My point is that it’s perceived as nasty and cruel at all, rather than bizarre or slightly rude or honest. Imagine it was an excessively large salt shaker—say, several feet tall. And faced it and said, “You’re worthless because you’re too large to be useful.” People would give me a quizzical look, like, what’s wrong with this guy? But the instinct wouldn’t be to protect the large salt shaker.
I think this may have to do with liking the object at all, rather than thinking it’s cute in particular. If you insulted a painting that I liked (addressing it directly) which I thought was pretty but not cute—“you, painting, have no practical value whatsoever and are too overpriced to justify the space you’d take up on a wall!”—or spoke to a bowl of soup in a restaurant, which I thought was tasty but not cute—“you are too cold, and have too high a potato-to-clam ratio!”—I think that might bother me in the same way it would if you told a cute saltshaker that it was too small to be useful. Expressing harsh opinions of a liked object is seen as hostile.
I’ll have to take your word on how it would bother you, but I think a crucial difference is that in the instance of the cute salt shaker, the instinct is to protect—notice that the word used, “cruel,” is dependent upon how it’s received by the anthropomorphized salt shaker. If I tell the soup, “You’re too cold and have too high a potato-to-clam ratio!”—is it seen as cruel or mean? It seems more like it’s seen as, like you said, hostile—a statement more about my feelings in intent than the “feelings” of the salt shaker in consequence.
I also understand that I may be putting too much emphasis on your particular words, inferring precision where none was intended, so if that’s the case, let me know. But I think in the case of the cute object, I would be seen as a “bully,” whereas in the case of the soup or the painting, I’d be seen as generally unpleasant and critical. To the extent that there’s a victim with the un-cute objects, it’s the person who values them—I have insulted their taste. This is as opposed to the cute object, where the victim is the object itself.
I think you’re on to something—I am more likely to anthropomorphize a cute thing on a relevant level, and it would be my taste rather than the object’s imaginary feelings that I hypothesized would come into play if you insulted the painting or soup.
My point is that it’s perceived as nasty and cruel at all, rather than bizarre or slightly rude or honest. Imagine it was an excessively large salt shaker—say, several feet tall. And faced it and said, “You’re worthless because you’re too large to be useful.” People would give me a quizzical look, like, what’s wrong with this guy? But the instinct wouldn’t be to protect the large salt shaker.
I think this may have to do with liking the object at all, rather than thinking it’s cute in particular. If you insulted a painting that I liked (addressing it directly) which I thought was pretty but not cute—“you, painting, have no practical value whatsoever and are too overpriced to justify the space you’d take up on a wall!”—or spoke to a bowl of soup in a restaurant, which I thought was tasty but not cute—“you are too cold, and have too high a potato-to-clam ratio!”—I think that might bother me in the same way it would if you told a cute saltshaker that it was too small to be useful. Expressing harsh opinions of a liked object is seen as hostile.
I’ll have to take your word on how it would bother you, but I think a crucial difference is that in the instance of the cute salt shaker, the instinct is to protect—notice that the word used, “cruel,” is dependent upon how it’s received by the anthropomorphized salt shaker. If I tell the soup, “You’re too cold and have too high a potato-to-clam ratio!”—is it seen as cruel or mean? It seems more like it’s seen as, like you said, hostile—a statement more about my feelings in intent than the “feelings” of the salt shaker in consequence.
I also understand that I may be putting too much emphasis on your particular words, inferring precision where none was intended, so if that’s the case, let me know. But I think in the case of the cute object, I would be seen as a “bully,” whereas in the case of the soup or the painting, I’d be seen as generally unpleasant and critical. To the extent that there’s a victim with the un-cute objects, it’s the person who values them—I have insulted their taste. This is as opposed to the cute object, where the victim is the object itself.
I think you’re on to something—I am more likely to anthropomorphize a cute thing on a relevant level, and it would be my taste rather than the object’s imaginary feelings that I hypothesized would come into play if you insulted the painting or soup.