What News Have You: Reviving the Coffeehouses

By Afrah Fatima

A couple of weeks ago, the topic of “coffeehouses” was being discussed in my “Libertinism in the 18th Century” class. That lecture was one of the best lectures I've ever had.

Coffeehouses emerged in England in the 1650s, with the first being established in Oxford in 1650, followed by locations in London in the next couple of years. The English were particularly influenced by the coffeehouses in the Ottoman Empire —places that promoted intellectualism and scholarship, where one could have in-depth conversations with strangers about a particular subject for hours on end. This was something England had not yet encountered, as its people were usually drunk at all times, given the lack of access to clean drinking water, which resulted in many opting for alcohol instead. The popularity of taverns and alehouses also shaped the emergence of coffeehouses, as these drinking spaces had long served as centres of social and commercial exchange—places where business deals were made and labourers were hired, giving drinking its important social aspect. Coffeehouses, however, replaced intoxication with intellectual stimulation; they offered a sober yet equally communal space for discussion and debate. The rise of temperance culture also helped in popularising coffee as a drink. 

Coffeehouses proliferated in London; they were even used as guiding maps, as street names hadn’t been introduced yet. They were popular not necessarily because coffee was an exotic drink—coffee then tasted awful—but because of the culture that emerged surrounding them. Copying Ottoman coffeehouses, they became hubs of social, political, and literary activity. In particular, they became places where people went to have social exchanges—to debate, exchange information, etc. The exchange of information was a key aspect—manuscripts, periodicals, in-house newspapers, plays, political pamphlets, etc., circulated within coffeehouses, thus making them lending libraries and ‘impromptu’ publishing houses. 

This introduction of coffeehouses was the beginning of the public sphere in England, of an open public space where discourse about politics, affairs of state, wars, etc., all took place—a place that encouraged discussion, dissection, and debate.

While social media functions as a modern-day equivalent to coffeehouses, we have lost the necessary physical and actual social aspect of connecting with people offline (I suppose networking events do try to serve such a role, but they do not allow for the same level of freedom, as people are trying to chat each other up in order to get jobs).

If one were to go now and demand news or gossip from a random person in Tim’s, they would be seen as a lunatic, and if they were unfortunate, the police could even be called. 

I believe this can, in a way, be attributed to how fast-paced our lives have become. We rely on algorithms to feed us with news and happenings in the world. Even spaces on social media have lost their intellectual zeal, with bots and trolls invading once-tolerable spaces. Personally, if I want to have a debate with someone, I’d rather appreciate it if it weren’t a bot on the other side of the pixels. 

Therefore, although online spaces function as a modern equivalent to coffeehouses, they fail to fulfil that longing for genuine connection of social and intellectual intimacy. 

A movie that I think does a good job at addressing the decline of physical intellectual spaces is From Up on Poppy Hill. In this film, Umi, Shun, and others are trying to stop “the Latin Quartet,” or as they call it, “the clubhouse,” from being demolished for the beautification project preceding the 1964 Olympics in Japan. The clubhouse, in the movie, is a place where the Konan Academy’s “clubs” reside. While the clubhouse houses various school clubs, I'm hesitant to call them only clubs since they seem to work together, effectively embodying the collective intellectual energy that once belonged to coffeehouses. 

I’d do an injustice to the movie in attempting to explain the plot here, but the main takeaway in regard to this topic is that places like the coffeehouses are important to society, and their absence in the modern day is to be lamented. In the movie, as in real life, the only people who don’t benefit from such spaces are certain capitalistic institutions.

One could argue that the disappearance of the coffeehouses has to do with censorship. Even in seventeenth-century England, people were wary of them because they allowed for a space where people could discuss anything. Charles II even released a proclamation for the closing down of coffeehouses, declaring that they were evil and dangerous and attracted idle and distracted persons. When this didn’t work out, he issued a rule that forbade ‘seditious talks’ and made it the duty of the owners of coffeehouses to report them to the government. Needless to say, this didn’t function as it was meant to. In the modern day, this history is very important, especially with online censorship and surveillance being on the rise. Physical places that encourage discussions on varied topics are needed more than ever. Certain institutions would rather have people be numb and scrolling mindlessly, preventing them from getting together to discuss politics and the like, lest they conspire to rebel against those in power. 

Notably, social media can aid rebellions and risings—Nepal’s riots were organised through Discord. So it isn’t quite as bad as I am making it out to be. However, I am a firm believer that some things shouldn’t be online and that the offline world allows for a much better intellectual flow of ideas. There is a different charm about having heated conversations in person; typing out my ideas on a screen doesn’t give me the same satisfaction.

In a way, I am going against my beliefs, if you could even call them beliefs, by writing this here. If I were true in my talk, I would’ve and should’ve gone to discuss the state of our dying world over a cup of iced coffee with the first person I came across in a café. But sadly, I am in no hurry to be forcefully removed from a public space. 

If only the intellectual culture surrounding coffeehouses could be brought back—fostering spaces where you could come across the next great writer or plot the next rebellion. Coffeehouses, bring them back! 

P.S., if someone out there is inspired by the idea and wants to make it happen, then count me in!

P.P.S., this TED talk does a really good job at explaining coffeehouses!