Does that make him wrong? The whole essay is not much more than extended snickering at how out of touch its subject is ("Oh my God! He's commenting on the impersonality of Starbucks! Someone check the date on his calender - what does he think this is 1996?).

I suppose one can cast Dr. Fish as an ivory tower intellectual out of touch with the "average" Americans who get their triple-venti-almond-machiatto daily at their local coffee shop, but is it really elitest to appreciate a simple cup of coffee and good service? He's got a lot more in common with the blue-collar patrons of a simple American cafe than he does with the patrons of Starbucks and similar shops.

The greatest absurdity is the attempt to cast this gentleman as an elitest vis-a-vis his relationship with the workers at his favorite cafe. I don't know about other fraysters, but I think that the treatment that Starbucks workers recieve at the hands of "democratic individualists" is much worse than what a cafe server might recieve from the likes of Dr. Fish.

If anything Dr. Fish sounds more like a befuddled anachronist than the Danish-tyrant (pun intended) that Ron Rosenbaum makes him out to be. It seems to me that this all boils down to self-congratulation on behalf of Starbucks patrons ("We're not latte-sipping elitests, we're latte sipping democratists!") couched in a criticism of the nerdy guy who doesn't have the sense to order a cup of coffee with 500 component pieces.

I'm not sure that Dr. Fish is out of touch. The problem is more like he is in touch, and hates everything he sees. I don't know about your part of the world, but where I live you can either go to a diner, be waited on and have the coffee and Danish in a leisurely fashion, or go to a Starbucks, get a regular coffee or an elaborate drink, and sit around in a leisurely fashion.

I see Dr. Fish's attitude as "being a leading academic, the world revolves around me, my tastes are vastly superior to everyone else's, and the piggish masses are just...horrible.." I can almost see the shudder as he attempts to add cream and sugar to his coffee, surrounded by the vile masses.

Oh, and the diner still makes you add your own cream and sugar to your coffee. Why do people like Fish spend so much energy raging, or at least kvetching, about new things he doesn't like?

I guess my major issue with the article is that it depicts Starbucks' long lines, absurd level of customization and cramped spaces as some kind of democratic achievement. It definitely has it's advantages. I can get my own favorite drink relatively quickly and exactly how I want it, but I don't think that Starbucks customers in general should win any awards for being especially democratic or magnanimous towards the people who serve them. Rosenbaum himself refers to Starbucks baristas as "beleagured" but he excoriates Fish for expecting his Danish and coffee in under a minute. Presumably he expects this kind of service because this is the service that the cafe provides.

Starbucks on the other hand seeks to maximize the function of its baristas within it's framework of (limited) service. The baristas do just as much as the hypothetical cafe server (if not more) but they provide less direct service and therefore we are to assume that Starbucks customers have a less elitist view towards workers in the service industry. I'm sorry it does not compute.

I winced at both Rosenbaum and Fish. I admire their works, and am confused about the particularity of their attempts at kind condescension, at satire, or cultural commentary. It was an unexpectedly tender moment when I finished both articles and thought, 'Hm. This is unpleasant.'

You made me laugh.

What makes all this so much worse is that no-one has accused Prof. Fish of what is probably his most egregious sin of all -- his complete lack of originality; paraphrasing that's sufficiently well done so he is not accused of plagiarism. Who's he paraphrasing? Of all people, Jackie Mason.

Truly, when philosophers writing for the New York Times op-ed page need to borrow ideas from a comedian, and then don't even have the decency to mention that the idea is not really their own, we have reached a sorry state of affairs.