Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 20:15:17 -0900 (PDT) From: Salmi Hannu <hansalmi@utu.fi> Subject: A brief course in modern philosophy (fwd) To: h-verkko@sara.cc.utu.fi
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?
Plato For the greater good.
Karl Marx It was a historical inevitability.
[snip]
Jacques Derrida Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is dead.
Noam Chomsky The chicken didn't exactly cross the road. As of 1994, something like 99.8% of all US chickens reaching maturity that year had spent 82% of their lives in confinement. The living conditions in most chicken coops break every international law ever written, and some, particularly the ones for chickens bound for slaughter, border on inhumane. My point is, they had no chance to cross the road (unless you count the ride to the supermarket). Even if one or two have crossed roads for whatever reason, most never get a chance. Of course, this is not what we are told. Instead, we see chickens happily dancing around on Sesame Street and Foster Farms commercials where chickens are not only crossing roads, but driving trucks (incidentally, Foster Farms is owned by the same people who own the Foster Freeze chain, a subsidiary of the dairy industry). Anyway, ... (Chomsky continues for 32 pages. For the full text of his answer, contact Odonian Press)
Thomas de Torquemada Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.
Timothy Leary Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take. [snip]