March 10, 2005

It's a Cookbook!

Posted by Henry

I’m about to jump on a plane to Europe, after jumping off a plane from Hawaii yesterday, but couldn’t resist blogging this aside from a recent Scott McLemee column.

At one point, they [‘Chairman Bob’ Avakian and his philosopher sidekick] note that the slogan “Serve the People,” made famous by the little red book, could be used — with very different intentions, of course — at a McDonald’s training institute. This is, on reflection, something like Hegel’s critique of the formalism of Kant’s ethics. Only, you know, different.

Chairman Bob is stealing a riff here from Damon Knight’s famous short story “To Serve Man,” which was made into an even more famous Twilight Zone episode. I imagine that Chairman Bob’s version is more laboured and less funny than the original: “Don’t get on the ship. The book, To Serve Man, IT’S A COOKBOOK!” has to rank as one of the best closing lines of all time.

Posted on March 10, 2005 06:10 PM UTC
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