Woody Allen travels to Heidelberg and accidentally discovers a rare text: the previously unknown “Friedrich Nietzsche’s Diet Book.” He blows our minds and sets the world of philosophy on its head with his stirring account in The New Yorker.
An excerpt:
“[Kant] proposed that [if] we order lunch in such a manner that if everybody ordered the same thing the world would function in a moral way. The problem Kant didn’t foresee is that if everyone orders the same dish there will be squabbling in the kitchen over who gets the last branzino. “Order like you are ordering for every human being on earth,” Kant advises, but what if the man next to you doesn’t eat guacamole? In the end, of course, there are no moral foods—unless we count soft-boiled eggs.”
Get meta with the whole thing at the link below.
Woody Allen: Thus Ate Zarathustra
[post script: Yes, I am back, for those of you who noticed I was absent. Weddings, graduations, intercontinental travel, more time than desired spent waiting in airports, and the World Cup have kept me busy for far too long, and now I return with the force of a Zizou headbutt to the collective chests of blog readers throughout the internets, and to you, dear faithful reader, as I continue to impart knowledge and wisdom from afar. Or something like that. Anyway, I'll be posting regularly again, but more along the lines of weekly instead of every few days. Speaking of the World Cup....see forthcoming post.]
September 29, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I first ran across this essay a few months ago and almost pissed myself laughing. A few more favorite quotes:
“Spinoza, on the other hand, dined sparingly because he believed that God existed in everything and it’s intimidating to wolf down a knish if you think you’re ladling mustard onto the First Cause of All Things.”
“Once munching has begun, Schopenhauer held, the human will cannot resist further munching, and the result is a universe with crumbs over everything.”
And my own personal favorite:
“The point here is that in life one is entitled to a side dish of either coleslaw or potato salad, and the choice must be made in terror”