Why does so much philosophy take place in bars and coffeehouses? What's the relationship between drinking and thinking?
Today, I'm talking to Scott F. Parker and Michael W. Austin, two philosophers seriously tweaked by java. Scott's a regular contributor to Rain Taxi Review of Books, and his writing has appeared in many magazines, as well as in books of popular philosophy. Michael W. Austin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University, and typically chief sage in whatever coffee establishment he happens to enter. He's the author of many books on philosophy, running, parenthood and football, among other topics.
Today we're talking about their new book, "Coffee: Grounds for Debate," available in bookstores this month.
Tom: Scott and Mike, you've put together a book about coffee and philosophy, ruminations on regular and dissertations on decaf, I gather. Now, like many, I often drink coffee while I'm doing philosophy. But is there more to the relationship than this?
Scott: One thing that's interesting about coffee is that it represents both an occasion to do philosophy and a philosophically interesting subject in its own right. All of the big philosophical concerns are relevant to thinking about coffee. In the book we group the essays in four categories: metaphysics, culture, aesthetics and ethics.
Tom: OK, the aesthetics and ethics of coffee make sense. Aesthetically, there are questions about subjectivity, taste and experience; ethically, it's important to think about environmental impact and the treatment of farmers, mostly in the third world. But the metaphysics of coffee? I sip, therefore I am? Beans and nuttiness?
Mike: Very funny. Metaphysics actually comes up in a variety of ways. In the first chapter Mark Pendergrast asks, "Is coffee puddle water or panacea?" In the history of coffee drinking, opinions about it have fluctuated wildly. Kristopher G. Phillips draws on philosopher Thomas Nagel to investigate the nature of the coffee drinker and asks, "What is it like to appreciate coffee?" Steven Geisz understands coffee addiction in terms of the Buddhist notion of samsara.
In my chapter, "The Necessary Ground of Being," I filter through a cluster of issues related to a question that many have discussed in coffeehouses around the world: "Does God exist?" This is not about the metaphysics of coffee per se, but displays the kind of robust metaphysical question perhaps best tackled with a good strong cup of joe in hand.
Tom: And I imagine the culture component looks at the lifestyles surrounding coffee these days.
Scott: That's right. Some of the essays look at the roles coffeehouses play in society as places where ideas are shared and tested. A coffeehouse is one of the few places open to everyone where gathering and lingering are encouraged, where leisure (as distinct from entertainment) is a goal. This seems crucial. In our world of endless distraction and constant surface-level attention, coffee plays an interesting role. On the one hand, it contains caffeine, and the stimulation it provides can be used to live an even more kinetic life. On the other hand, drinking coffee can be one of your most intentional and deliberate acts. You take time out of your day to do something that brings you simple pleasure. And the fact that coffee is generally served hot helps because it requires that you pay attention -- you literally have to slow down to drink it. I think focusing like this, even just for 15 minutes at a time, is critical for mental health.
One thing I want to encourage is treating coffee in this latter mode -- slowing down, enjoying it and using your coffee time for paying attention to the world--and the caffeine helps with this. Drinking coffee doesn't necessarily lead people to do philosophy, but I want it to give them a chance.
Tom: I understand the book is a collection of new essays by not only professional philosophers, but also philosophically inclined individuals representing other walks of life.
Mike: It is. We wanted the book to have a variety of ideas and styles in it, so we invited not only card-carrying philosophers to write essays, but also anthropologists, historians, journalists, coffee experts and even comedians to contribute!
James Kirkland and Dan Levy have a web series, The Coffee Bean Guys, in which they spend their days at a coffee shop trying to become celebrities. It was fun to include that and use humor to make the book more playful.
Tom: I should ask you about Starbucks, because of its prominence in coffee drinking around the world. The founder, Howard Schultz, once wrote a very philosophical book about his vision for it. Is it something you take on directly in the book?
Scott: Kenneth Davids gives an expert's analysis of three very different levels of coffee, one level being Starbucks. But the chapter that goes at it most directly is John Hartmann's "Starbucks and the Third Wave," which gives an assessment of Starbucks' contributions and shortcomings as it reconciles making money with making good, responsible coffee. One thing you notice in Hartmann's essay is that the new Third Wave's goals sound a lot like Starbucks' original goals. It remains to be seen whether the coffee roasters of the Third Wave will be able to maintain their ethical commitments as their companies grow.
Starbucks has done some real good for coffee. They've basically taken the elitist notion of quality global; they tend to treat their employees well; they've created public spaces, which are particularly important in suburban, car-centric areas, where gathering places are harder to come by. And they don't limit bathroom use to customers; this might seem tangential to their essence, but it's an important part of providing a space for all of a community. At the same time, they've been accused for wasting water, their recycling practice is insufficient, they haven't done enough to ensure living wages for farmers and their ubiquity does contribute to the flattening of our culture. So it's really a mixed bag, but on the whole I like them and think it's reasonable to hope they'll make efforts to improve their environmental and ethical practices.
Tom: Are there any other topics of note in the book that you'd like to mention?
Mike: One fun chapter is Kenneth Kirkwood's treatment of caffeine as a performance-enhancing drug. Lori Keleher's discussion of coffee and the good life, using Aristotle, is excellent. And Will Buckingham's "wasted afternoon" drinking coffee and reading philosophy is just what we hope readers will do with our book.
Tom: Have you guys always been coffee drinkers?
Mike: My first experiences with coffee were very unpleasant.
Tom: Many would say the same thing about philosophy.
Mike: Good point! And yet we can come to love both. I started drinking coffee in college, out of necessity. One of my college roommates worked in a coffee shop, and I had procrastinated to the point that I had to stay up all night to finish a paper for a philosophy class, and with the help of some good coffee I was able to do it. I've been a coffee drinker since that night.
Tom: So the connection for you was born then.
Scott: I grew up in Portland, where coffee is sort of a way of life. My parents drank good coffee when I was kid, so even though I didn't start drinking it until near the end of high school, I learned to appreciate the aroma of coffee, and to appreciate the appreciation of coffee.
Tom: Mike, you've edited several books on philosophy and popular culture now. And, Scott, I know you've contributed to several volumes. What's next for you guys?
Mike: I like these books because they demonstrate the relevance of philosophy to life's big and small questions. Philosophy relates to everything, when it is done in the right spirit. I co-edited a book that will be released at the same time as "Coffee," called, "Fatherhood -- Philosophy for Everyone: The Dao of Daddy," and I've got another book, "The Philosophy of the Olympics," in the works; it'll be out next summer in time for London.
Scott: I have a chapter in Mike's Olympics book that focuses on Steve Prefontaine, who has always fascinated me. In fact, he's an important subject in "The Joy of Running qua Running," a memoir I'm finishing up. But if I'm going to mention Pre in this interview, I should end on a note of caution: Be careful mixing coffee and running!
Tom: Funny. Too much coffee and I'm always running to find the nearest restroom. Thanks, guys, for your good work and for talking today.
Scott and Mike: Thank you, Tom, for what you're doing to bring more philosophy to the culture. Now, back to the daily grind!
In her book, "The Truth About Grief," Ruth Davis Konigsberg challenges the idea that we all can expect to experience the loss of a loved one in a similar way. In particular, she challenges the "five stage" model of grief that is now familiar to most of us -- the one that begins with "denial" and ends in "acceptance." Konigsberg argues that people grieve in different ways. Perhaps most importantly, Konigsberg asserts that people are in fact more psychologically resilient that we generally think they are, and that a relatively brief period of mourning may be the norm.
In the process of writing our own book on grief, Dr. Barbara Okun and I relied on in-depth interviews with family members who had the experience of losing a loved one to a terminal illness. Some of their stories are posted on our website. The "roadmap" of grief that emerged from this work confirms in some ways what Konigsberg has written -- in particular, that grief is indeed a diverse, not a uniform, process. At the same time, we learned that grief has changed rather dramatically in the 40 years since Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' "On Death and Dying" was published.
In short, grief in the past was often triggered by an event -- the sudden or quick death of a loved one. Steady advances in medicine, however, have transformed dying so that it is increasingly a protracted process. In turn, grief has evolved to the point where it is now a parallel process that often goes on for years. This "new grief" begins when a loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness. It then proceeds through a long period of diagnosis, treatment, remission, relapse, etc. Elizabeth Edwards, for example, worked with her doctors to contain metastatic breast cancer for several years. The realities of modern medicine dictate that more and more of us will find ourselves confronting this new grief, sooner or later.
This new grief is different. For one thing, it includes the loved one with the diagnosis. It also draws in the entire family into a prolonged crisis that some of our interviewees aptly described as "learning to live with death." It presents unique challenges to families who today tend to be more far-flung than ever before, and whose day to day lives were complicated enough before the diagnosis was rendered. This new grief creates ongoing stresses, not only for the patient, but for his or her loved ones and, in turn, on their own families.
Our goal in writing "Saying Goodbye: How Families Can Find Renewal through Loss" was to collect, organize and then share the collective wisdom we were able to derive from the stories we heard. Indeed, we discovered that this new grief is messy, and that individuals and families experience it in diverse ways. At the same time, we learned a few things that others have said they found valuable as they confronted this situation:
- There are differences in terms of how "resilient" not only individuals, but families, are. Moreover, there are ways to build that resilience.
- Although the ways in which they cope with them vary, there are some fairly predictable experiences that families will find themselves confronted with after a loved one receives a terminal diagnosis. Being able to anticipate these can be helpful.
- Knowing in advance about the complexity of medical and legal issues that await the patient and his or her family can reduce (though not eliminate) stress and its potentially deleterious effects on everyone.
- Clear communication and end-of-life planning, along with effective palliative care, can improve the lives of terminal patients and their loved ones alike.
As for whether a brief period of mourning is the norm, we have found that this, too, is subject to a great deal of variability. Truth be told, the vast majority of those we've spoken with assert that mourning never truly ends; rather, it waxes and wanes over time. Mourning does not, however, need to be debilitating. The way people mourn seems reflect the nature of the relationship they had with their loved one. It hardly needs to be said that marriages are not all the same; accordingly, mourning is anything but a uniform process. Those we love become part or our identity -- our sense of who we are, and why we are here. The more central a loved one is to our identity, the more profound our mourning will be. Helen Nearing, married to the writer Scott Nearing, described her mourning in her memoir, "Loving and Leaving the Good Life," this way:
Our love had lasted half a century, and still goes on now, eight years after he died at the honorable age of 100. The love continues on my part, and on his side too, I believe. From where else could come the glad certainty every morning, evening and hour of the day that I live in love and am charged with it -- outgoing and incoming.
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