What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Almost as stupid as “same-sex marriage”

A Japanese man is petitioning his government to allow marriage between human beings and… wait for it… cartoon characters. Moreover, he has so far convinced more than 1000 others to sign his petition. This is, apparently, not a joke. The man in question, who is thoroughly immersed in Japan’s thriving comic book subculture, explains that he feels more comfortable with “two-dimensional” people than with the “three-dimensional” kind.

This makes a twisted kind of sense when you consider the pathetic state of arrested adolescence in which so many contemporary men live their lives – obsessed well into their thirties and forties with the minutiae of fictional “universes” (as chronicled in comic books, movie franchises, role-playing games, and the like), often still living with their parents, deriving their sense of how men relate to women from pornography and sitcoms, etc. The women a fellow like this meets in fiction can come to seem infinitely more desirable than the real thing, which can hardly live up to the fantasized ideal – if only because no self-respecting real-life woman would give such a loser the time of day.

So, perhaps “inter-dimensional marriage” will soon overtake “same-sex marriage” as the burning “civil rights” issue of our time. After all, we don’t want to “discriminate” against those with a “two-dimensional orientation.” No doubt there’s a “loser gene” just waiting to be discovered, confirmation of which will prove that some people are just “born that way.” And we mustn’t in any event be “cartoonophobic.” It’s up to us to “define” what marriage is anyway, no? (Or at least, if you’re a modern “conservative,” it’s up to “the people,” though not the courts.) Inter-dimensional marriage opponents will surely come to seem to future generations like George Wallace – standing in the doorway of the local comic book store, keeping people from marrying the two-dimensional “person of their choice.”

Of course, I’m not trying to insinuate that “same-sex marriage” is as stupid as this – because in fact, it’s far more stupid. Consider: Who’s the bigger fool, the man who thinks two imaginary apples added to two real ones make four real apples, or the man who thinks two real apples and two further real ones make five apples? I’d say the latter – the former may be delusional, but at least he can add. Similarly, someone who wants to marry Lois Lane at least wants to do something that is logically possible – for Lois Lane might have existed, even though in fact she does not. But someone who wants to “marry” someone of the same sex wants to do something that is logically impossible, just as making two and two five is logically impossible.

Modern people, even many self-described conservatives, fail to see this, because they are often tacitly committed to a kind of nominalism or conceptualism on which words can ever only express what we decide they ought to as a matter of convention. All definitions become “nominal definitions” rather than “real definitions.” Of course, such people never follow out the implications of this nominalism thoroughly or consistently – or at least they haven’t yet – because the implications would be too preposterous, indeed grotesque. But occasionally they follow them out just a little bit further than previous generations have… with the result that, say, “same-sex marriage” suddenly comes to seems sane and even inevitable, rather than a Jonathan Swift-style joke. If “marrying” cartoon characters, or dogs, or a can of motor oil still seems beyond the pale, wait ten years. (This isn’t a slippery slope argument, by the way. The point isn’t that “same-sex marriage” will lead to absurd results; the point is that it is itself absurd.)

When the correct – (classical) realist and (Aristotelian) essentialist – understanding of language and reality is followed out consistently, one comes to see that marriage is necessarily heterosexual (and, yes, that it can exist only between two real people). If you’re interested in the reasons why, read The Last Superstition, especially chapters 2 and 4. Until then, leave Lois Lane alone. She is, apparently, already taken, and I for one wouldn’t want Superman ticked off at me. (Sure, he’s not real, but apparently that doesn’t matter.)

Oh, and if you’re a Californian, vote “Yes” on Proposition 8 this Tuesday.

(cross-posted)

Comments (8)

It would be less destructive to society, I suppose, for this guy to be said to be "married" to a cardboard figure of a cartoon character, because the cardboard cut-out can't try to raise children with him, demand that his employer pay for health care benefits for her, and so on and so forth.

For that matter, I'll tell you exactly why this guy's delusion won't really take off in the public mind: Because the ss"M" thing is all about a sexual relationship between two people. I've often said that in a sense this makes no sense, once the heterosexual aspect is taken out of it. An unconsummated heterosexual marriage can be annulled. Why should an unconsummated lesbian "marriage" be annulled? What difference should it make? The only reason the government is even (as libertarians like to put it) "in the business" of giving formal recognition to specifically _sexual_ relationships in the first place is because there is a particular type of sexual relationship that produces babies, and that one needed to be regularized and given both social sanction and social structure. Otherwise, why does the government care about--in the sense of formally recognizing--sexual relationships anymore than about Platonic ones? The ss"M" folks arbitrarily take the sexual aspect of marriage and carry it over to a different set of partners, but there is really no point to this. The only crazy "point" to it is that our society wants, sentimentally, to recognize these kinds of relationships in a formal way.

Transcend all natural limits, transgress all normal boundaries and establish man's mastery over all of creation. Virtual sex with cartoons and avatars is a logical step in modernity's ruthless plunge into de-natured abstraction.

This makes a twisted kind of sense when you consider the pathetic state of arrested adolescence in which so many contemporary men live their lives – obsessed well into their thirties and forties with the minutiae of fictional “universes” (as chronicled in comic books, movie franchises, role-playing games, and the like), often still living with their parents, deriving their sense of how men relate to women from pornography and sitcoms, etc. The women a fellow like this meets in fiction can come to seem infinitely more desirable than the real thing, which can hardly live up to the fantasized ideal – if only because no self-respecting real-life woman would give such a loser the time of day.

The same could also be said of so many modern women, if one merely replaces pornography with romance novels. As one writer astutely observed, it'll be interesting to watch a generation of men raised on porn have to settle down with a generation of women raised on the emotional pornography we call romance novels (and media generally). Modern women are, on average, as pathetic as modern men, and unfortunately that compounds the problem by giving men no logical reason "to man up and take responsibility." Why grow up when you're likely to be chained to an emotionally stunted, immature, self-centered woman who will probably divorce you within 20 years of marriage because you don't match up to the expectations that modern romance media have given her?

It would be less destructive to society, I suppose, for this guy to be said to be "married" to a cardboard figure of a cartoon character, because the cardboard cut-out can't try to raise children with him, demand that his employer pay for health care benefits for her, and so on and so forth.

Not to mention the fact that the health insurance package would consist of a $5 plastic sleeve for weather protection and the life insurance policy would have to pay out less than $100 for a good new copy.

To my embarrassment, I had a brief infatuation with Japanese Manga/Anime as a young adult. Even though many fans will quickly correct someone that not all anime is pornographic, I always thought even the innocent stuff was too similar to pornography on an instinctive level. I can't really put my finger on that instinct, but it has been disheartening to see America become a dumping ground for it.

How dare Ed Fesser call such things as the marriage between the material and the "immaterial" (i.e., cartoon characters) stupid!?

Does he not know, as the Great Intellect Robert has stated in the other thread, that once "we have imaging techniques of sufficient resolution that will identify the neuronal pattern for the [cartoon character]"; that such things can be, in all actuality, classified as "material" and, therefore, not stupid but in fact materially real?

What nonsense!

People have the right to get married to Jessica Rabbit if they so desire just as folks like Adam have the God-given right to marry Steve!!

Jessica Rabbit, neither Jessica nor rabbit. Discuss. :-)

Wow, christians who have a problem with marriage to fictional characters. That's funny, because I know a thousand nuns who swear up and down on a stack of bibles that they're married to a guy they've never met and who in all reality never existed.

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