Rational Philosophy

Rattled by its plunging stock price and by threats from competitive coffee vendors, Starbucks has announced a renewed focus on its roots — brewing and serving good coffee. The gargantuan coffee-store chain plans to install Swiss Mastrena espresso machines at three quarters of its stores in the next couple of years. It’s also rolling out a new coffee blend, Pike Place Roast, and swallowing up the makers of the renowned Clover coffee machine so that it can install them at selected landmark stores. In the words of the NY Times’ reporter, these initiatives are aimed at restoring to Starbucks stores an “authentic coffeehouse experience.”

The use of the word “authentic” jarred me. Whatever its success in delivering the promise of great coffee, well made, it would be impossible for Starbucks to return to its stores the authenticity of a coffeehouse, or for MacDonald’s to restore the authenticity of a burger joint, or for Dunkin Donuts to restore to its stores the authenticity of donut shops. In any such chain or franchise the essentially authentic elements of irreproducibility and oneness with the fundamental aim have been removed.

This is not a criticism of Starbucks’ general aim. Better to have a semblance of authenticity, an attempt to brew wonderful coffee in an attractive environment, than no such attempt. But it got me wondering about authenticity as a concept.

Authenticity equates to the concept of being genuine. An authentic coffee house must be genuine. And in its being genuine it must conform to the essence of the idea of a coffeehouse.

Determining the authenticity of a coffeehouse or a burger joint or a donut shop becomes somewhat straightforward. If the establishment is what it presents itself to be, then it is genuine. When it comes to people, things get a little more tricky.

The National Archives and the William J. Clinton library has released Hillary Rodham Clinton’s schedule (11,000 pages) for the time that her husband was in office. As the world peruses this record of her appointments one necessarily asks the question: Has Clinton presented herself authentically in her campaigning, or does the schedule of her appointments reveal a different story? We want to know whether she has exaggerated or skewed her involvement in her husband’s administration.

Likewise, the salient question presented by Barack Obama’s recent speech on race and racism in America was whether he presented himself, his experience, and his views authentically. We sift through his words to try to determine whether he has stretched a point or shrunk from one.

Authenticity in a person does not equate to telling the truth. One can tell the truth without being authentic. Authenticity in a person requires that he or she act without altering his or her actions in order to present an impression of someone other than that which he or she believes him or herself to be.

This brings us to a very profound question: Does consciousness allow for authenticity, and if so how?

Consciousness requires some degree of awareness of self. Any awareness of self, it could be argued, brings with it an awareness of the impression we present. Any awareness of this impression inevitably affects us and, no matter how minutely, alters our presentation of ourselves.

Even the person who claims no affectation “I am what I am” has affected a particular persona — that of someone indifferent and unaffected — and the disclaimer confirms this.

Consciousness burdens us forever and always with the awareness that we cannot be completely unaware.

So, is it possible that we can we conscious and still authentic?

No… and yes.

And here is the twist. We invest the word “authentic” with a meaning that relates to the idea of an object (an authentic coffeehouse, for instance.) A coffeehouse can be authentic just by being. It is what it is. Since we’re conscious we cannot be like a coffee house. But we can be what we are, complete with apprehensions, egos, weaknesses, desires.

For a conscious being — a person — the concept of authenticity comes to mean something more nuanced. It requires a person to be as honest with themselves and others as they feel they can be. Authenticity becomes equivalent to the concept of humility — whether we are arrogant, egotistical, meek or savage, if we have the humility to embrace and recognize that we are one particular aspect or representation of existence then we can perhaps be said to retain our authenticity.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On the recession, real or imagined, chronic problems that beset the nation, and the celebration of taste and art in a great cup of coffee.

With all that’s been written about the current economic crisis, be it mountain or molehill, it’s been surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) difficult to get to the bottom of the situation. I can’t escape the impression that the economy moves according to forces too complex for anyone to fully or reliably understand. The wisdom of hindsight abounds, but those still willing to predict what comes next sound more like doom-mongers or soothsayers than thoughtful, commanding economic theorists and commentators.

The Times has a piece that hints at some concrete economic indicators: According to David Rosenberg, a Merrill Lynch economist, the stock market is overvalued by 10 percent relative to corporate earnings and interest rates. And, judging by historic norms (by comparison to salaries and rents,) house prices are overvalued by 30 percent across much of Florida, California and the Southwest and about 20 percent in the Northeast. More about the rationality of these indicators later.

Bob Herbert points to a more urgent matter than the economy, if we judge urgency by the degree of current and long term impact. Bob’s gloomy picture of the shameful state of schools in South Carolina stands as a sad example of the disparity between the haves and the have nots, and, because the poor conditions in South Carolina seem to relate to entrenched and systematic racism, the vast distance between the kind of country we want to believe we live in, and the kind of country we do live in. Talking about a school he happened upon, former South Carolina commerce secretary, Charles Way, says he couldn’t really believe his eyes. “It was the most deplorable building condition that I’ve ever seen in my life. How the hell somebody could teach in an environment like that is really just beyond me.” (Ben Tillman to the right, infamous racist, prominently honored at the SC statehouse.)

A school text book had a volume with the title: “One day man will land on the moon.”

Another dispiriting story reveals that the United States ranks at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among 149 countries for its environmental performance. The United States contributes a quarter of the new releases of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

And how do I reconcile the current economic woes, the chronic, unaddressed problems facing the nation’s poor and its minorities, and the environmental disaster underway with my glee at reading about a $20,000 coffee maker?

I love coffee. I buy premium roasted beans from small companies. I grind them right before I brew. And I take great care to try to get the brew just right. So, the story about the lengths to which coffee houses will go to brew a great cup of coffee drew me in. It made me want to go downtown to Cafe Grumpy’s so that I can try a cup of coffee from an $11,000 coffee maker…

Back to the economic indicators of stock value relative to corporate earnings and interest rates, and house values relative to salaries and rents. Even if we take the calculation on trust, can we agree that these constitue reliable, rational economic indicators? I think not. As the world changes so economic norms change.

Judging stock valuation by earnings and interest rates perhaps works reasonably well over a short time period, but can it be applied consistently, without modification, over a long time period? Here’s one example of why I’m dubious. Technological innovation and the surge in importance of the Internet gives more reason to expect future innovation and technological growth now than ten or fifteen years ago. Isn’t it then appropriate to value companies, in general, somewhat higher than we would have valued them ten to fifteen years ago, because we expect future earnings to be higher?

And the model for judging house values by comparison to salaries and rents must surely change over time, too. As more people squeeze into urban and suburban areas, the relative value of land and space may increase more rapidly than salaries (that are affected by things other than land and space). Also, raw materials for building houses have changed in relative cost, building regulations have changed the way houses are built and what they cost to build, and the skill-sets of the laborers have changed… How can the model work without modification from one period of time to the next?

I’m still ruminating on how I can be so thrilled about a great cup of coffee when the state of South Carolina, for one, discriminates against minorities by so woefully neglecting their education. From a philosophical perspective I understand that I’m not the master of my desires, and that when living in society we need to grapple with our own desires and needs as well of those of others. Ideally I know I should balance my own interests with those of people around me. Which doesn’t necessarily mean disavowing my love of coffee.

If we’re to try to get the balance right, we need more exposure to the problems in our society. The increased public attention given to global warming has finally begun to have an impact on the way we live and the choices we make. We need more exposure to the lingering problems of racism, too. I agree with Bob Herbert that our politicians should be addressing matters of racisim rather than dancing around them.

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