The current fandom whose members go by the moniker “furries” troubles me, but probably not why you think. That someone might identify as a cat or mythical animal is not new, just as some child’s identifying as Superman, Wonder Woman, or Babe Ruth isn’t new.
The Limits of Avatarism
All avatars represent either a characteristic or a set of characteristics that serves as an identifier. In the instances of fursonae (analog of personae), the stereotypes are anthropomorphisms of animals, often furry animals like cats. That team mascots are often caricatures of animals and that tales of creatures like the Minotaur go back millennia indicate some historical consistency among generations. But not all identifiers are nonhuman or mythical. What do you think when someone says, “I’m a doctor (lawyer, manager, teacher, etc.)”? Those are personae, just as “cat” is a fursona. All such labels identity by association. Thus, those mostly young people who have adopted a “fursona” express an identifying stereotype—though I’m not quite sure what “cat” represents beyond my own stereotypical ideas of “feline,” “feminine,” “impossible to herd,” and “independent.” Not being a cat person, I can only surmise the characteristic that a modern “furry” might have in mind by self-identifying as a cat.
Stereotypes
And that’s where my objections surface, but I can also apply those objections to my own sense of self. Like others, I can fault myself at times for identifying too narrowly: “I was a college professor before retiring.” “I was an author.” I was a researcher.” Yes, all true, but none of those three, even when I might have used them as identifiers, captured the more complex “me.” And why should I choose those identifiers over others? After all, during my many decades I have also been garbage man, a jack hammer operator, a carpenter, a janitor, a clerk, a hod carrier and stone mason’s assistant, and a spouse, father, Little League coach, Steelers’ fan, and…See what I mean? Which one of those should I choose as an identifier to the exclusion of others? That’s where my objection to fursonae lies.
So, it troubles me that some people have chosen a rather limited fursona when they are, in fact, personae. When any of us choose an identifier, whether it be “furry,” specifically “cat,” or human, specifically “line boss,” we focus on just one aspect of our complex lives. Sure, it makes for easy introductions and conversations with strangers, but it also brands and limits. Each of us is more complex than any stereotype.
But What’s the Alternative?
Very few people upon introduction to a stranger, want to hear a life story though I’d say many if not all of us have heard much of one while sitting on a train, bus, or plane next to a talkative traveler. Unless we are imbued with the patience of Job, we prefer the quick-and-easy that stereotypes and labels provide.
That we even consider labeling ourselves reveals our inherent impatience with our own stories. Our own complexity is too tiring to tell, and much of what we have been and are is relatively uninteresting. “Who are you today?” “Well, today, I was a car washer.” “Today, I was a house cleaner.” “Today, I was the neighborhood taxi cab driver shuttling kids to their lessons or games.” Boring. Yes, boring, but those, too, are parts of our complex identities.
Let’s say you are famous, maybe a rock star. Wherever you go, you have adoring fans, some of them highly imitative. People, usually kids, who want to be another you. Maybe a Kim Kardashian, now worth an estimated four billion bucks. Her following seems to indicate that she does, in fact, have many fans and among them some girls and young women who want to be lookalikes. Is there any difference between a Kardashian fan and a fursona? Is all fandom a matter of assuming a stereotype of another, albeit human or animal?
The day after a Taylor Swift concert in Pittsburgh, one local TV news show interviewed a little girl about the event. Seems that during the concert, Swift knelt down on stage to place her hat on the little girl. She was thrilled. When the reporter asked whether she would wear it in public, she said, “No way.” She intends to keep the hat in her Shrine to Swift (My words, not hers), that is, in her collection of memorabilia that does not differ in kind from collections by fans of Disney characters, Star Wars characters, and similar movie icons.
And doesn’t that remind you of religious relics? The objects associated with others, like a saint or a rock star, become connections that transcend words. Statues and paraphernalia become sacramentals, both reminders and and links. We emulate with the aid of such sacramentals; they enhance our emulation of characteristics or qualities that we believe to be special, like sanctity or a particular talent. I, for example, have a little bust of Socrates beside my computer and a bobblehead of Einstein on a shelf. Why? I would like to have the ability of Socrates to question my way toward wisdom and the ability of Einstein to derive understanding by thought experiments. And I also have Christian sacramentals in the house, reminders that humility underlies morally good personae and that pride underlies morally corrupt personae. So, I guess in retrospect, I must be somewhat like my contemporaneous “furries” someone who seeks to identify with the characteristics of others, in my particular case, a Jesus-Socrates-Einstein character—obviously two of who have largely surmised facial features (though unlike a Kardashian fan, I attempt to emulate with limited success the morality and intellect of the three rather than their appearance or mannerism).
Virtual Communion
One difference between Catholicism and Protestantism lies in the theology of Communion. The former hold that it is transubstantiation, whereas, generally, a number of sects in the latter believe it to be consubstantiation. That is, Catholics believe the host has been “transformed,” whereas Protestants believe it isn’t but that it connects communicant and Christ very closely. Sometimes it’s a matter of a difference without a meaning. The precise differences are irrelevant here and beyond my pay grade, but the general idea is that “eating God” establishes a close relationship between deity and believer and imparts to the faithful an actual union of divine and human. One can’t get that close to being another simply by wearing a cat costume. Communion is more than appearance and stereotyping, and it has occurred in more contexts than Christianity.
If you read Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough, you’ll come across tales of people for whom “eating the God” meant acquiring godlike characteristics or qualities. Similarly, if you read accounts of Huron and Iroquois by Jesuit Saint John (Jean) de Brébeuf, you’ll find a story of one captive who responded to hacking by attacking the hackers. Without feet or hands he still tried to attack his captors, so his torturers ripped off part of his flesh to eat in the belief that his bravery would become part of them. We are a strange species, and although other species like praying mantises and black widow spiders are known as cannibals, it’s our species that ascribes a spiritual meaning to “eating God” or “eating others,” such is our drive toward self-identification.
The Death of the Eclectic Human
I have not personally encountered a “furry” though I understand that even colleges have them in their populations during today’s Age of Unreality, or should I say “Virtual Reality.” Apparently, the freedom afforded by the open societies of the affluent West has reached its apex in irony: Those who want to be identified for a fursona cannot accept that their freedom to do so limits who they are. The eclectic human is dead. That need for communion with a stereotype has many young people pinning their future to the suit of a mascot.
And a whole generation of enabling adults has acquiesced to the demand for stereotyping in the name of diversity in society, when, in fact, the so called diversity is merely a set of limiting identifiers for individuals. It’s the culmination of two drives that set up the societal conundrum of the West: The drive to be free from all restrictions and the drive to assert an identity that reveals a dominant characteristic. In times of affluence, relative safety, and lack of accountability, individuals have chosen a life of imitation.
Diversity now includes fictional humans, hybrids little different from satyrs and centaurs, Jewish golems, Japanese oni, French ogres, Irish leprechauns, British goblins and faeries, Babylonian Aqrabuamelus, Cretan Minotaurs, Slavic werewolves, Haitian zombies, and a plethora of other stereotypes of emotional, physical, and mental traits. In their efforts to become “different from,” many young people have become “the same as.”
The trend for fursonae or other such identifiers will continue until reality pokes its nose in the business of the West by virtue of a series of small collapses for individuals and groups. Or, the trend will continue until some large collapse, such as a war, famine, or the next more deadly pandemic strikes down the affluent and comfortable life that is now free from accountability that many in the West enjoy.
Reality Means Nothing until It Means Something
I’ll end with an anecdote whose relevance you can surmise.
In an undergraduate geology class I taught, I covered the nature of streams, revealing how they changed landscapes and formed characteristic valleys and floodplains. In the lessons, I included the term drainage divide, essentially any highland that separates drainage basins. Thus, though there are many such divides in North America, two major divides stand out, the Western Continental Divide that separates streams that flow toward the Pacific Ocean from the streams that flow toward the Gulf of Mexico, and the Eastern Continental Divide that separates the streams that flow to the Atlantic Ocean from those that flow toward the Gulf of Mexico. Between those two divides lies that enormous Mississippi Drainage Basin. The point of the lesson centered on the effect of gravity: Water, as just about everyone knows, flows downhill. Compass direction is irrelevant, thus rivers flow as slope dictates. In western West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, for example, the Monongahela River flows downslope generally toward the north, where in Pittsburgh its confluence with the Allegheny River forms the southwestern trending Ohio River. Flowing northward isn’t special; the Nile also flows northward as do notable European and Russian rivers.
Nevertheless, after class a female student said, “My mother says the Monongahela flows backwards.”
By that I assumed she meant that it flows northward. I pointed out that her notion of “backward” probably derived from seeing countless wall maps that hang from north to south, thus making it appear that the river, at least on the wall map, looked as though it went “up.” I reiterated the lesson that rivers flow downhill and mentioned the slope from points higher in West Virginia toward points lower near Pittsburgh (and ultimately toward the Gulf of Mexico).
Having re-explained the lesson, I thought the reality of stream flow resolved until she ended, before leaving the classroom, by ignoring my explanation with this: “Well, my mother says it flows backward.”
Reality means nothing until it means something.
The Limits of Avatarism
All avatars represent either a characteristic or a set of characteristics that serves as an identifier. In the instances of fursonae (analog of personae), the stereotypes are anthropomorphisms of animals, often furry animals like cats. That team mascots are often caricatures of animals and that tales of creatures like the Minotaur go back millennia indicate some historical consistency among generations. But not all identifiers are nonhuman or mythical. What do you think when someone says, “I’m a doctor (lawyer, manager, teacher, etc.)”? Those are personae, just as “cat” is a fursona. All such labels identity by association. Thus, those mostly young people who have adopted a “fursona” express an identifying stereotype—though I’m not quite sure what “cat” represents beyond my own stereotypical ideas of “feline,” “feminine,” “impossible to herd,” and “independent.” Not being a cat person, I can only surmise the characteristic that a modern “furry” might have in mind by self-identifying as a cat.
Stereotypes
And that’s where my objections surface, but I can also apply those objections to my own sense of self. Like others, I can fault myself at times for identifying too narrowly: “I was a college professor before retiring.” “I was an author.” I was a researcher.” Yes, all true, but none of those three, even when I might have used them as identifiers, captured the more complex “me.” And why should I choose those identifiers over others? After all, during my many decades I have also been garbage man, a jack hammer operator, a carpenter, a janitor, a clerk, a hod carrier and stone mason’s assistant, and a spouse, father, Little League coach, Steelers’ fan, and…See what I mean? Which one of those should I choose as an identifier to the exclusion of others? That’s where my objection to fursonae lies.
So, it troubles me that some people have chosen a rather limited fursona when they are, in fact, personae. When any of us choose an identifier, whether it be “furry,” specifically “cat,” or human, specifically “line boss,” we focus on just one aspect of our complex lives. Sure, it makes for easy introductions and conversations with strangers, but it also brands and limits. Each of us is more complex than any stereotype.
But What’s the Alternative?
Very few people upon introduction to a stranger, want to hear a life story though I’d say many if not all of us have heard much of one while sitting on a train, bus, or plane next to a talkative traveler. Unless we are imbued with the patience of Job, we prefer the quick-and-easy that stereotypes and labels provide.
That we even consider labeling ourselves reveals our inherent impatience with our own stories. Our own complexity is too tiring to tell, and much of what we have been and are is relatively uninteresting. “Who are you today?” “Well, today, I was a car washer.” “Today, I was a house cleaner.” “Today, I was the neighborhood taxi cab driver shuttling kids to their lessons or games.” Boring. Yes, boring, but those, too, are parts of our complex identities.
Let’s say you are famous, maybe a rock star. Wherever you go, you have adoring fans, some of them highly imitative. People, usually kids, who want to be another you. Maybe a Kim Kardashian, now worth an estimated four billion bucks. Her following seems to indicate that she does, in fact, have many fans and among them some girls and young women who want to be lookalikes. Is there any difference between a Kardashian fan and a fursona? Is all fandom a matter of assuming a stereotype of another, albeit human or animal?
The day after a Taylor Swift concert in Pittsburgh, one local TV news show interviewed a little girl about the event. Seems that during the concert, Swift knelt down on stage to place her hat on the little girl. She was thrilled. When the reporter asked whether she would wear it in public, she said, “No way.” She intends to keep the hat in her Shrine to Swift (My words, not hers), that is, in her collection of memorabilia that does not differ in kind from collections by fans of Disney characters, Star Wars characters, and similar movie icons.
And doesn’t that remind you of religious relics? The objects associated with others, like a saint or a rock star, become connections that transcend words. Statues and paraphernalia become sacramentals, both reminders and and links. We emulate with the aid of such sacramentals; they enhance our emulation of characteristics or qualities that we believe to be special, like sanctity or a particular talent. I, for example, have a little bust of Socrates beside my computer and a bobblehead of Einstein on a shelf. Why? I would like to have the ability of Socrates to question my way toward wisdom and the ability of Einstein to derive understanding by thought experiments. And I also have Christian sacramentals in the house, reminders that humility underlies morally good personae and that pride underlies morally corrupt personae. So, I guess in retrospect, I must be somewhat like my contemporaneous “furries” someone who seeks to identify with the characteristics of others, in my particular case, a Jesus-Socrates-Einstein character—obviously two of who have largely surmised facial features (though unlike a Kardashian fan, I attempt to emulate with limited success the morality and intellect of the three rather than their appearance or mannerism).
Virtual Communion
One difference between Catholicism and Protestantism lies in the theology of Communion. The former hold that it is transubstantiation, whereas, generally, a number of sects in the latter believe it to be consubstantiation. That is, Catholics believe the host has been “transformed,” whereas Protestants believe it isn’t but that it connects communicant and Christ very closely. Sometimes it’s a matter of a difference without a meaning. The precise differences are irrelevant here and beyond my pay grade, but the general idea is that “eating God” establishes a close relationship between deity and believer and imparts to the faithful an actual union of divine and human. One can’t get that close to being another simply by wearing a cat costume. Communion is more than appearance and stereotyping, and it has occurred in more contexts than Christianity.
If you read Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough, you’ll come across tales of people for whom “eating the God” meant acquiring godlike characteristics or qualities. Similarly, if you read accounts of Huron and Iroquois by Jesuit Saint John (Jean) de Brébeuf, you’ll find a story of one captive who responded to hacking by attacking the hackers. Without feet or hands he still tried to attack his captors, so his torturers ripped off part of his flesh to eat in the belief that his bravery would become part of them. We are a strange species, and although other species like praying mantises and black widow spiders are known as cannibals, it’s our species that ascribes a spiritual meaning to “eating God” or “eating others,” such is our drive toward self-identification.
The Death of the Eclectic Human
I have not personally encountered a “furry” though I understand that even colleges have them in their populations during today’s Age of Unreality, or should I say “Virtual Reality.” Apparently, the freedom afforded by the open societies of the affluent West has reached its apex in irony: Those who want to be identified for a fursona cannot accept that their freedom to do so limits who they are. The eclectic human is dead. That need for communion with a stereotype has many young people pinning their future to the suit of a mascot.
And a whole generation of enabling adults has acquiesced to the demand for stereotyping in the name of diversity in society, when, in fact, the so called diversity is merely a set of limiting identifiers for individuals. It’s the culmination of two drives that set up the societal conundrum of the West: The drive to be free from all restrictions and the drive to assert an identity that reveals a dominant characteristic. In times of affluence, relative safety, and lack of accountability, individuals have chosen a life of imitation.
Diversity now includes fictional humans, hybrids little different from satyrs and centaurs, Jewish golems, Japanese oni, French ogres, Irish leprechauns, British goblins and faeries, Babylonian Aqrabuamelus, Cretan Minotaurs, Slavic werewolves, Haitian zombies, and a plethora of other stereotypes of emotional, physical, and mental traits. In their efforts to become “different from,” many young people have become “the same as.”
The trend for fursonae or other such identifiers will continue until reality pokes its nose in the business of the West by virtue of a series of small collapses for individuals and groups. Or, the trend will continue until some large collapse, such as a war, famine, or the next more deadly pandemic strikes down the affluent and comfortable life that is now free from accountability that many in the West enjoy.
Reality Means Nothing until It Means Something
I’ll end with an anecdote whose relevance you can surmise.
In an undergraduate geology class I taught, I covered the nature of streams, revealing how they changed landscapes and formed characteristic valleys and floodplains. In the lessons, I included the term drainage divide, essentially any highland that separates drainage basins. Thus, though there are many such divides in North America, two major divides stand out, the Western Continental Divide that separates streams that flow toward the Pacific Ocean from the streams that flow toward the Gulf of Mexico, and the Eastern Continental Divide that separates the streams that flow to the Atlantic Ocean from those that flow toward the Gulf of Mexico. Between those two divides lies that enormous Mississippi Drainage Basin. The point of the lesson centered on the effect of gravity: Water, as just about everyone knows, flows downhill. Compass direction is irrelevant, thus rivers flow as slope dictates. In western West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, for example, the Monongahela River flows downslope generally toward the north, where in Pittsburgh its confluence with the Allegheny River forms the southwestern trending Ohio River. Flowing northward isn’t special; the Nile also flows northward as do notable European and Russian rivers.
Nevertheless, after class a female student said, “My mother says the Monongahela flows backwards.”
By that I assumed she meant that it flows northward. I pointed out that her notion of “backward” probably derived from seeing countless wall maps that hang from north to south, thus making it appear that the river, at least on the wall map, looked as though it went “up.” I reiterated the lesson that rivers flow downhill and mentioned the slope from points higher in West Virginia toward points lower near Pittsburgh (and ultimately toward the Gulf of Mexico).
Having re-explained the lesson, I thought the reality of stream flow resolved until she ended, before leaving the classroom, by ignoring my explanation with this: “Well, my mother says it flows backward.”
Reality means nothing until it means something.
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