And there are other, less obvious leavings on Britney's trail.

In the process of achieving her hyper-realized fame and pop-icon status, Britney has raised much hoopla/controversy about her appropriateness as a role model and overtly hormonal imagemaker. Some parents embrace her self-proclaimed wholesomeness, while others cannot overlook her minimally clad, barely post-pubescent, allegedly surgically enhanced attempts to normalize pre-adult über-sexuality.

Well, fine. But what about her potential status as a neo-existentialist, postmodern philosopher? Is there an argument to be made about Spears' impact on the lens through which 21st-century humanity examines itself and the greater zeitgeist?

Let's examine the evidence. The primary slide under our philosophical microscope is the song, "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman." The lyrics proceed thusly: "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman/All I need is time, A moment that is mine/While I'm in between."

The simple interpretation is to regard this as a typical adolescent lament about the stage between full free-spirited childhood and burgeoning adulthood. A hardly challenging concept. But is there something more here? What if the "I'm in between" line actually signals the third point of a classic Hegelian dialectical triangle? Girlhood being at one point, womanhood at the second and third being some subtly unstated "third way" that draws on the tension and contradictory nature of the first two states of being to create a superior third? In this scenario, in fact, the third way is Britney herself, who deftly incorporates elements of girlhood and adulthood, positioned as an idealized goal for children and adults to progress toward.

This could be the realization of Hegel's declaration of humanity's most advanced thought, the idea that recognizes itself in all things. The idea here being Britney herself, and all things being, well, all things. Look around your universe. Can you not see evidence of Britney within everything that you see? If you were Britney, wouldn't you?

Britney's message here, therefore, is that childhood is one thing, adulthood another, but both of these are incomplete, inherently contradictory states. And all humanity is headed inevitably toward a convergence of the two that results in a slave-girl-outfit-wearing, midriff-prominent, Pepsi-swilling pop princess with a penchant for hoisting live snakes for dramatic effect. Britney is there in front of us, and all who have not achieved her state are merely incomplete individuals oblivious to our ultimate realization as human beings.

Or, it could be that first thing. But you underestimate her at your own risk.