Starbucks, Culture, Paradigms - 1

I’m not sure if anyone saw a recent article about Starbucks new “retro” logo; it’s black and white and features a mermaid. I would link to the article, but I’m sure the link would break in a few months anyway, as usually happens with news sites. Anyway, the article was about how a Christian group was outraged at Starbucks for this. The exact quote from one such member of the San Diego based Christian group was: [the retro-logo] “has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute. Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks." I do find it interesting that the group immediately arrived at this interpretation of the image; the reasons for which are for another post and another time.

I sent the link to the article to some friends of mine, with my accompanying words to the effect of “when are Christians going to get past this stuff and start being concerned about other things.” One particular response from a friend was very interesting to me. If you’re reading this, know that I still love you as a fellow believer, but I adamantly disagree with you! The response of my friend (I’ll call him Horace to protect his identity) was something to the effect of “I hope we never get past this. Why must we always push the limits of decency? Is there no absolute standard anymore, is everything relative? We are becoming saltless (sic) salt”. I responded with thoughts around his definition of salt and light, the so-called “culture war” that I don’t believe we were ever called to initiate nor participate in, Jesus’ approach to the culture, and why he felt the need to hold Starbucks to his (and others who share his view) moral standards? There is more I could have said, especially in regards to the social and cultural construction of certain standards (i.e. what is decent in one culture is not necessary decent in another, and why should the Religious Right dictate that definition of decency and expect others to live by it??) but then I realized something…which is really why I wanted to write these posts.

I realized that engaging in dialog with Horace about this will be unfruitful, and will end up with us talking past one another. I want to talk about why I think this happens in such cases. I believe it comes down to a difference in presuppositions and paradigms (or ways of thinking and processing the world around us), and how it is difficult to have meaningful dialogs when we (Horace and I) are coming from two different paradigms. When we think about our two paradigms, it makes sense why there is a struggle for common understanding.

What are those two different paradigms??? Stay tuned.

Until then....stay clear of unexploded fireworks!