Symposium: Don John, the imago dei, addiction, and idolatry

The IR Student Voices respond to Michael Bradley’s article, “What Can Pornography Teach Us About Love?” This dialogue is part of the symposium, “Sex and the Polis: Perspectives on Marriage, Family, and Sexual Ethics.” Here are some key arguments:

“As Michael Bradley aptly noted, the film’s Don Jon only found love when he embraced the other person for who she was – baggage and all. A grave responsibility and a frightening prospect. But acknowledging a healthy amount of fear, and appreciating its mystery, is what distinguishes Don Jon and Don John, a member of the Austrian Royal family immortalized in G.K. Chesterton’s poem Lepanto.” Find out more about the real Don John.

“Pornography is indeed objectification—treating human persons, with all their sacred, imago dei dignity, as means to the end of physical gratification. But it is also profoundly idolatrous: an apotheosis of the naturally good impulse of sexual desire.” Foster describes how to fully understand personhood.

“The impersonal way people behave on the internet fosters a reductionist view of the human person. Looking at the bright computer screen, severed from a specific, three dimensional place, we forget that a person we interact with is a real person, with a real hometown, friends, and family to care for.” Amelia weighs in on the anti-communal nature of the internet.

“The deceptive sexual ideals sold by pornographic materials propagate an addictive cycle of destructive, unsatiated desire.  While users seek happiness and fulfillment, they instead foster the very force that oppresses and constrains their ability to flourish as human beings.” More on oppressiveness of addition.