At AU’s Public Anthropology Conference this past weekend, I overheard a woman whisper, walking determinedly toward the breakfast spread, “I need my coffee in the morning. I just can’t get through the day without it.” She was about to present on the roles of neoliberalism in a specific region of the world. She’s not alone — at AU we talk ourselves to death about the role consumerism has in globalization of other countries, or the impact of capitalism in international development. And we also talk about coffee. How could the two conversations have anything in common?
Let me ask you: Why is the line at the Davenport frequently out the door for the quaint, stocky, paper cup with convenient sipper top?
And how do we rationalize spending $4.25 on a concoction we would be able to make at home with $0.75 worth of ingredients?
Why? “In order to make it through the day,” I hear many say. In order to meet the demands we face (Be productive! Get more internships! Find a job! You haven’t done that? What’s wrong with you?!)
I’m not immune. I run around my daily life thinking about the lists of things I need to do and how I could best layout my evening for maximum productivity. I’m constantly disappointed. There’s no physical way I can fit it all in. And then I beat myself up for it, because I’m probably just being lazy. I should suck it up.
Sound familiar?
Many of us idolize the hectic day — constantly negotiating long commutes, various demands at work, at home, with family and friends, all the while being on-call with our Blackberry and iPhone. With 24/7 access to the Internet, we have no excuse to relax, to unplug and unwind. And with the influx of such technologies, coupled with the ideologies of consumerism and productivity, it’s a recipe for disaster. We’re on that rollercoaster, constantly blaming ourselves, because the other trick up the system’s sleeve is individualism — we are trained to blame ourselves, and not the system.
What is the system? Without getting in to a debate about the evils or benefits of capitalism, we can all agree that each of us exists in a capitalist structure. Our position as an individual is situated in this structure, along with the post-modern moment and neoliberalism. With this comes individualism, a constantly increasing demand for productivity, consumerism’s push for the purchasing of objects as a means to supposedly satisfy our needs… it goes on and on. But why do we rarely look at our own lives in this context? Because we’d be ashamed to admit we’ve also been duped?
The woman at the conference could talk for years about the impacts of these forces on institutions and foreign bodies. But why would she avoid viewing her addiction to coffee, whether physically or psychologically, in the same context?
We are barraged with a constant need to produce more and more, and the only way to do so is to find more “leisure” time to cut out of our lives, find more ways to squeeze every last morsel of productivity and by whatever means necessary. So then we turn to ways to help us — coffee being one favorite drug of choice. Of course, it’s not the only way to cope with the irrational (and growing) expectation to produce, but it’s one of the few legal and popularized methods of doing so. And what better way to capitalize on capitalism’s byproduct than to convince people to buy more coffee, to make them addicted to the feeling, the look, the supposed comfort, the uniqueness in each individual’s specialized drink. After all — you are an individual. You should have a customized drink.
So I challenge you all to take another look at the system. Give yourself a break. Recognize the ideologies that subconsciously dictate how you tell yourself you should perform and produce, and even if you can’t fully break free from the system, see it for what it is. Unmask its charade. Pick apart the messages it wants you to tell yourself — produce more, get more exhausted, and then seek out that cup of coffee to get a jolt and keep on going.
Sorry if none of this makes sense. I haven’t had my coffee yet today.
Charlene Shovic is a second year Master’s student in Public Anthropology at AU.
