10 December 2008

Question of the Day* (Category: Marxism)

Which came first, the chicken or the Egg McMuffin?

Sub-question #1 - Why is it that so often the first to bemoan the redistribution of wealth are so often the best at the redistribution of snow?

*Note: 'Question of the Day' is an occasional, tri-annual event here at Roman Numeral J, and may be canceled in future, without notice.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Chicken = Feudalism

Egg McMuffin = Late Capitalism

Given the great march of history towards socialist utopia, the chicken (cipher for Feudalism) necessarily came first. Tho that is not to say that multiple stages of development and distinct modes of production can not exist at the same time--they can--but that commodity fetishism over the Egg McMuffin obscures our access to the supposedly preexisting "chicken" of the imagined "barnyard" (read: mechanized slaughter house).

Indeed, the chicken as we know it doesn't properly exist any longer and our own conception of such a chicken is precisely its own fetishized commodity. One could also argue that the 'chickens' now produced, in said mechanized slaughterhouses--genetically enfeebled and enhanced--do actually proceed from the need for more efficient Egg McMuffins.

So...yes. Both. And neither.

Unknown said...

This is, by the way, what I do when I'm trying to avoid writing my own Adorno themed papers.

Us said...

yeah, in a very veeder-like way, i'd choose 'the' as the operative word in that question (the first 'the'). As you say 'chickens' are now produced, and they are primarily produced for Egg McMuffins (or some such), so the question gets harder...

Unknown said...

The less I have to think about Veeder the happier I am. There is a generally more charitable crowd of professors here.

Tho I do appreciate the ability move from a single innocuous word into a convincing argument. Perhaps there are better representatives of that tradition, yes?

Anonymous said...

neanderfowl!

Us said...

HA!

i still love that joke... and so does bob williams.