MDMD Intro

[Otto]

Judy Panetta schrieb:
> Coffee! Gallons of coffee. Any thoughts on the presence of coffee?
> A social contrivance? A historical tidbit worth working?

Kai wrote:
> to connect the rise of coffee in the west to 'reasonable political
> debate', newspapers, and the bourgeois revolutions has become
> a standard exercise of social history. for an early formulation with
> a philosophical background see the only good book by habermas,
> "the structural change of the public sphere",
> § 5-8, from the early 1960s. personally, i drink my coffee really strong,
> yet sandwiched with lots of milk.

> kai frederik file://:: ps: a footnote on drug wars - when coffee came up,
> there were some european territories where coffee drinking was
> punished with death.

Of course you can only drink coffee reasonable with sugar and milk . . .

1. Coffee as a plant of colonial exploitation (Nederlands-Indie aka
Indonesia) with all the negative effects on the "Colonized" who had to be
enlightened, as elsewhere.

"Ik ben makelaar in koffi (...). Het is mijn gewoonte niet, romans to
schryven, of zulke dingen (...)"
"I am coffee-dealer (...). Novel-writing or something like that isn't my
habit."
Multatuli: "Max Havelaar" (1860), opening sentence.
(own trans, I would be greatful for the official English version)

2. Coffee-houses as social places -- very suspect to the authorities in the
18th and 19th century.

3. Indeed Pynchon reminds us here in the first chapter already that social
norms and values whether a substance is regarded as dangerous or socially
accepted may change:

"Keep away from harmful Substances, in particular Coffee, Tobacco and Indian
Hemp. If you must use the latter, do not inhale." (10)

Note that "Alcohol" isn't mentioned, more dangerous & more widespread than
the other three.

Otto