I sat myself today in a starbux, across from the door, out of which I could see across the Golden Horn and to the Hagia Sophia which rises on the far side, outlined against the grey sky. The ferries ply the water between me and it, and I sit, and read, and look out across the water and up to the ancient monument, and then back to the working men selling breads or grilled fish on the street, then the tourists that come between us, then back to my book.
Today I am reading, today I am finishing, today I will finish, today I have finished Rousseau's Social Contract. If I had it to do over again, I would read a summary - most of his ideas do not benefit from his wording of them, and in too many places the prejudices peculiar to him and his age shine through too clearly, contrast too vividly with those of our own age to allow my eyes and brain to float by them without noticing.
I have, however, made a list of the books that I will read over the next few years, and having made such a goal, absent a compelling reason to change, I will stick with it. After all - were it not for this list, and my semi-irrational devotion to it, I would not have begun reading John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which by chance made me aware of a thinker whose ideas are not so close to my own as to be redundant, nor so far as to provoke outrage, thus falling in that fertile middle ground where I find my own conceptions of things questioned and alternatives proposed, all of which is couched in language that is clear, and easy to read. It does, however, suffer the same fault as Rousseau, in that it displays its prejudices and assumptions toward Christian and Western society a bit too clearly to escape notice by the western reader.
In looking through the glass door at the Hagia Sophia outside, the contrast between the white letters "STARBUCKS COFFEE" stenciled upon the glass, and the towering antiquity seen through it gave me pause - a moment suspended between the modern and the ancient, between the quotidian, even crass, and the sublime.
Now for fact: I chide myself slightly for coming into starbucks. In this environment of mood music and furniture identical to 57 other locations in a 20 block radius, I ask myself why I came here, of all places here, to this safety base of American/globalized aesthetic and cheap commercial presentation. I asked myself this question in earnest as I paused from my book, and for better or worse I found my answer.
I came here for the value for my money. The fact is that I can buy here for one lira more a larger amount of quite pleasant coffee than anywhere else, while accessing free internet. Thus, I do not see equivalent value in going to a more "authentic" locale. I ask value for my money - and my time: in flavor and taste, in amount, in not being disturbed by overly-friendly intruders-into my moment. One may question my tastes or my misanthropy, but my tastes being what they are, I shall no longer apologize for patronizing a global enterprise simply because it is a global enterprise.
Having articulated my requirements, I no longer see a disharmony between the elements. As much as I appreciate the ageless beauty of the Hagia Sophia, and turn my eyes that direction when I wish for a tiny jolt of awe, and similarly enjoy the serious subject matter of eternal questions of governance at which Rousseau all too ponderously tilts; just so, are not coffee and comfort and solitude of equal value to these? And why should I treat with distaste that which in truth I love, except that I am aping not just the values of others, but worse, an unarticulated impression of the values of others?
