Culture: December 2005 Archives

In Nebraska, if you want a "black coffee" you order a "regular coffee." In New York, if you order a "regular coffee" you get a "coffee with milk and sugar." In Nebraska, if you want a "coffee with milk and sugar" you say, "I want a coffee with milk and sugar." In New York, if you want a "black coffee" you say, "I want a black coffee." This crisis in coffee culture affected a young Nebraska actress so much she left New York after a year and found success on a Los Angeles-based Soap Opera where she could order a "regular coffee" and get what she wanted.

In the graduate school class I teach, I open the semester examining moral homilies -- stories that are used to manipulate behavior in childhood for the greater good of society -- and, I ask my students, why are most of those homilies rooted in religion and culture instead of the law or the economy and what were the moral homilies that formed you growing up?