Setting the line of personhood between man and blender

Lance Mudryk and Ian Phillipchuk fight for your inanimate objects’ love; or lack thereof.

We need to establish a stronger distinction between things and people — otherwise, it’s a slippery slope to marrying your toaster

Inanimate objects don’t have feelings. This sounds like a redundant comment, but I’ve noticed a large percentage of our population has forgotten this fact and has begun to empathize with random items such as plastic forks or old footballs that no one throws around anymore. I’m uncertain as to how we’ve reached this point, but I fear that our own humanity will be compromised if we continue down this path for too long.

Everyday, I’m surrounded by inanimate objects. I sleep in one. I eat them constantly. Hell, I’ve peed into one more times than I can remember. I’ve spent enough time around them that I feel I can speak on their behalf: objects are indifferent to the world around them. Diamond rings don’t appreciate the attention people lavish upon them, nor does toilet paper regret its dark purpose. So we should not attempt to share empathy or feelings with them. They’re not complex or complicated; they’re just things made from other, smaller things. At least when I apply an electric shock to an amoeba, it puts in the effort to react at some point. When I run electricity through a table, it just sits there like nothing even happened.

So why care for objects that give you nothing in return? You or someone else paid good money for the right to use those objects in whatever way you desired. They can’t feel, taste, or smell, let alone care about your problems. Go ahead, bend that book’s spine and scratch up that CD. Unless you intend on reselling it, there’s no reason to keep it in mint condition.

Think about how you define your humanity. Do inanimate objects have hands? A brain? An amygdala? When was last time you shared a tender moment with an object without it feeling horribly unnatural?

Now don’t get me wrong — I’m not encouraging you to break things on purpose. Before you go and start kicking down doors because it makes for a more badass entrance, realize that it’s someone’s property. That door might not feel like it's been assaulted; after all, its life ended many years ago, when, as a glorious spruce, it was clear-cut from an untamed mountain forest in beautiful British Columbia. This isn’t a tragedy for the door, but rather for the fictional owner of the door. What’s she to do now? She’s down one door. Winter is just around the corner and she’s missing the door to her goddamn house. What is wrong with you, kicking down that poor girl’s door? Shame on you.

Life gives us enough to feel bad about — let’s not make up imaginary feelings for things that may not have even been alive at any point. We buy and use these objects to make our lives more tolerable. If we start to show empathy to our inanimate brothers, then we’ve lost our place of dominance as sentient beings. Next thing you know, couches will be given the right to vote, and in a few years we’ll see who’s sitting on whom.

Objects in emotion tend to stay in emotion, and we need to start accepting the mental prowess of our appliances

Can you honestly claim that inanimate objects are emotionless? Clearly, your years of wild hedonism have dulled your emotional senses. How else can you ignore the simple suffering of the robotic auto worker, for instance — clearly this blue-collar bucket of bolts is suffering at the hands of his cruel Fordian overlords. Driven to desperation, the only way out for this everyday American at the end of his robo-rope is suicide. Thankfully for his little kids, barely out of circuit boards, it’s all just a dream. The Robot Teamsters will remember this the next time you’re weeping when forced to work 24 hours a day, welding rivets onto an Explorer. And you want to claim they have no feelings? Please.

I want you to think long and hard about the people who raised you. That’s right, I’m talking about Ms. TV and Mr. Couch. I’m sure you didn’t think I’d have the gumption to bring out your family’s indentured servants, but you’re dead wrong. Don’t forget that TV and Couch raised your ass, from youth to university student. And all you did to repay them was shatter their feelings. Don’t you think your couch worries about you?

For that matter, you clearly don’t have any idea of how the film industry works. Of course I wouldn’t care about the feelings of that door, because getting kicked down is its job. That beautiful Barrington Special is the Cadillac of doors. It will get kicked down two, sometimes three times a day. Its soft pearly white surface has been honoured to kiss the boots of titans of the film industry. It was an honour to work with that door, and if that fictional lady didn’t want her door kicked in, she shouldn’t have mounted it in the first place, and she definitely shouldn’t have been living on a film set, because bad things tend to happen there.

Just because you’ve never bothered to ask your sofa what it’s feeling doesn’t mean it doesn’t have those emotions. Well, that’s because we don’t realize the most crucial fact about furniture: it’s clearly more polite than us. Your CDs don’t care the way you pitch them around your room, or rest drinks on them, they’ll keep on spinning round for you as many times as you wish. I personally think this is an indication of deep emotional solidarity. A thousand little soldiers, your possessions will continue to suffer for you; the least you could do is have a chat with your chair every once in a while.

I think I’ve clearly established that furniture has feelings. Bleating to the contrary, no one can deny the emotional cries of a creaking Lazyboy, or the gentle skin-on-leather tearing of a couch on a hot sweaty day, steadfastly refusing to relinquish even a moment of contact. And Lance, you’re not seriously worried about getting passed by in the evolutionary ladder by your couch, are you? I know you’re smarter than that. It’s that lounge chair you have to worry about.