What Makes A Person Have A Mean Disposition?

This weekend the soldier told me I did not have a mean bone in my body. I went to argue with him as a natural reaction but when I gave it a thought I realized he was right.

I had an 850 mile drive home to think about this and I am sure… I have confirmed I really do not have a mean bone in my body in spite of being admittedly deadly, so why is that? What does the chart of a mean person look like anyway? What planet rules MEAN?

Well I don’t know. But I do know there are mean people out there. There is the “mean individual stranded in a Limousine” that Paul Simon wrote about for example. There are also people who are completely sadistic so there is a whole continuum out there, but what would the astrology be?

My guess at the moment is that “mean person” describes a disposition and I wonder if the Sun would be involved. I don’t know, I am looking for your ideas, but I have no hard aspects to my Sun at all.

 

51 thoughts on “What Makes A Person Have A Mean Disposition?”

  1. No mean bones at all . . . not a one! 🙂 Libra Sun out-of-sign conjunct Jupiter, a very wide out-of-sign square to Saturn, for what it’s worth. Small minded, meanness really bothers me a lot.

    ((Welcome back, Elsa))!! You were missed! 😀

  2. i wonder if every archetype has its corner on “mean” – when a part of us doesn’t get what it wants, and then gets angry, loses control over what it intended…i think all of them can inspire us to meanness. i mean, pluto because of a lack of power or being treated as powerless, mars because of a lack of space to express boundaries or being abused, venus from lack of being wanted/appreciated or heard…

    personally, i think i might have a few mean bones buried in here, but an abundance of libra and sensitivity to others so i feel a need to dampen things when i have these reactions. also, i take any inspiration to be mean as a cue to see what i’m not doing for myself – not venusing, or marsing enough? etc.

    not that i always succeed, but i’m open to those cues…

  3. i voted fairly mean, but was leaning toward vicious then decided that was the “youthful me”, who used to get “physical” with those who got on my nerves. pluto squares my sun (in the 8th) so i hide my mean side very well and i guess it can come across as passive aggressive? i have a lot in my chart that can come across as mean to some people… like my bluntness, or emotionally detached comments that seem cold, impersonal.

    but i don’t mean to be that way, honestly!

  4. uhh. I used to think I wasn’t mean at all. I wanted to be saint, all that Virgo working its prude magik…
    But I am, and can be mean and petty, and angry. The funny thing is the easier and more freely I let that energy flow (i express, yell, curse, think nasty thoughts) the more easily I get over it, and the love in me flows more freely and richly. So when I hate more, I love more!
    This is a very recent obeservation and is under consideration for turning into a fact. Currently is in the hypothesis section.
    I have no idea how that is indicated in my chart…sun square ascendant ..???

  5. Fairly mean. This is not by general disposition, tho’–my natural disposition is all love and kindness and caring. That would be my Sun–in Cancer conjunct Jupiter (generous to a fault!) conjunct Asc (at one with what I aspire to be), and lots of great aspects and not one single hard one. Ruled by my Pisces Moon, I also have a great deal of compassion at my disposal.

    So why do I consider myself “fairly mean”? Because there is a shadow side to my chart (and most charts, I suspect), and it sometimes spits bile and strikes out and can make other living things really miserable! When my normally nurturing Cancer Sun feels threatened, the defensive side kicks in. This in itself does not make “mean”…after all, Cancer mostly hides & cries when hurt, right? But it throws my Moon into a spin, and while Pisces unadulturated may play victim/martyr, my Moon is also opposing Uranus & Pluto! So yah–sometimes I’ll just hide and/or cry and/or play victim/martyr (annoying, yes! But not “mean”)–but other times I’m truly out-of-balance and those hard aspects show their dark side. I can be destructive (Pluto) and cruel (Pluto) and erratic (Uranus) and detached to the point of being without feeling at all (Uranus), and not only does having my Moon tied up like that mean that I sometimes really do FEEL those things, that those two also reside in my third house, I can communicate it to my immediate environment and sometimes do!!

    The other shadow side probably comes from having Mars square Saturn. I have a hard time keeping my physical energy moving in a flowing way. So it sometimes gets bottled up, and then BLOOEY! I will literally strike out physically, no doubt subconsciously trying to get that energy moving again but in reality, it means something is getting broken because I’m either throwing it or hitting it!

    *shrug* I’m getting better with age & self awareness…

    Really, I don’t know that the “astrology” of mean can be constrained to a single planet or sign or house. I think it is best described as a potential of the shadow side of many planets & signs, and depending on where the stresses in a chart lie is where that potential may ultimately blossom in reality, and come about in many forms.

  6. I don’t know. For me it’s virgo meets Scorpio. Not only am I perfectly right, but I’m intense. I’m intensely right. So I look into you and see completely through you. And you can’t argue with me, I see spiritual truth. And if what I see and say I see hurts you, oh well, it will be good for you. It’s mean, but it will heal you in a way you’ll never thank me for (though I swear I deserve it). I’m a guardian angel of what’s better for you, but that’s the curse of Venus and Risinging in Virgo with a first house Mercury conjunct Pluto and Mars in Gemini that just has to tell you … is it mean, or is it a gift? A paradox of my life. I’m a truthsayer. Ask me, and I tell you the truth, I tell you no lie. And I guarentee it, I’m always right. (Libra Sun, Mercury.)

  7. I voted “not a mean bone”, I’d like to be mean, but I’m pisces, moon conjunct neptune..etc. I have been mean in my life but rarely.
    This is a very interesting topic… I’ve been trying to embrace the dark side in me, my shadow, hoping it will STOP showing up in my relationships once I integrate it. I’ve learned cool stuff, like what it means to ACCEPT the dark side, and how in doing that you start expecting it and be ok with it/not hating people for it.
    About this subject,
    Neith put his finger on it, I think. The meanest sun signs in my experience are capricorn and scorpio, and they are definatly scared. I love capricorn, they don’t have a bad character at all but they do enjoy it when things go wrong for others, because that confirms the pattern they expect to happen, they are pessimistic. And they aren’t afraid to say it, they embrace they’re dark side perfectly.
    Scorpio likes to project their dark side on others. I think scorpios are very insecure, so I’d consider them scared. No point in pointing out how mean they can be. 🙂
    I’d vote for saturn and pluto contacts as the Mean Factor.

  8. I read this and I think, really, ask me something. I will tell you something more real than you ever wanted hear. I cannot tell you how hated and feared I am for this. When you give the truth as a gift, and it shows every ugly flaw you ever had … and yet you have this Libra sun and Mercury that just wants peace and all these Virgo pieces (including for me, Venus) that just honestly wants to show love through truth – the hard ones – that no one loves you more for hearing. You love for Truth, and Truth is seen as such a cruel thing. Honestly, who is it more cruel for? The giver who needs to give it to feel the feeling of sharing love, or the receiver who just feels intricately carved?

  9. I’m a Scorpio sun and I can be vicious. If you count silence or not going out of my way to acknowledge the existence of someone who has threatened me or betrayed my trust, or even just treated me extremely disrespectfully. In that, I am viscious. I don’t scowl at them or treat them badly, I just don’t acknowledge them as part of the human race. Maybe that’s mean and maybe that’s protection. I’m not afraid of them-anymore, since I’ve got their card and although I have compassion for their small-mindedness ad forgive them, at the end of the day-they’ve lost my vote as a worthwhile person.

    I would think that “mean” in a horoscope would not necessarily be one aspect but a combination. What what would drive a person to be mean? Protection? Defense? Maybe any significant psychological blow or sustained pressure that threatens something important to a person in such houses as 1,2,3,7,8, and definitely 10 could illicit a mean type of defense or protection. Depending on how a person handles pressure it could come out physically. I’m not very versed in astrology aspects, would you think any significant harsh aspect hitting any of those houses would make a difference?

  10. I say this with nothing but respect, Althera, but: what does looking through someone mean? I understand the feeling of being right.I have had this feeling. I have understood more of people than they care to understand about themselves. I can see the insecurities. What I have learned in the process of observing humans is this: people fare better when they are offered a gentler landing in this life. And if I love someone and want to share love with them, should I not offer that person that gentler landing?

    I have a very, very well-honed opinion of meanness. My father (who also, BTW has a lot of Scorpio and Libra in his chart) knows people better than anyone I know. Anyone. He can see through any personality, any ploy, any game, any insecurity, any nuance of the physical expression that a human can have. That gift is a double-edged knife, for sure. Because it is a gift!

    One thing that he pounded (not literally) into my brain was that the SOLE rule of being human was having a kind heart. As long as you are kind, you can’t go wrong–even if you fuck up! And I live by that rule. Intention is everything.
    Like a parent to a child: you can see the weakness and confusion of a child, but still you have a kind heart and offer them a soft landing, because that kindness will offer nothing but room for growth and expansion.

  11. I’ve been paying special attention the last few years on how I give love. Just love. It shouldn’t be painful and if I say something that sounds painful or hurtful, I try to act with empathy and feeling by apologizing if I’m wrong and helping them through the mess I made irregardless if I’m wrong or right. It sure wasn’t their mess and it’s not my job to do anything remotely painful to anyone.

    Sun, merc and mars in leo 5H… 🙂 My light and dark side? The wonderful challenge of my growing into a good freakin’ leonine kitten.

    xoxox

  12. I am interested in kindness as an ideal and I am attracted to folks who believe in kindness (and practice it and so forth). I think doing right by people is incredibly sexy.

    I don’t think I’m mean. I think in the past I’ve had insecurities that have made me lash out at people. But I am never intentionally mean (and here I also get tripped up — I suppose the question I could understand would be What lengths would you go to to put someone else down? And then of course my next question would be … What’d they do to deserve your wrath?) — it doesn’t interest me, going out of my way to be spiteful. Far too much negative energy right there.

    My Mars is in Scorpio. I’ve always felt that I could be mean. If I wanted to be. You catch more bees with honey …

  13. Great topic and responses. I’ll chime in with the every-sign-is-mean-in-its-own-way thought. There are as many different ways to be mean as to be kind…and what is mean to one person is not to another. Whether someone whispers gossip behind my back (Libra/Mercury/Gemini, maybe?) may hurt me more than Scorpio/Pluto freezouts, or Mars/Aries explosions/violence — for someone else, the freezout is the worst. All depends on the person.

    I do think the motivation for being mean or aggressive toward others has something to do with fear and being threatened – the dog example is a good one. We aren’t all that different in our emotional lizard brain from animals, and when we are threatened we have basically fight or flight responses, which in us “evolved” humans can include being mean or aggressive towards others.

    I really like the point of kashimiri about being kind. Althea, as a turbo Scorpio I totally get what you are saying and your emotion about Truth with a capital T being important resonates. However you can’t force someone to admit to a Truth they do not want to see. If you try to, you are not helping them (and will likely be percieved as very mean indeed). I think the best you can do is try to live the Truth with yourself and in your own life, and as kashmiri says, focus on being kind to others. this does NOT mean accepting their shit or letting them lie to you, but trying to force them to see things they do not want to see Does. Not. Work. one of life’s sad lessons…

  14. Hi,

    interesting topic… what does “mean” mean? There´s such a broad range, from kicking a cat to deliberately devastating a planet just to feel powerful, to name just the obvious. So, from my personal interpretation, I don´t consider deep insight combined with sharp-edged bluntness not as “mean” in itself. It´s like a surgical knife, which can be useful and healing in the hands of a surgeon but very destructive in the hands of somebody that finds joy in just cutting others up. Both ways it hurts.

    To me, there is so much more meanness in those silver-tongued devils all into “light and love” and bells and chimes and stuff, they drowse you with seemingly good intentions just to take advantage for their own sake solely. Guess that´s Neptunes shadow, and it´s hard to detect (unless one has a very trained Plutonian instinct). Makes me fierce…Mars opposing Neptune in my chart. But i think as well that every planet has it´s shadow and “mean” side, and that a chart does not give away the spirit in which it is expressed. Jupiter´s expansiveness can literally smother all around you with no regards to their wellbeing, for instance.

    And Pluto? I love my Pluto (squaring my sun). I love that archaic trait of “getting even”, the potential of being destructive beyond all rules, I enjoy planning and plotting of getting rid of my enemies, finding their soft spots and slowly ripping them to shreds. Do I do it? No. Too much effort. But just imagining I could, knowing there´s a load of beasts inside that everybody but me is afraid of gives me strenght and some kind of inner peace. It´s a decision I make everyday, and the difference of just imagining it and actually doing it is part of my human identity. And reminds me that every time somebody wants “the light” only, somebody else gets to bear (and act out) the shadow. I want all of my parts to be part of me…

    So, I can be vicious and potentially cruel, I can be a mean fighter, if necessary, with no moral restrictions whatsoever, and knowing that helps me to choose my everyday weapons more carefully and to not let myself guide by fear or helplessness which I´ve had too much of as a child. Am I mean, as in generally? No, not at all. But it´s my own choice. Every single day.

    And, as an astrologer, I can help people to accept their beasts and make their own choices as to how to deal with their energies and potentials without judging them in the first place. Very rewarding…(especially when you´ve got Mars-Plutonians that are driven by all kinds of meanness and fear of their own powers. Such an incredible energy, and so hard to handle…)

    Ok, nuff said. Sorry for getting carried away – as I said, very interesting subject.

  15. Thoughtless? I can be, but I feel so bad afterwards that I go out of my way to right what I did. Angry? With a temper? Indeed, but that flares up quickly and dies down just as quickly.

    But mean? Not at all. If someone’s done me wrong, I go out of my way to avoid them, and I let Karma handle them. Not that I don’t get angry and annoyed about what happened. 😉 I simply believe in letting nasty people do themselves in.

    I’m guessing I’m not mean because of all the Leo (Sun/Mars conjunct in the 5th) and Libra (Moon, Jupiter right on the DSC) in me. Leos, with a few exceptions (really nasty Sun afflictions–I have the displeasure of knowing a mean Leo–really is an embarrassment to the rest of our sign), are generally easygoing and kindhearted folks, even if they preen and strut all the time. 😉

  16. I can be incredibly vicious, a talent I cultivated being a whopping 5’2″ and unable to physically win fights. But I think I’m like that bear you talked about a few months back. I don’t show my claws unless my opponent just won’t take the hint and back up.

  17. I like to think of myself as mean, but I’m not…I’m so Saggy 😉 I’m a bit rude sometimes, but I can’t be mean. I can’t even play pranks on people 🙁

  18. Mean.Hmmmm….Saturn/Pluto aspects are the meanest.You know,scorched earth.Mean makes me think of guys like Dick Cheney,Darth Vader,Scrooge(reformed meanie),Jerry Falwell,White Supremacists,Saddam,Hitler,a nurse that took care of me when I gave birth to my son-and why are there so many mean nurses and mean teachers anyway?Is it overwork,poor life choices,pms or do these people just look for places where the vulnerable congregate?

  19. I know a sadist, but I do not believe he was born that way. He was abused as a kid etc. Not that it’s an excuse of any sort, and maybe other people would respond differently. But he’s a mean bastard all the same. He has problems with real intimacy, and if someone gets too close: you can just wait for him to try and chop their head off. For myself – I don’t have a mean bone in my body, but my mind can be vicious…

  20. asanamama, I have wondered the same about many of the teachers/nurses in my life!! I once lived across the street from an animal welfare worker when I was 11. That woman and her partner beat their kids, and it never failed to shock me that she was in the business of saving animals but treated her kids like prisoners.

  21. I’m not sure a chart would tell you if someone is mean, though it might tell you in what way they are mean. Because being mean is is a kind of moral thing that the chart doesn’t tell you – is this the chart of a saint or a hit-man? Or is it the chart of a chicken? You don’t know in advance. You don’t know what someone has done with their squares and their trines, you don’t know what strange being with their strange history chose to be born and blend with that moment in time.

  22. I’m honestly surprised by the number of people in here that admit to being “mean.” And saddened by those who don’t, because I think everyone is mean at some point in their life to someone.

    Personally, I’m not kick-a-random-animal-because-I-feel-crappy mean, but I will fuck your shit up if you want to take me on. I’m a bitch with a bad attitude and a lot of people think, incorrectly in my opinion, that ~that’s~ being mean – but I honestly make the decision almost everyday to not be what I consider mean (pulling pranks, spitting in people’s food, basically random acts of inconsiderateness).
    Also, I have to agree with Elena that the more I openly express my “mean” anger, the better I feel as a person and the less anger I feel.

    BTW, I think we need a definition of “mean” to work with – maybe an example of someone you consider to be mean, Elsa?

  23. I want to believe that you don’t have a mean bone in your body, Elsa, but then I don’t know what to make of this:

    I would love to see her chart!! I bet it’s a trainwreck.

    This is (a small part of) what you wrote in the post “Edgar Cayce, the Control Freak Book, Neptune and the Grateful Dead!”

    Now, I haven’t read the book and I don’t know the author, and this isn’t really a dispute about facts (whether or not the author is crazy). It’s just… well, that sounded mean. It sounded mean when I first read it, but I didn’t really care much because I figure it’s just stream of consciousness and whatever you write is yours to write anyway.

    But now that you bring up mean bones, I think that is maybe a mean bone. Just a small one, like a pinky toe or something. But a mean bone nonetheless.

    I think it’s okay to have a mean bone or two, as long as it’s not a whole skeleton. Personally, I’d say I have a mean bone the size of a femur. But compared to my whole body, that’s not huge or anything. And there’s always a reason for my meanness (I’m hurting and reacting or whatever), but everyone has a reason. Doesn’t make it any less mean.

  24. CD – I may be perceived as mean by you and many others, however I know what drives me and “mean” is not it.

    This is not to say people are not injured by my style of communicating because they certainly are. But as for intention I am satisfied I am clear. I just have no desire whatsoever to be mean because I am completely busy with other pursuits.

  25. Oh! And specific to that comment, that is just how I communicate. And actually this is a much discussed topic in my inner circle. How brutal (mars mercury) my talk can come across that is. But the people close to me know that even if they are hurt, (and sometimes they are) it is never my intention.

  26. “…the people close to me know that even if they are hurt, (and sometimes they are) it is never my intention.”
    EXACTLY! We’re working with the same definition here. Oooh, the excitement! 😀

    Sometimes I am intentionally hurtful but, hehe, they started it! It’s usually a knee-jerk reaction when I’ve been wounded and I’m mortified and contrite once I cool off. I’m trying to get better about this, actually. It’s a holdover from a dysfunctional childhood and it doesn’t serve a purpose anymore.

  27. i lied (didn’t think it through.) i don’t want to be mean to anyone. but when i get hurt enough i go wounded animal and i get vicious. sometimes undeservingly so. and i have to watch that.
    i think the first is my neptune and the second my pluto. i’m pretty libra about the way i take people apart when i’m bleeding.

  28. I have been mean. With the ex ex. I usually try to transcend and withdraw but often my thoughts are very mean. I wonder if this has to do with exercising your mars? As I was not doing anything with my energy except getting it meshed with him.. and then feeling a desire to push away and hurt him. It comes out most often when I’m backed into a corner. (12th house and aries ruling 7th)

    Sun/mars conjunct in 12th and squaring saturn in the 9th. When I do get mean I tend to justify it (9th house). I also control it with my “mom” energy admonishing me to be nice. (saturn in cancer).

  29. I suppose a “mean” chart would be one wieghted with earth-element with fire-element a close second. I’m thinking of a Taurus-Aries energy. I think of Taurus as being kinda selfish and Aries as being a bully .

    I suppose a transiting plant has to “trigger” an aspect involving a planet in one of these elements.

    While we all think in terms of how the signs-planets-aspects affects our lives…. I can’t help but wonder about how the genetic make-up of people figure into this.

    Mmmm…. what a wonderful bottomless pot of possibilities and mysteries that just begs to be explored!!! Just up my alley! Virgo ascendant, Scorpio sun….. need I say more? Maybe it’s the Picses moon that keeps me from staying in there.

    eh, just my 2-cents.
    *Crawls under large rock & sets pincers*

  30. Libra Sun and stellium in Virgo makes me abhor mean-spirited behavior. I do unto others… and I try to help, not hurt, others. Nevertheless, the Scorpio Asc leads me to think mean thoughts when hurt or afraid but my basic tendency is not to act. I also communicate in a rather direct manner which can hurt or offend others but that is never my attention. Does that still count as not a mean bone in my body?

  31. I love reading kashmiri’s posts…. always makes me stop and think.

    My virgo ascendent scorpio sun just loved thinking about this topic. What would a mean chart look like? Hmmmm.

    I’d say it’s got to be weighted with taurus-aries energy…. aka: earth-fire. It also has to be someone reacting to the lower-self of these energies….. the self-absorbed selfish part of taurus and the action-oriented part of aries.

    I’m also inclined to think our genetics-pychie(?) has to play a part. Then you have the aspects…. what happends when a plant transits and applys an aspect to a part of the chart with this earth-fire energy.

    Hmmm….. such a wonderful bottomless pool of mystery and suspense!!!

    That’s my 2-cents.
    *crawls under a large rock & sets pincers* Grrr.

  32. Glenn, that is not a delay. The comments right away unless the go into the spam filter which your last did. It’s not personal, the spam filter is HUGE and hosted off site.

    When something does go in there, I have to manually pull it out. That means I have to be here, online and comb through the comments in filter (1000’s a day)to see ones that are mis-marked. I do this many times a day but obviously it is not instant and I do sleep at night.

    Here is how the filter works:

    https://elsaelsa.com/astrology/2009/03/13/behind-the-scenes-elsaelsa-regarding-the-comments-and-the-spam-filter-on-this-blog/

    It is actually interesting.

    Anyway, I am sorry for the problems / inconvenience but there is no way to run without a filter and it actually is very good. I mean 1 spam in 5000 gets through so just imagine if I took it off, 🙂

  33. Like Elsa, I’m mercury conjunct mars natally, so I come across with less tact than I’d like too. But never with ill intent, much less to be mean. I may feel hurt/angry/sad/etc, but you won’t know it, as I’ll take the high road (moon in cappy & 6th).
    Angie

  34. I’m not sure if you can see mean in a chart, although I would imagine it to be Mars energy used in a negative way. It just depends on how the person wants to use what they’ve got.

  35. I think that Saturn must rule Mean. Or at least Pluto,Mars, Saturn conj.? That sounds pretty intense to me. Any thoughts?

  36. Medusa was not evil, was not ugly,
    just pretty as hell.

    Saturno en leo, many abandoned, sadness or violence?

    I like your web, thanks

  37. No but I’ll give my straightforward opinion when asked, which people sometimes don’t want (though they probably start out thinking that they do).

  38. I have Mars square Mercury and Saturn, exactly opposite Pluto, but it’s also exactly sextile my Sun, and trine Uranus and Neptune. It’s also in Taurus in the 12th, and Aries sits on the cusp of my 12th house. I used to be really bad with my anger. 98% of the time I would be completely calm and kind, but during that 2%, I’d just completely explode and throw a tantrum. And I have to admit, there have been times where I’ve let my mouth get away from me and have said something unnecessarily cruel. But I’ve gotten better at knowing just what to say and how far to go, and also at controlling my anger better. I do have a tendency to hold grudges against people, something I just recently became consciously aware of, but it rarely translated into my actions. A lot of my annoyance, frustration, and anger stays in my head, and I can get pretty active in there. Whether that’s a good thing because I’ve learned to just not sweat the small stuff, or bad because it makes it more likely to come out in a bad way later, I don’t know.

    But anyway, I think the placement of my Mars and the aspects it makes has a lot to do with it. It doesn’t make me mean, necessarily, but it does tend to result in my anger being repressed and repressed, until suddenly it’s ACTUALLY an issue. Perhaps someone with all the same aspects and house cusps or similar but, say, Mars in Aries or Scorpio would have a greater problem with cruelty than I do with Mars in Taurus.

  39. I was mean today, with a smarmy, competitive, one upper I work with. I’ve seen her roll her eyes and be dismissive when someone asks her for help, so now we’ve got a few new people who are afraid to be “outed” in front of the rest of the work group for any ignorance. That just makes me mad to think they might have questions they’re afraid to ask, how are they going to learn?

    So I made a mistake…on something I’m learning. (WIC coupons) We’re a pharmacy and I very seldom work with WIC. We had to call a customer service manager to straighten it out, I apologized to the customer, who really wasn’t mad anyway. It was a matter of quantity.

    I was letting her know the extent of my cash register training (3 hours) when she said that’s all she got too. I pointed out she’d worked up front on the main registers and she said no, lawn and garden…okay…

    I said well clearly you’re just superior to me in every way. She said no, she’d worked at a grocery store before. And shut right up. If I hadn’t become frustrated I wonder if she’d ever have said anything. I just don’t operate that way, don’t like exposing people and making them feel stupid, though I admit, THAT was satisfying.

  40. Well, there is mean overt and direct, and mean cold and covert. In my experience, the meanest people have not been Scorpios – sorry Scorpios who want to be scary – the meanest have had some stress on an air sign or virgo. The meanest by far are those Libra folks or folks with Libra in a planet. These folks can simmer and cook up some logical explanation as to why it is right for them to be mean – perhaps they believe the caste system allows it or that they are “teaching them a lesson.” something even honorable. But people who are really mean have a problem with aggression. People who just explode and yell at you and get over it aren’t “mean.” People who systematically plot to kill you socially, politically, at work or take away something from you that is valuable and lie about you – now those are the mean ones. A lighter case is just those who want to *uck with you because they need to feel superior. Again, someone who cannot show leadership or power any other way. So you’re looking at someone who is passive aggressive.

  41. sal, I’ve witnessed that first hand with a few Major Libras in my life. I am still working on forgiveness..

  42. My Saturnine self likes to tell people the truth, which they surprisingly often think is mean-spirited.

  43. Mean is stealing, ultimately and often a root lying. You’re stealing and lying about a person’s reputation or so forth. You’re screwing with someone, spiting in their food so to speak. Destroying some aspect of them. Mean is different than a person that just cusses at you from time to time. Mean is a “I’m going to get you my pretty.” And then they proceed to be destructive – the nurse who ignores your pleas, the DMV person who screws with you, the office mate passing lies about you, someone who makes trouble for you…Outside of the school yard, most of us don’t pinch and twist or slug, so adult mean is different. You’ve offended them by the rules of their minds, and sometimes your very existence is offensive – as a particular race or whatever. But behind the meanness..there are rules and they intend to make things even.

    I think there is a difference between crankiness and meanness. Being unpleasant is not the same as mean. If you like to “tell the truth” it could be merely harsh or unpleasant. But if you steal – cutting a person down to size, putting them “in their place,” and so forth, it’s mean in many cases. Sometimes you have to put a person in their place for justice and the general peace – like a schoolyard bully called out. (See the libra piece in me). And sometimes, particularly at work, you are considered as a woman to be mean if you don’t play “mommy” to everyone. Sometimes labelled meanness is about expecting “mommy,” when the situation is just about being blunt about what needs to happen and get done.

    But if you “tell the truth” and are a bully, ya might be mean. Power-over with great rationalizations create the biggest meanies and the best of them have a framework in their heads of why they aren’t mean. So meanness takes an aggression + a rationalization. You can also be crazy as well as mean. (But sometimes, you are just cranky, which is different). That’s why in my experience, the meanest have sometimes had the candy face of a Libra person – trying to take power but being a bit debilitated or deceptive about doing it using the energy in a positive way. But in all cases, there’s some sort of twisted air or Virgo rationalization factor down in there somewhere that’s required even if the person is a mean sun Taurus or a raging bully sun Aries. Some debilitated rationalization of who deserves what and why.

  44. I voted that I don’t have a mean bone in my body.
    That could always change if my life is being threatened, etc… LOL

    However, in communication with others,I find myself asking a lot more questions these days instead of making statements.

    Somehow, people find this less offensive, but the jury is still out on that one.

  45. I am not very mean. I am a Scorpio too, so you may question that. But my moon, damnably is in Virgo, so every time I get close to having ‘fun’, I feel horrible guilt.

  46. idyll – figure out what is fun for you and have it. With your Virgo moon, consider it good medicine and required for your health. An “organized” passion. And sometimes a really good dessert is good without the Colon cleanse. Otherwise, down the road, you’ll find yourself being mean or schoolmarmish. Or you’ll get some strange fetish that dare not speak it’s name.

  47. I think my comment from last night went in to the spam-o-matic, but I was concurring with Sal. I agree with his follow up post as well. My Cancer Sun, Scorpio Moon = cranky pants. Some people think I’m mean, I’ve been accused of it particularly by people I would classify as “mean.” Ah, the power of Neptune conjunct ASC, projection anyone?

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