Lightly Salted Existentialism (Conspiracy Theories)

Member Name: "420565

Product:	Conspiracy Theories
Date:	08/04/03 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The peanut dances on my patella and I feel tingly all over

Disadvantages: The philosopher dances on my patella and now I need knee surgery

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. Søren Aabye Peanut. The names alone are too strikingly similar for any connection to be mere coincidence. Something of greater significance is afoot here. Let us dig deeper. Now, if you will, obtain for your scrutiny a photo of each subject of question. Both are clad with remarkable haberdashery in a top hat and tails. Both obscenely sport a monacle. Both jauntily twirl a walking stick whittled from the finest mahogany, topped with an immaculately polished brass widget. But to fully understand the shocking parallels between the father of modern existentialism and the greatest entrepreneurial legume of the twentieth century, we must delve deep into the realm of philosophy and social psychology. Shall we continue?

These are the sort of things that keep me up at night. My mind is plagued by this esoteric concepts and speculations like a parched North African kingdom by locusts. I first stumbled upon this potential conspiracy theory several years ago upon meeting my first bag of Planter's peanuts. The firm's mascot, for those unfamiliar with him, is simply named Mr Peanut. He's a very prim and proper fellow, a sterling representation of the John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gatsby ideal of gentlemanly monopoly over one industry or another. His attire corresponds to his punctilious but cordial demeanour. He's delightfully personable, yet demonstrates the keenest of manners and adheres meticulously to social protocol. I first met Kierkegaard, however, quite some time before, under much less charming circumstances. In a philosophy class, and I was quite bored. So I didn't really pay much attention to the poncey old git until becoming acquainted with his suberranean goober pea counterpart.

I was sitting in some class or another during my half-year as an exchange student in America. I was hungry, and asked my friend if she had any viands to spare. She proffered a bag of Planter's
honey roasted peanuts, and I balked at what I saw staring at me from the little plastic sac. My God, I could have sworn it was Kierkegaard! Peanuts just don't look like that! Up til then, all I knew of peanuts was that they were salty, came in almost supernaturally convenient little pods containing usually two, and were dandy when smashed up into butter and mixed with chocolate (another habit I picked up in America that sounds rather nasty but is indeed delectable). Now, I hadn't given Kierkegaard any second thought since reading of him several years before in that philosophy class I mentioned. So it's not like he was on my mind or anything. Which only goes to reinforce how breathtaking this physical likeness must be, that I should immediately think of Kierkegaard upon seeing Mr Peanut. I was jarred and disquieted, and said, "good nuts. You know what that guy on the package looks like? Kierkegaard." My friend just shrugged dismissively. But little did she know what my research would yield in the not so distant future. If she's any sense in her, she'll be thanking her lucky stars I came across this conspiracy, this great intellectual travesty, before it's too late and the walls come tumbling down.

The life of Søren Peanut is a spitting image of that of Søren Kierkegaard. It's just been uprooted somewhat and transplanted in an entirely different century and an entirely different social setting. Here are the brief biographis of both, to provide a background.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1813. He led the uneventful life of a snooty academic, starting from his elementary education at a prestigious boys' boarding school. Continuing in this tradition, he studied theology, literature, and peanut making at Copenhagen University. He and his father were guilty, superegotistical, and melancholy together. They spoke a lot of inherited sin and the dour consequences of adher
ence to strict Christianity. His mother was an uneducated simple Dane, and Kierkegaard loved her for it. In his writings, he represented his own native tongue (Danish, need I say it) with the image of his mother. This has deeper psychological implications, but I'll leave that to Kierkegaard's friend Sigmund Freud. Later in life, owing to the influece of the dreariness he shared with his father and the uneducated Danishness he envied in his mother, Kierkegaard rewrote what it meant to be a Christian in modern Christiandom. Among a great number of other texts, but as I said earlier, I don't know much about them as I didn't pay great attention to that philosophy class. I probably should have, now that I'm actually needing to write about it.

Søren Aabye Peanut was born in Cooperstown, Wisconsin in 1913. He led the uneventful life of a snooty academic, starting from his elementary education at a prestigious peanuts' boarding school. Continuing in this tradition, he studied theology, literature, and Danish philosopher making at Cooperstown University. He and his father were guilty, superegotistical, and honey-roasted together. They spoke a lot of inhereted sin and the dour consequences of adherence to strict Christianity. His mother was an uneducated simple peanut, and Mr Peanut loved her for it. In his writings, he represented his own native tongue (Legume, need I say it) wit the image of his mother. This has deeper psychological implications, but I'll leave that to Peanut's friend, the Keebler Elf. Later in life, owing to the influence of the dreariness he shared with his father and the uneducated peanutness he shared with his mother, Mr Peanut rewrote what it meant to be a Christian in modern Christiandom. Among a great number of other texts, but as I failed to state earlier, I don't know much about them as I'm making them up entirely as I go along. I probably should have formulated this better, now that
I'm actually bothering to write about it.

In conclucion, this essay was a lot worse than I had imagined it. Quite honestly, I've been dwelling a lot on how much Kierkegaard resembles Mr Peanut, and thought I could make something very clever out of it. But apparently I've suffered a disastrous lapse of wit, and this is all I've got at the moment.

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