2011-05-19
Explanation
This comic presents "Pillow Talk: A Worldview Based Guide," formatted as a grid comparing how absolutists and relativists handle post-coital conversation across three philosophical dimensions: moral, empirical, and aesthetic.
The moral absolutist feels genuine guilt ("That was a wicked thing we did! I'll be ready to do it again in five minutes"), while the moral relativist dismisses any wrongdoing by arguing that "brother's wife" is just a meaningless social construct. The empirical absolutist is confidently satisfied with the experience, while the empirical relativist questions whether anything can truly be known, including whether the condom broke or what their partner's name is. The aesthetic absolutist offers a compliment rooted in objective physical criteria, while the aesthetic relativist extends that same appreciation to a hangnail. The humor lies in taking philosophical positions that are usually debated in academic settings and applying them to the most intimate and awkward of human situations, revealing how absurd each worldview sounds when taken to its logical extreme in everyday life.