Decline and Fall - really?

[neonlyte]

How does one define 'decadence'?

I don't mean the Melodic Thrash Metal/Melodic Death Metal band from Sweden.

Nor do I mean the Princetown Uni definition: the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities.

I quite like the 'Wiki' definition: refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline.

So... I'm not looking for your personal or 'looked-up' definition.

Two stories on the BBC website this morning got me thinking about Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall (of the Roman Empire).

The £50 cup of coffee
A department store in London is selling fresh coffee at £50 (97$) a cup. It's made from a blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain beans and Monkey Shit. Ok... you don't actually get to taste the shit, it's coffee beans that have passed through a monkey in Borneo, Malaysia or some such fucking place where they are too poor to afford instant coffee, washed, roasted (gently for 12 minutes ) - I presume they mean the beans and not the monkeys - and blended. It's rare coffee - too fucking right - and the store is selling it.

3000 African Children Die Each Day
For want of a 10$ mosquito net
That's 21,000 per week
90,000 per month
1, 095,000 per year

So... one cup of monkey shit coffee is the equivalent of saving 3,600 children's lives.

Is this a morality problem?

A society problem?

Supply and Demand - too little monkey shit coffee v's too many African children

The store clearly feels guilt... it's donating its profits from the coffee sales to a Cancer Charity and it pisses me off because the store operates on a social model Ami & Co might regard as immoral - it's owned by its workers, all of them.

My new definition of decadence is: exploitation of media for personal or corporate gain.

 

[elsol]

How does one define 'decadence'?

I don't mean the Melodic Thrash Metal/Melodic Death Metal band from Sweden.

Nor do I mean the Princetown Uni definition: the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities.

I quite like the 'Wiki' definition: refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline.

So... I'm not looking for your personal or 'looked-up' definition.

Two stories on the BBC website this morning got me thinking about Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall (of the Roman Empire).

The £50 cup of coffee
A department store in London is selling fresh coffee at £50 (97$) a cup. It's made from a blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain beans and Monkey Shit. Ok... you don't actually get to taste the shit, it's coffee beans that have passed through a monkey in Borneo, Malaysia or some such fucking place where they are too poor to afford instant coffee, washed, roasted (gently for 12 minutes ) - I presume they mean the beans and not the monkeys - and blended. It's rare coffee - too fucking right - and the store is selling it.

3000 African Children Die Each Day
For want of a 10$ mosquito net
That's 21,000 per week
90,000 per month
1, 095,000 per year

So... one cup of monkey shit coffee is the equivalent of saving 3,600 children's lives.

Is this a morality problem?

A society problem?

Supply and Demand - too little monkey shit coffee v's too many African children

The store clearly feels guilt... it's donating its profits from the coffee sales to a Cancer Charity and it pisses me off because the store operates on a social model Ami & Co might regard as immoral - it's owned by its workers, all of them.

My new definition of decadence is: exploitation of media for personal or corporate gain.

For 25 pounds, I'll eat the coffee beans and let them follow me around with a pooper scooper.

 

[neonlyte]

For 25 pounds, I'll eat the coffee beans and let them follow me around with a pooper scooper.

Different enzmes, Elsol, you'd produce 'instant'.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've heard of that coffee. It's just one of those things that's so extremely rare that they can charge an amazing amount for it and there are people willing to pay for it. There've always been commodities like that: larks' tongues and peacock's brains, and there've been people wealthy enough to buy them in acts of conspicuous consumption.

If it makes you feel any better, nature does the same thing. Nature is absolutely spendthrift with life, launching seeds and eggs by the billions or trillions into the world only to have most of them fail, a priceless waste for the few individuals that finally survive. It's only the human sense of value that's offended. The market's as profligate and uncaring as nature.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Kiss my ass. You ask for a definition but dont want one. How fucking schizophrenic is that?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

If you really want a definition of decadence, I'd say it's when no one buys the chief cultural myth anymore, the one that justifies the power structure of the society. It's a cultural and social cynicism.

 

[impressive]

Different enzmes, Elsol, you'd produce 'instant'.

*Maxwell House spew*

 

[neonlyte]

*Maxwell House spew*

It's not funny

Ok... it was

Mab's... nah... that's not really decadence, though I take what you mean. Cultural/Social values rest on shifting sand. Always have.

I suppose the BBC - in an effort for non-contentious balance - juxtaposed these two stories to excite an effect, though the mosquito net story was embedded in a news report about why our illustrious (sic) PM - Gordon (the Tank Engine) Brown appeared on the American Idol TV show. Instead of expressing his impassioned plea for mosquito nets, they media ridiculed his appearance on the show... in other words, they scorned the need to help save over one-million children's lives. I couldn't help the feeling that society (as read by the media) values a cup of coffee over the live of an African - that, to me is decadence.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

How does one define 'decadence'?

I don't mean the Melodic Thrash Metal/Melodic Death Metal band from Sweden.

Nor do I mean the Princetown Uni definition: the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualities.

I quite like the 'Wiki' definition: refers to a personal trait and, much more commonly, to a state of society. In a person, or used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline.

So... I'm not looking for your personal or 'looked-up' definition.

Two stories on the BBC website this morning got me thinking about Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall (of the Roman Empire).

The £50 cup of coffee
A department store in London is selling fresh coffee at £50 (97$) a cup. It's made from a blend of Jamaican Blue Mountain beans and Monkey Shit. Ok... you don't actually get to taste the shit, it's coffee beans that have passed through a monkey in Borneo, Malaysia or some such fucking place where they are too poor to afford instant coffee, washed, roasted (gently for 12 minutes ) - I presume they mean the beans and not the monkeys - and blended. It's rare coffee - too fucking right - and the store is selling it.

3000 African Children Die Each Day
For want of a 10$ mosquito net
That's 21,000 per week
90,000 per month
1, 095,000 per year

So... one cup of monkey shit coffee is the equivalent of saving 3,600 children's lives.

Is this a morality problem?

A society problem?

Supply and Demand - too little monkey shit coffee v's too many African children

The store clearly feels guilt... it's donating its profits from the coffee sales to a Cancer Charity and it pisses me off because the store operates on a social model Ami & Co might regard as immoral - it's owned by its workers, all of them.

My new definition of decadence is: exploitation of media for personal or corporate gain.

No, no. It's just a problem. A problem with the human brain. WTF??

 

[impressive]

It's not funny

Ok... it was

Mab's... nah... that's not really decadence, though I take what you mean. Cultural/Social values rest on shifting sand. Always have.

I suppose the BBC - in an effort for non-contentious balance - juxtaposed these two stories to excite an effect, though the mosquito net story was embedded in a news report about why our illustrious (sic) PM - Gordon (the Tank Engine) Brown appeared on the American Idol TV show. Instead of expressing his impassioned plea for mosquito nets, they media ridiculed his appearance on the show... in other words, they scorned the need to help save over one-million children's lives. I couldn't help the feeling that society (as read by the media) values a cup of coffee over the live of an African - that, to me is decadence.

Not so much "decadence" as seriously fucked up priorities.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It's not funny

Ok... it was

Mab's... nah... that's not really decadence, though I take what you mean. Cultural/Social values rest on shifting sand. Always have.

I suppose the BBC - in an effort for non-contentious balance - juxtaposed these two stories to excite an effect, though the mosquito net story was embedded in a news report about why our illustrious (sic) PM - Gordon (the Tank Engine) Brown appeared on the American Idol TV show. Instead of expressing his impassioned plea for mosquito nets, they media ridiculed his appearance on the show... in other words, they scorned the need to help save over one-million children's lives. I couldn't help the feeling that society (as read by the media) values a cup of coffee over the live of an African - that, to me is decadence.

That sort of stuff has always gone on. You have to think of an example of a society that wasn't decadent. What's your example? Rome at it's zenith? The British Empire? Such examples of wealth disparity and conspicuous waste and consumption were rife at these societies' height, were almost symptomatic of empires in their glory. They show wealth and power.

Decadent empires, societies in decline, are unable to display this kind of excess.

This is moral decadence, not political or social.

EDITED TO ADD: It should be pointed out that it's human greed and politics that are the main factors that keep us from eliminating hunger and disease. We have the food, we have the medicine, we just can't get it to the people who need it because of people's desire to make a profit and control other people.

 

[rgraham666]

For me decadence is when the elite of a society confuse the well being of their class with the well being of the society they are responsible for.

Like our elite in North America are at the present time.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I would prefer that the proceeds from this coffee go to World Hunger, and therefore back to Borneo in some measure-- instead of to an illness that, however horrible, is most of all felt by the comparatively wealthy nations. I mean your colon cancer won't metastasise if you've starved to death first. What company is it? Perhaps we could begin an email campaign. Seriously.

BUt this kind of commodity has been around, as Ogg says, since the dawn. Everyone uses "larks's tongues" as an example, but-- seriously, think about what that means. One tongue, weighing maybe a quarter of a gram, per bird.

Paul Theroux notes, in his book "Riding The Iron Rooster," that there is still a fashion in China for eating rare animals. The rarer the better. And for the lucky person that eats the very last of a species-- They are assured of the virtue of that entire, now-extinct, creature's lineage.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

That's akin to the person who pays thieves to steal a painting so well-known that he doesn't dare show it to anyone else but sits alone rubbing his hands together and chortling that it's his, his alone. And, yes, such people exist.

And I'd say it was pretty decadent.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The email I just sent

The internet is beginning to buzz about your 50 pound cup of coffee. I want to say first of all that I don't mind this sale in principle. I do want to ask one thing, and suggest another;

First, these civets that ingest and pass the beans-- I sense a an opportunity for animal mismanagement given the value of the commodity. You and I both know that if they can be kept in cages, they will be. And I'm sure we both know that the rest of their dung is worthless, and they will be fed far more coffee beans than they would get in the wild. Are there any oversights in place to make sure that these animals receive, for instance, the rest of the foodstuffs they need for their health? Not to mention decent treatment in general. When an animal is un-domesticable, and is a commodity at the same time, brutal treatment is the norm.

Secondly, the proceeds from these sales go, sayeth the BBC, to a cancer foundation. This is a lovely thing. I would like to ask that you think about changing the focus of the charity effort, however-- to world hunger instead. Cancer is a rich nation's problem, for the most part. When people are starving, cancer is hardly ever a significant mortality factor. And it would be beautifully poetic, for this rare third-world product to send maximum results back to the third worlds.

Respectfully-- (my real name here)

I sent this to their customer service email address. For those of you who live near enough, there are phone numbers here;

 

[neonlyte]

The internet is beginning to buzz about your 50 pound cup of coffee. I want to say first of all that I don't mind this sale in principle. I do want to ask one thing, and suggest another;

First, these civets that ingest and pass the beans-- I sense a an opportunity for animal mismanagement given the value of the commodity. You and I both know that if they can be kept in cages, they will be. And I'm sure we both know that the rest of their dung is worthless, and they will be fed far more coffee beans than they would get in the wild. Are there any oversights in place to make sure that these animals receive, for instance, the rest of the foodstuffs they need for their health? Not to mention decent treatment in general. When an animal is un-domesticable, and is a commodity at the same time, brutal treatment is the norm.

Secondly, the proceeds from these sales go, sayeth the BBC, to a cancer foundation. This is a lovely thing. I would like to ask that you think about changing the focus of the charity effort, however-- to world hunger instead. Cancer is a rich nation's problem, for the most part. When people are starving, cancer is hardly ever a significant mortality factor. And it would be beautifully poetic, for this rare third-world product to send maximum results back to the third worlds.

Respectfully-- (my real name here)

I sent this to their customer service email address. For those of you who live near enough, there are phone numbers here;

Stella,
Didn't see you post till now. I suggest complaints should be mailed to John Lewis Partnership, they own Peter Jones. They have a nice Corporate Social Responsibility complaints page via this link:
http://www.johnlewispartnership.co....6f76-47c4-9593-89079a702223&NavigationId=1290

I've mailed a similar protest.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I think my email will get there anyways, it goes to the corporate address; peter_jones at johnlewis.co.uk

I have to say, they talk a good talk!

 

[neonlyte]

I think my email will get there anyways, it goes to the corporate address; peter_jones at johnlewis.co.uk

I have to say, they talk a good talk!

They are a good company, we shop at their food stores. They might be the only Partnership company left in the West. The company is wholly owned by the employees.