Stanley Fish Gets Some Coffee

Ron Rosenbaum has an article up at Slate making fun of Stanley Fish's op-ed in the Times about Starbucks. I was reminded of Baudrillard's similarly amusing writings about jogging.

...You stop a horse that is bolting. You do not stop a jogger who is jogging. Foaming at the mouth, his mind riveted on the inner countdown to the moment when he will achieve a higher plane of consciousness, he is not to be stopped. If you stopped him to ask the time, he would bite your head off.

That's right. Don't mess with me when I'm jogging.

I think that most attacks against academics are stupid. Yes, some of them can be wildly unrealistic and unintentionally funny, but they aren't hurting anyone. If a professor convinces your nice, upper-class kid to become a Marxist they'll come right back around when you give them that nice shiny graduation present. But sometimes these professors, usually "theory" professors, for lack of a better term, just go so far that even my good natured self can't resist making fun. Am I the only one that laughs out loud when they read Baudrillard, Fish, Jameson, and others?


Edit: I just read the other Starbucks article up today at Slate and I thought I'd comment on one section.

Simon breaks down the Starbucks appeal into three categories: functional (caffeine is addictive), emotional (Starbucks is self-gifting), and the "expressive" category. We buy Starbucks to show others that we are "someone who can afford luxury."

There's a simpler explanation. Coffee tastes good to many people and espresso coffee tastes better then drip coffee. Espresso coffee machines are expensive and somewhat difficult to operate(in comparison to drip at least). At the same time, many people want a social environment to hang out in. European style cafes are popular in college towns but in other places they have negative connotations. Because Starbucks is popular and accepted by mainstream culture it doesn't carry those connotations. If you take this into account, it's not surprising at all that Starbucks has become so popular. What do you do when the last pool hall closes in your little Texas town? Go to Starbucks!

Really, what other option do you have in most places if you don't want to shop or sit at home? In my home town you could go to the library or a bar I suppose. But bars in America are not nearly as sociable as pubs in England and the library doesn't stay open very late. Starbucks, and perhaps even more, Borders bookstore, offers people a place to go. Huge multinational corporations are surely responsible for their share of evil, but some are also providing a valuable social service that is not quantifiable with standard economics.