenty-first century counterparts don’t take as long to recognize those “planets" outside their elite inner circles aren’t moving as they seem to be.
Notes: See. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Mars_Loop.gif. for an illustration.
Figure below: Earth = T; Mars = P; "fixed stars" or constellation = A
No need for a science history lesson here, but I’ll remind you that Ptolemy believed Earth lay fixed in the center of the universe. He thought all the other planets revolved around it. To account for their seeming reversals of motion, he drew epicycles (little circles) on orbital circumferences. The circles on circles accounted for the ostensible changes in direction he observed during a year. For him and those he influenced for a millennium and a half, the planets moved “forward” and then “backward” before resuming a “forward” motion. Think “eastward” and “westward.” *
The same apparent reversal of motion appears from a moving Earth, which lies on an inner circle compared to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, three of the five “wanderers” known to Ptolemy, their positions marked by movement against the farther, and seemingly fixed, stars and constellations as the illustration shows.
Of course, the retrograde motion is, as we know, just an illusion. Planets don’t switch directions in their orbits. The views from the inner circle and false assumptions create the illusion.
Put Washington, D.C. in the place of Ptolemy’s Earth. Or put it on an “inner circle.” What happens? Those in Washington believe they are, if not the center of the universe, at least very near it. And for them, the people outside the inner circle just can’t keep pace and actually travel “backward.” Such is the view from the inner circle. Such is the view from any “inner circle,” political, social, organizational, religious, financial, cultural, and, unfortunately for many outside its mind-shaping circle, editorial.
Thus, small-government conservatives appear to be “backward-moving” from the perspective of big-government progressives. Social conservatives appear to move backward from the perspective of anarchists. People in the “flyover” section of the United States appear “backward-moving” to those on the two coasts.
Just keep in mind that retrograde motion is an illusion. Unfortunately, those in the “inner circle” won’t learn from a Copernicus or Galileo that their perspective is, in fact, an illusion. It took more than a millennium to educate those adherents of Ptolemy in the inner circle that their world did not stand in the center of the universe. Let’s hope that their twenty-first century counterparts don’t take as long to recognize those “planets" outside their elite inner circles aren’t moving as they seem to be.
Notes: See. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Mars_Loop.gif. for an illustration.
Figure below: Earth = T; Mars = P; "fixed stars" or constellation = A
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