Why did the chicken cross the road? To learn the mysteries of life obviously! Philosophers have long, hard, and terribly difficult names to remember… and their philosophies are even more confusing to keep apart. This handy guide uses the classic “why did the chicken cross the road†joke to differentiate between them all… humorously of course! On top of philosophers this manual also runs through other famous people, Dali, Emerson, and more. Each person has their own unique view on the particular predicament of poultry. So why did the chicken cross the road? Let’s find out!
WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
Plato: For the greater good.
Aristotle: To fulfill its nature on the other side.
Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.
Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a
chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road,
but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend
with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely
chicken’s dominion maintained.
Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its
pancreas.
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, DAMMIT, DEAD!
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.
Douglas Adams: Forty-two.
Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road
gazes also across you.
Oliver North: National Security was at stake.
B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its
sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that
it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be
of its own free will.
Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt
necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical
juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences
into being.
Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to
itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of “crossing” was encoded into
the objects “chicken” and “road”, and circumstances came into being
which
caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.
Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road
crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.
Aristotle: To actualize its potential.
Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.
Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing
events to grace the annals of history. An historic, unprecedented
avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement
formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable
occurence.
Salvador Dali: The Fish.
Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the
trees.
Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.
Epicurus: For fun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn’t cross the road; it transcended it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.
Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken
was on, but it was moving very fast.
David Hume: Out of custom and habit.
Saddam Hussein: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were
quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.
Jack Nicholson: ‘Cause it (censored) wanted to. That’s the
(censored) reason.
Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?
Ronald Reagan: Well,……………….
John Sununu: The Air Force was only too happy to provide the
transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself
of the opportunity.
The Sphinx: You tell me.
Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately … and suck all the marrow
out of life.
Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Mishima: For the beauty of it. The chicken’s extension of its
sinuous legs sent shivers of a dark despair into the souls not only of
the silently watching hens but also the roosters, who felt a sudden
sexual desire for their exquisite comrade. The dark courage of the
chicken was as beautiful as drops of dew upon jade at midnight, struck
by a partial moon, its light filtered through clouds. One of the
deeply aroused roosters could stand the intensity of the moment no
more and bit off the head of the beautiful, courageous chicken-hero,
whose wine blood was deliciously drunken by the road, and he died.
Johnny Cochran: The chicken didn’t cross the road. Some
chicken-hating, genocidal, lying public official moved the road right
under the chicken’s feet while he was practicing his golf swing and
thinking about his family.
Camus: The chicken’s mother had just died. But this did not really
upset him, as any number of witnesses can attest. In fact, he
crossed just because the sun got in his eyes.
John Sununu (again): I would argue that the chicken never crossed the
road at all. That it is a story concocted by the Clinton
Administration to distract attention from their failed agriculture
policy. Where is the evidence that the chicken crossed the road?
Where, Michael?
Michael Kinsley: Oh, John, come on! Everybody knows the chicken
crossed the road. What evidence do you need? It’s obvious that the
chicken crossed the road. Your whole argument is just a smoke and
mirror tactic to distract us from the fact that most chickens polled
now back the Democratic Party. You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
John.
Siskel: I don’t know why it crossed the road, but I loved it. Thumbs
up!
Ebert: I disagree. The whole thing left the audience wondering; the
chicken’s crossing the road was never clearly explained and the
chicken didn’t emote very well. It couldn’t even speak English!
Thumbs down.
Michael Kinsley: But you both agree it did cross the road, right?
See, John. I’m right as usual.
page topic: Philosophy of “Why did the Chicken Cross the Road”