Fallen Pluto: a Haiku
…and why ‘traditionalists’ fight against Pluto’s demotion
Fallen planetoid,
Once crossed that ocean’s orbit:
Strange plutocracy.
© 2022 by Tom Tordillo, all rights reserved.
Gustav Holst’s immortal “The Planets” suite omits any reference to Pluto. Since he finished it in 1917, while Pluto was discovered in 1930, this most musical/astrological definition excludes Pluto from the “Planets.”
The International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto from “planet” to “dwarf planet” in 2006. Maggie Dietz commemorated that demotion poetically.
Coincidentally, Pluto’s “fall” occurred just after Pluto’s orbit placed it further from the Sun than Neptune once more.
Pluto was the 8th Planet from 1979 to 1999, resumed its place as the 9th Planet in 1999, then became a dwarf planet in 2006. Fatimah Asghar commemorated the 1979 landmark. Maybe someone else did so for 1999.
Parts of America furthest from coasts are sometimes referred to pejoratively as “flyover country.” People in those areas will be familiar with terms like “coastal elites” as well — an odd term, since if Neptunian influence mattered culturally, Alaska and Florida possess far more coastline than California, and Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina surpass Massachusetts or any “blue” state…but culture wars need no logic beyond marketing.
As yet, nobody fixated upon the timing of Pluto’s demotion, plugging that into the purely American “debate.”
There’s no end of hostility to the demotion from ‘traditionalists,’ but until someone has completed their ‘patriotic’ science textbook and is ready to try to inject that into K-12 curricula, the grumblers will contemptuously shrug aside the International Astronomical Union’s ‘internationalist cabal’ and it’s threat to American children.
Clickbait makes it even easier. Once a culture war is believed to exist, people will ruthlessly click on whatever they wish, thinking they score points for their side? How much money is there to be made?
As Dietz observed, Pluto cares little about all this. We might choose to care though, because hurt feelings are sometimes real, but often manufactured on this world. Ignorant people do not oppose science. Rather, people seeking to preserve their power, prestige, and wealth can exploit ignorance more easily than they can exploit education.
