Michael Sandel and his Simpsons doppelganger.
Political philosopher Michael Sandel was this month unveiled by the BBC as its 2009 Reith lecturer. Widely respected for his communitarian ideas, Sandel is also noted for his willingness to grapple with tricky policy issues like organ donation and the ethics of biotechnology. Surely unbeknownst to Auntie, though, the learned professor is less well-known as an inspiration—physical, if not philosophical—for one of the most nefarious, amoral and anti-communitarian characters in fiction: one Montgomery Burns, the nuclear power magnate in The Simpsons.
How did such a thing come about? Comedian Matt Groening, a Harvard reject, created the series, hiring dozens of clever-dick young writers from his hoped-for alma matter in the process. To those in the know, hidden references to America’s haughtiest university are dotted amidst the town’s yellow-skinned residents. The local Kwik-E-Mart, for instance, is located at 57 Mount Auburn Street—the address in Cambridge, Massachusetts of Harvard’s Lampoon, the satirical magazine that schooled many future Simpsons writers.
Sandel is a well-known figure around campus and teaches the university’s most popular course: “Justice.” Thus, as a slightly smug in-joke, Sandel was made one of the models for the cartoon’s least just character. Mr Burns as the Reith lecturer. Beeb chiefs weren’t to know. D’oh.
This post, along with various others, appears in Prospect’s Diary column, at the front of the magazine.
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On 1st March 2007 I made some disparaging remarks on the new Prospect livery that appeared at that time. I find the new format much more to my taste and I hope many others will too. Good riddance to those meaningless patches of random colours and the routine pictorial banners. But am I mistaken in noticing less of the “long-form current affairs journalism” trailed in your leader? I read in a blog of a contributor defending himself by having been limited to less than 1000 words. Less frivolous form but not more solid content.
This is not really a complaint – I enjoyed it all (well nearly all).