20120212.0607

I wrote yesterday and the day before about the association of black coffee and hard work in popular novels, both as an emblem of it and as a signal that those who do it cannot do it alone. Yesterday, I began to move the topic back to its valence in "real life." (I put the phrase in scare quotes because I have been told before that I do not understand "real life" or the "real world." Clearly, then, my perspective on matters must be taken into account--but I have no better terms to use.) And there is a reason to do so other than to put out some small, anecdotal examples. (I avoid going into textual specifics here because of time and because I may want to apply the rubric I develop here to papers I might like to publish. Prior online posting makes that somewhat problematic.) That reason is that the stories we consume are the stories in which we see ourselves; art imitates life, and all that. If a symbol or image appears repeatedly in mainstream popular media, it signifies either that the producers of those media believe the symbol will resonate with (paying) consumers or that the association the symbol embodies is itself embedded in the producers. Or both.

That such a thing is true is some of the justification for humanistic study, generally, and popular culture studies, specifically. The things we do are indicative of who we are; the things we take in are formative of who we are. Humanistic studies treat both, looking at what the things we do are and what they reveal about us, as well as at what the things we take in are and what messages they embed in us--often without our realizing it. "It's just a story" is never the case; it is never just a story, or a sculpture, or a poem, or a painting, or a dance, or waza. Each is revelatory of author and audience, a way in which we make sense of ourselves, each other, and the world in which we are enmeshed. Each is therefore worth no small amount of attention, focused and dedicated, even if those whose attentions are (and perhaps should be) elsewhere do not fully understand the focus afforded.

For such a symbol as coffee, which can (and this is true of many symbols) be read as contradicting itself, this is not less true. That there is an association between black coffee and hard work in popular novels does bespeak prevailing cultural patterns, many of which are tacit. (Explicating them, bringing them to attention in detail, helps promote understanding of those patterns, as well as facilitating control over them.) That the pattern is problematic in that it also indicates the opposite of what it seems initially to show is not so much an instance of humanistic obfuscation (although I can understand why people might want to think that) as an accordance with the "real world"--at least insofar as I understand it to be. Life is complex, and people are contradictory. Why, then, should the symbols people use to try to reflect that life and those people not be the same?

I am sure that others have spoken to the topic at greater length and more eloquently than I have here. But I think the message bears repeating, nonetheless.