Friday, June 22, 2012

Read & Discuss: Order Muppet / Chaos Muppet

First, read this. It was written by Slate's judicial reporter, hence the fascination with the Supreme Court. In the spirit of this Slate series, this post will probably take the concept a little too far. But go ahead, read the article.

Pretty great, right? Not without the flaws of other unified theories of personality (namely, people do not always behave consistently with their type), but still, a great way to work the Muppets into something applicable to everyday life.

So, here's the discussion question: Which kind of muppet is The Count?

Sure, at first glance he seems clearly in the order camp (he, by his own admission, loves to count, a clear sign of orderliness).

But there are two arguments for his inclusion in the Chaos camp.

Indulging his Order tendencies
against the Ur-Chaos-Muppet
First, the Count is scary. Of course, there are plenty of things that are both orderly and scary (the DMV comes to mind, as does the Galactic Empire). The Count's scariness (at least in earlier, less sanitized versions of Sesame Street) is in spite of his order-qualities, not because of it. The thunder, the caped entrance, the music; all of these things distract from counting.

On its own, this would seem to argue for the Count's inclusion in the order camp. After all, counting is his identity. Scariness is ancillary.

But watch the video below, and tell me that it is not the portrait of someone in the chaos camp. Particularly at 2:10 onward, the Count outs himself as a Chaos Muppet: "I wrote these letters myself... Oh, I'm not going to read them. I'm going to count them!... Ahahahaha!"

His need to count overwhelms any sense of orderliness about the very act of counting. The Count is crazy about counting! Thus, by overindulging his order-quality, the Count transforms himself into a Chaos muppet.

To discuss:
Which other muppets blur the line?
Are you an Order Muppet or a Chaos Muppet? Which particular muppet are you?

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