Astrology as Bigotry
Egalitarians view stereotyping as inherently harmful but astrology seems to be an interesting exception
The left takes a strong stand against certain types of bigotry, namely racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other perceived forms of discrimination. Usually the basis of the discrimination is something beyond one’s control; people are “born that way.” Due to this fact, it seems unfair to treat them differently.
A good argument against bigotry is to imagine that you are born in the body of a person who is the object of your bigotry. For example, if someone was being racist to a black person, you could ask them to imagine they were born as a black person. Surely, the bigot would acknowledge that being born black was not a choice. This is an appeal to the fairness moral foundation.
Bigotry is not limited to negative stereotypes. Liberals perceive harm in what could be considered positive stereotyping as well. Prejudging a woman as kind, an Asian as good at math or a gay person as stylish are offensive even if they are good things. In the case of Asian Americans, some view this as harmful to other ethnic groups because it suggests that Asians can succeed while other ethnic groups cannot because of some sort of failure on the other ethnic groups part. This is treating them like a model minority. According to wikipedia:
This argument has most often been applied in America to contrast Asian Americans(particularly East and South Asians) and Jewish Americans against African and Hispanic Americans, enforcing the idea that Asian and Jewish Americans are good law-abiding, productive citizens/immigrants, while promoting the stereotype that Hispanics and African Americans are prone to crime and dependent on welfare.
An interesting counter example to this sort of egalitarian thinking is astrology. It is my impression that since conservatives are typically Christian, they are less interested in astrology while liberals are less religious but still like spiritual things, so astrology interests them.
Astrology seems to follow a similar logic to racism or sexism. Someone can speak about your psychological temperament on the basis of your time of birth. A huge difference between the two is probably that one category of the astrological chart has not face systemic oppression against another. Regardless, it still seems odd to me to see liberal leaning people saying they can tell you about yourself because of when you were born. Stereotyping seems inherently wrong under egalitarian thinking.
An interesting counter would be to suggest that astrology is correct. The implication would be that if a racial minority really did fit the stereotype then it would be okay to stereotype, something I do not think liberals would accept. I think astrology is left without a justification if you view stereotyping as inherently harmful. This is an interesting phenomena.
Is there any qualitative difference between saying "the stars dictate your temperament / personality / fate / etc." and saying that genetics does the same thing? Or in other words, is stereotyping based on genetics a bad kind of stereotyping? Some stereotyping can be good - saying, for instance, to a tall person that they will most likely be more successful as a basketball player instead of jockey. The ethical terrain begins to get murky if we start to say that people with genes favoring intelligence ought to be shunted toward more intellectually stimulating schools, and kids who don't have those genes should be denied certain opportunities. I really don't have a good answer to these questions - I'm just throwing this out as food for thought.