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Cool (aesthetic)
Encyclopedia
Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist
. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of composure and self-control (cf. the OED
definition) and often is used as an expression of admiration or approval. Although commonly regarded as slang
, it is widely used among disparate social groups, and has endured in usage for generations.
There is no single concept of cool. One of the essential characteristics of cool is its mutability—what is considered cool changes over time and varies among cultures and generations.
Nick Southgate writes that, although some notions of cool can be traced back to Aristotle
, whose notion of cool is to be found in his ethical writings, most particularly the Nicomachean Ethics
, it is not confined to one particular ethnic group or gender.
Although there is no single concept of cool, its definitions fall into a few broad categories.
al characteristics that is firmly anchored in symbology
, a set of discernible bodily movements
, postures
, facial expression
s and voice
modulations that are acquired and take on strategic social value within the peer context.
Cool was once an attitude fostered by rebels and underdogs, such as slaves, prisoners, bikers and political dissents, etc., for whom open rebellion invited punishment, so it hid defiance behind a wall of ironic detachment, distancing itself from the source of authority rather than directly confronting it.
Cool can similarly be used to describe composure and absence of excitement in a person—especially in times of stress—as expressed in the idiom
to keep your cool.
In a related way, the word can be used to express agreement or assent, as in the phrase "I'm cool with that".
. Sought by product marketing firms, idealized by teenagers, a shield against racial oppression or political persecution and source of constant cultural innovation, cool has become a global phenomenon that has spread to every corner of the earth. According to Dick Pountain and David Robins, concepts of cool have existed for centuries in several cultures.
terms are usually short-lived coinages and figures of speech, cool is an especially ubiquitous slang word, most notably among young people. As well as being understood throughout the English-speaking world, the word has even entered the vocabulary of several languages other than English.
In this sense, cool is used as a general positive epithet
or interjection, which can have a range of related adjectival meanings.
Author Robert Farris Thompson
, professor of art history
at Yale University
, suggests that Itutu
, which he translates as 'mystic coolness,' is one of three pillars of a religious philosophy created in the 15th century by Yoruba
and Igbo
civilizations of West Africa. Cool, or Itutu, contained meanings of conciliation and gentleness of character, of generosity and grace, and the ability to defuse fights and disputes. It also was associated with physical beauty. In Yoruba culture, Itutu is connected to water, because to the Yoruba the concept of coolness retained its physical connotation of temperature. He cites a definition of cool from the Gola
people of Liberia
, who define it as the ability to be mentally calm or detached, in an other-worldly fashion, from one's circumstances, to be nonchalant in situations where emotionalism or eagerness would be natural and expected. Joseph M. Murphy writes that "cool" is also closely associated with the deity Òsun
of the Yoruba religion.
Although Thompson acknowledges similarities between African and European cool in shared notions of self-control and imperturbability, he finds the cultural value of cool in Africa which influenced the African diaspora
to be different from that held by Europeans, who use the term primarily as the ability to remain calm under stress. According to Thompson, there is significant weight, meaning and spirituality attached to cool in traditional African cultures, something which, Thompson argues, is absent from the idea in a Western context.
"Control, stability, and composure under the African rubric of the cool seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic attitude." African cool, writes Thompson, is "more complicated and more variously expressed than Western notions of sang-froid (literally, "cold blood"), cooling off, or even icy determination." (Thompson, African Arts)
into Standard English slang including the contemporary meaning of the word "cool." The definition, as something fashionable, is said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young
. This predominantly black
jazz scene in the U.S. and among expatriate musicians in Paris
helped popularize notions of cool in the U.S. in the 1940s, giving birth to "Bohemian", or beatnik
, culture. Shortly thereafter, a style of jazz called cool jazz
appeared on the music scene, emphasizing a restrained, laid-back solo style. Notions of cool as an expression of centeredness in a Tao
ist sense, equilibrium and self-possession, of an absence of conflict are commonly understood in both African and African American contexts well. Expressions such as, "Don't let it blow your cool," later, chill out, and the use of chill as a characterization of inner contentment or restful repose all have their origins in African American Vernacular English
.
Marlene Kim Connor connects cool and the post-war African-American experience in her book What is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America. Connor writes that cool is the silent and knowing rejection of racist oppression, a self-dignified expression of masculinity developed by black men denied mainstream expressions of manhood. She writes that mainstream perception of cool is narrow and distorted, with cool often perceived merely as style or arrogance, rather than a way to achieve respect.
Designer Christian Lacroix
has said that "...the history of cool in America is the history of African-American culture".
'Cool', though an amorphous quality—more mystique than material—is a pervasive element in urban black male culture. Majors and Billson address what they term "cool pose" in their study and argue that it helps Black men counter stress caused by social oppression, rejection and racism
. They also contend that it furnishes the black male with a sense of control, strength, confidence and stability and helps him deal with the closed doors and negative messages of the "generalized other." They also believe that attaining black manhood is filled with pitfalls of discrimination, negative self-image, guilt, shame and fear.
"Cool pose" may be a factor in discrimination in education contributing to the achievement gaps in test scores. In a 2004 study, researchers found that teachers perceived students with African American culture-related movement styles, referred to as the "cool pose," as lower in achievement, higher in aggression, and more likely to need special education services than students with standard movement styles, irrespective of race or other academic indicators. The issue of stereotyping and discrimination with respect to "cool pose" raises complex questions of assimilation
and accommodation of different cultural values. Jason W. Osborne identifies "cool pose" as one of the factors in black underachievement. Robin D. G. Kelley criticizes calls for assimilation and sublimation of black culture, including "cool pose." He argues that media and academics have unfairly demonized these aspects of black culture while, at the same time, through their sustained fascination with blacks as exotic others, appropriated aspects of "cool pose" into the broader popular culture.
George Elliott Clarke
writes that Malcolm X
, like Miles Davis
, embodies essential elements of cool. As an icon, Malcolm X inspires a complex mixture of both fear and fascination in broader American culture, much like "cool pose" itself.
and sui. These are traditional commoners' aesthetic ideals that developed in Edo. Some tend to immediately connect the aesthetics of Japan to samurai, but this is historically inaccurate. In fact, samurais from the countryside have often been the target of ridicule by the commoner in the civilized Edo in many art forms including rakugo
, a form of comical story telling.
Some argue that the ethic of the Samurai
caste in Japan
, warrior castes in India and East Asia all resemble cool. The samurai-themed works of film director Akira Kurosawa
are among the most praised of the genre, influencing many filmmakers across the world with his techniques and storytelling. Notable works of his include The Seven Samurai
, Yojimbo, and The Hidden Fortress
. The latter was one of the primary inspirations for George Lucas
's Star Wars
, which also borrows a number of aspects from the samurai, for example the Jedi Knights
of the series. Samurai have been presented as cool in many modern Japanese movies such as Samurai Fiction
, Kagemusha
, and Yojimbo, which was appropriated in American movies such as Ghost Dog and The Last Samurai
In The Art of War
, a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC, general Sun Tzu
, a member of the landless Chinese aristocracy, wrote in Chapter XII:
Asian countries have developed a tradition on their own to explore types of modern 'cool' or 'ambiguous' aesthetics
.
In a Time Asia article "The Birth of Cool" author Hannah Beech
describes Asian cool as "a revolution in taste led by style gurus who are redefining Chinese craftsmanship in everything from architecture and film to clothing and cuisine" and as a modern aesthetic inspired both by a Ming-era minimalism and a strenuous attention to detail.
Paul Waley
, professor of Human Geography at the University of Leeds, considers Tokyo
along with New York, London and Paris to be one of the world's "capitals of cool" and the Washington Post called Tokyo "Japan's Empire of Cool" and Japan "the coolest nation on Earth".
The term "gross national cool" was coined by Journalist Douglas McGray. In a June/July 2002 article in Foreign Policy
magazine, he argued that as Japan's economic juggernaut took a wrong turn into a ten-year slump, and with military power made impossible by a pacifist constitution, the nation had quietly emerged as a cultural powerhouse: "From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence now than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower." The notion of Asian 'cool' applied to Asian consumer electronics
is borrowed from the cultural media theorist Eric McLuhan
who described 'cool' or 'cold' media as stimulating participants to complete auditive or visual media content, in sharp contrast to 'hot' media that degrades the viewer to a merely passive or non-interactive receiver.
, has existed in Europe for centuries, particularly when relating to frank amorality and love or illicit pleasures behind closed doors; Raphael’s "Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione
" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" are classic examples of sprezzatura. The sprezzatura of the Mona Lisa is seen in both her smile and the positioning of her hands. Both the smile and hands are intended to convey her grandeur, self-confidence and societal position. Sprezzatura means, literally, disdain and detachment. It is the art of refraining from the appearance of trying to present oneself in a particular way. In reality, of course, tremendous exertion went into pretending not to bother or care.
English poet and playwright William Shakespeare
used cool in several of his works to describe composure and absence of emotion. In A Midsummer Night's Dream
, written sometime in the late-16th century, he contrasts the shaping fantasies of lovers and madmen with "cool reason," in Hamlet
he wrote "O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience," and the antagonist Iago in Othello
is musing about "reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."
The cool "Anatolian smile" of Turkey
is used to mask emotions. A similar "mask" of coolness is worn in both times of stress and pleasure in American and African communities.
ists, such as key Dada figures Arthur Cravan
and Marcel Duchamp
, and the left-wing milieu of the Weimar Republic
. The program of such groups was often self-consciously revolutionary, a determination to scandalize the bourgeoisie by mocking their culture, sexuality and political moderation.
Berthold Brecht, both a committed Communist and a philandering cynic, stands as the archetype of this inter-war cool. Brecht projected his cool attitude to life onto his most famous character Macheath or "Mackie Messer" (Mack the knife), in The Threepenny Opera
. Mackie, the nonchalant, smooth-talking gangster, expert with the switchblade, personifies the bitter-sweet strain of cool; Puritanism and sentimentality are both anathema to the cool character.
During the turbulent inter-war years, cool was a privilege reserved for bohemian milieus like Brecht's. Cool irony and hedonism remained the province of cabaret artistes, ostentatious gangsters and rich socialites, those decadents depicted in Evelyn Waugh
's Brideshead Revisited
and Christopher Isherwood
's Goodbye to Berlin
, tracing the outlines of a new cool. Peter Stearns
, professor of history at George Mason University
, suggests that in effect the seeds of a cool outlook had been sown among this inter-war generation.
To be cool or hip meant hanging out, pursuing sexual liaisons, displaying the appropriate attitude of narcissistic self-absorption, and expressing a desire to escape the mental straitjacket of all ideological causes. From the late 1940s onward, this popular culture influenced young people all over the world, to the great dismay of the paternalistic elites who still ruled the official culture. The French intelligentsia were outraged, while the British educated classes displayed a haughty indifference that smacked of an older aristocratic cool.
Arriving in Poland via France, America and England, Polish cool stimulated the film talents of a generation of artists, including Andrzej Wajda
, Roman Polanski
, and other graduates of the National Film School in Łódź, as well as the novelist Jerzy Kosinski
, in whose clinical prose cool tends towards the sadistic.
In Prague
, the capital of Bohemia, cool flourished in the faded Art Deco
splendor of the Cafe Slavia. Significantly, following the crushing of the Prague Spring
by Soviet tanks in 1968, part of the dissident underground called itself the "Jazz Section".
, cool is created out of a need for status and distinction. This creates a situation analogous to an arms race
, in which cool is perpetuated by a collective action
problem in society.
article, "The Coolhunt", cool is given three characteristics:
A piece of Simpsons dialogue (from the episode "Homerpalooza
") embodies this dilemma:
The concept of cool was used in this way to market menthol cigarette
s to African Americans in the 1960s. In 2004 over 70% of African American smokers preferred menthol cigarettes, compared with 30% of white smokers. This unique social phenomenon was principally occasioned by the tobacco industry's manipulation of the burgeoning black, urban, segregated, consumer market in cities at that time. According to Fast Company
some large companies have started 'outsourcing
cool.' They are paying other "smaller, more-limber, closer-to-the-ground outsider" companies to help them keep up with customers' rapidly changing tastes and demands.
Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist is "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.The...
. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of composure and self-control (cf. the OED
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
definition) and often is used as an expression of admiration or approval. Although commonly regarded as slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
, it is widely used among disparate social groups, and has endured in usage for generations.
Overview
Nick Southgate writes that, although some notions of cool can be traced back to Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, whose notion of cool is to be found in his ethical writings, most particularly the Nicomachean Ethics
Nicomachean Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's best known work on ethics. The English version of the title derives from Greek Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, transliterated Ethika Nikomacheia, which is sometimes also given in the genitive form as Ἠθικῶν Νικομαχείων, Ethikōn Nikomacheiōn...
, it is not confined to one particular ethnic group or gender.
Although there is no single concept of cool, its definitions fall into a few broad categories.
Cool as a behavioral characteristic
The sum and substance of cool is a self-conscious aplomb in overall behavior, which entails a set of specific behaviorBehavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
al characteristics that is firmly anchored in symbology
Symbology
Symbology concerns the study of symbols.Symbology may also refer to:-Academics:* Semiotics, study of signs and symbols* Iconography, branch of art history which studies images...
, a set of discernible bodily movements
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....
, postures
Human position
Human positions refers to the different positions that the human body can take.There are several synonyms that refer to the human position, often used interchangeably, but having specific flavors....
, facial expression
Facial expression
A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...
s and voice
Voice
Voice may refer to:* Human voice* Voice control or voice activation* Writer's voice* Voice acting* Voice vote* Voice message-In film:* Voice , a 2005 South Korean film* The Voice , a 2010 Turkish horror film directed by Ümit Ünal...
modulations that are acquired and take on strategic social value within the peer context.
Cool was once an attitude fostered by rebels and underdogs, such as slaves, prisoners, bikers and political dissents, etc., for whom open rebellion invited punishment, so it hid defiance behind a wall of ironic detachment, distancing itself from the source of authority rather than directly confronting it.
Cool as a state of being
Cool has been used to describe a general state of well-being, a transcendent, internal peace and serenity. It can also refer to an absence of conflict, a state of harmony and balance as in, "The land is cool," or as in a "cool [spiritual] heart." Such meanings, according to Thompson, are African in origin. Cool is related in this sense to both social control and transcendental balance.Cool can similarly be used to describe composure and absence of excitement in a person—especially in times of stress—as expressed in the idiom
Idiom
Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...
to keep your cool.
In a related way, the word can be used to express agreement or assent, as in the phrase "I'm cool with that".
Cool as aesthetic appeal
Cool is also an attitude widely adopted by artists and intellectuals, who thereby aided its infiltration into popular culturePopular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. Sought by product marketing firms, idealized by teenagers, a shield against racial oppression or political persecution and source of constant cultural innovation, cool has become a global phenomenon that has spread to every corner of the earth. According to Dick Pountain and David Robins, concepts of cool have existed for centuries in several cultures.
Cool as an epithet
While slangSlang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
terms are usually short-lived coinages and figures of speech, cool is an especially ubiquitous slang word, most notably among young people. As well as being understood throughout the English-speaking world, the word has even entered the vocabulary of several languages other than English.
In this sense, cool is used as a general positive epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
or interjection, which can have a range of related adjectival meanings.
Africa and the African diaspora
Robert Farris Thompson
Robert Farris Thompson is the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art at Yale University....
, professor of art history
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, suggests that Itutu
Itutu
Itutu, which literally translates as "cool" from the Yoruba language, has been used by the Yoruba and more recently by Africanist art historians to describe the aesthetic that characterizes much Yoruba and some African-American art. An "Itutu" aesthetic includes the appearance of a calm, collected...
, which he translates as 'mystic coolness,' is one of three pillars of a religious philosophy created in the 15th century by Yoruba
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...
and Igbo
Igbo people
Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo, Ebo, Eboans or Heebo are an ethnic group living chiefly in southeastern Nigeria. They speak Igbo, which includes various Igboid languages and dialects; today, a majority of them speak English alongside Igbo as a result of British colonialism...
civilizations of West Africa. Cool, or Itutu, contained meanings of conciliation and gentleness of character, of generosity and grace, and the ability to defuse fights and disputes. It also was associated with physical beauty. In Yoruba culture, Itutu is connected to water, because to the Yoruba the concept of coolness retained its physical connotation of temperature. He cites a definition of cool from the Gola
Gola (ethnic group)
The Gola or Gula are a tribal people living in western Liberia. The Gola language is part of the Southern branch of the West Atlantic language family; , it is spoken by approximately 107,000 people....
people of Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
, who define it as the ability to be mentally calm or detached, in an other-worldly fashion, from one's circumstances, to be nonchalant in situations where emotionalism or eagerness would be natural and expected. Joseph M. Murphy writes that "cool" is also closely associated with the deity Òsun
Oshun
Oshun, or Ochun in the Yoruba religion, is an Orisha who reigns over love, intimacy, beauty, wealth and diplomacy. She is worshipped also in Brazilian Candomblé Ketu, with the name spelled Oxum. She should not be confused, however, with a different Orisha of a similar name spelled "Osun," who is...
of the Yoruba religion.
Although Thompson acknowledges similarities between African and European cool in shared notions of self-control and imperturbability, he finds the cultural value of cool in Africa which influenced the African diaspora
African diaspora
The African diaspora was the movement of Africans and their descendants to places throughout the world—predominantly to the Americas also to Europe, the Middle East and other places around the globe...
to be different from that held by Europeans, who use the term primarily as the ability to remain calm under stress. According to Thompson, there is significant weight, meaning and spirituality attached to cool in traditional African cultures, something which, Thompson argues, is absent from the idea in a Western context.
"Control, stability, and composure under the African rubric of the cool seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic attitude." African cool, writes Thompson, is "more complicated and more variously expressed than Western notions of sang-froid (literally, "cold blood"), cooling off, or even icy determination." (Thompson, African Arts)
The telling point is that the "mask" of coolness is worn not only in time of stress, but also of pleasure, in fields of expressive performance and the dance. Struck by the re-occurrence of this vital notion elsewhere in tropical Africa and in the Black Americas, I have come to term the attitude "an aesthetic of the cool" in the sense of a deeply and completely motivated, consciously artistic, interweaving of elements serious and pleasurable, of responsibility and play.
African Americans
Ronald Perry writes that many words and expressions have passed from African American Vernacular EnglishAfrican American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
into Standard English slang including the contemporary meaning of the word "cool." The definition, as something fashionable, is said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
. This predominantly black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
jazz scene in the U.S. and among expatriate musicians in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
helped popularize notions of cool in the U.S. in the 1940s, giving birth to "Bohemian", or beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
, culture. Shortly thereafter, a style of jazz called cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
appeared on the music scene, emphasizing a restrained, laid-back solo style. Notions of cool as an expression of centeredness in a Tao
Tao
Dao or Tao is a Chinese word meaning 'way', 'path', 'route', or sometimes more loosely, 'doctrine' or 'principle'...
ist sense, equilibrium and self-possession, of an absence of conflict are commonly understood in both African and African American contexts well. Expressions such as, "Don't let it blow your cool," later, chill out, and the use of chill as a characterization of inner contentment or restful repose all have their origins in African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
.
When the air in the smoke-filled nightclubs of that era became unbreathable, windows and doors were opened to allow some "cool air" in from the outside to help clear away the suffocating air. By analogy, the slow and smooth jazz style that was typical for that late-night scene came to be called "cool".
Marlene Kim Connor connects cool and the post-war African-American experience in her book What is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America. Connor writes that cool is the silent and knowing rejection of racist oppression, a self-dignified expression of masculinity developed by black men denied mainstream expressions of manhood. She writes that mainstream perception of cool is narrow and distorted, with cool often perceived merely as style or arrogance, rather than a way to achieve respect.
Designer Christian Lacroix
Christian Lacroix
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded.-Early life:Lacroix was born in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France. At a young age he began sketching historical costumes and fashions. Lacroix graduated from high school in 1969...
has said that "...the history of cool in America is the history of African-American culture".
Cool pose
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. They also contend that it furnishes the black male with a sense of control, strength, confidence and stability and helps him deal with the closed doors and negative messages of the "generalized other." They also believe that attaining black manhood is filled with pitfalls of discrimination, negative self-image, guilt, shame and fear.
"Cool pose" may be a factor in discrimination in education contributing to the achievement gaps in test scores. In a 2004 study, researchers found that teachers perceived students with African American culture-related movement styles, referred to as the "cool pose," as lower in achievement, higher in aggression, and more likely to need special education services than students with standard movement styles, irrespective of race or other academic indicators. The issue of stereotyping and discrimination with respect to "cool pose" raises complex questions of assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
and accommodation of different cultural values. Jason W. Osborne identifies "cool pose" as one of the factors in black underachievement. Robin D. G. Kelley criticizes calls for assimilation and sublimation of black culture, including "cool pose." He argues that media and academics have unfairly demonized these aspects of black culture while, at the same time, through their sustained fascination with blacks as exotic others, appropriated aspects of "cool pose" into the broader popular culture.
George Elliott Clarke
George Elliott Clarke
George Elliott Clarke, OC is a Canadian poet and playwright. His work largely explores and chronicles the experience and history of the Black Canadian community of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that Clarke refers to as "Africadia".-Life:Born to William and Geraldine...
writes that Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
, like Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, embodies essential elements of cool. As an icon, Malcolm X inspires a complex mixture of both fear and fascination in broader American culture, much like "cool pose" itself.
East Asia
In Japan, synonyms of "cool" could be ikiIki (aesthetic ideal)
Iki is a traditional aesthetic ideal of human behavior or volition in Japan, roughly "chic, stylish". The basis of iki is thought to have formed among urbane commoners in Edo in the Tokugawa period...
and sui. These are traditional commoners' aesthetic ideals that developed in Edo. Some tend to immediately connect the aesthetics of Japan to samurai, but this is historically inaccurate. In fact, samurais from the countryside have often been the target of ridicule by the commoner in the civilized Edo in many art forms including rakugo
Rakugo
is a Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone sits on the stage, called the . Using only a paper fan and a small cloth as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long and complicated comical story...
, a form of comical story telling.
Some argue that the ethic of the Samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
caste in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, warrior castes in India and East Asia all resemble cool. The samurai-themed works of film director Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa
was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...
are among the most praised of the genre, influencing many filmmakers across the world with his techniques and storytelling. Notable works of his include The Seven Samurai
The Seven Samurai
is a 1954 Japanese adventure drama film co-written, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film takes place in 1587 during the Warring States Period of Japan...
, Yojimbo, and The Hidden Fortress
The Hidden Fortress
is a 1958 jidai-geki film directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshirō Mifune as General and Misa Uehara as Princess Yuki. A literal translation of the Japanese title is The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress.-Plot:...
. The latter was one of the primary inspirations for George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
's Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, which also borrows a number of aspects from the samurai, for example the Jedi Knights
Jedi
The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series's main protagonists. The Jedi use a power called the Force and weapons called lightsabers, which emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, in order to serve and protect the Republic and the galaxy at large from conflict...
of the series. Samurai have been presented as cool in many modern Japanese movies such as Samurai Fiction
Samurai Fiction
is a 1998 comedy-samurai film directed by Hiroyuki Nakano. It is almost entirely black-and-white, and follows a fairly standard plotline for a comedy and jidaigeki samurai film, but the presence of Tomoyasu Hotei's rock-and-roll soundtrack separates it from the films it was inspired by, such as the...
, Kagemusha
Kagemusha
is a 1980 film by Akira Kurosawa. The title is a term used for an impersonator. It is set in the Warring States era of Japanese history and tells the story of a lower-class criminal who is taught to impersonate a dying warlord in order to dissuade opposing lords from attacking the newly vulnerable...
, and Yojimbo, which was appropriated in American movies such as Ghost Dog and The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai
The Last Samurai is a 2003 American epic drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay based on a story by John Logan. The film was inspired by a project developed by writer and director Vincent Ward, who had previously filmed the movie in 1990, starring...
In The Art of War
The Art of War
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise that is attributed to Sun Tzu , a high ranking military general and strategist during the late Spring and Autumn period...
, a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC, general Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu
Sun Wu , style name Changqing , better known as Sun Tzu or Sunzi , was an ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher who is traditionally believed, and who is most likely, to have authored The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy...
, a member of the landless Chinese aristocracy, wrote in Chapter XII:
Profiting by their panic, we shall exterminate them completely; this will cool the King's courage and cover us with glory, besides ensuring the success of our mission.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
.
In a Time Asia article "The Birth of Cool" author Hannah Beech
Hannah Beech
Hannah Beech is a journalist for TIME Magazine. She specializes in Asia, and is sometimes credited as TIME's Southeast Asia bureau chief....
describes Asian cool as "a revolution in taste led by style gurus who are redefining Chinese craftsmanship in everything from architecture and film to clothing and cuisine" and as a modern aesthetic inspired both by a Ming-era minimalism and a strenuous attention to detail.
Paul Waley
Paul Waley
Paul Waley is a professor of Human Geography at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. Grand nephew of the famous scholar Arthur Waley, the younger Waley is also a noted scholar and author and specializes in Japan.-Career:...
, professor of Human Geography at the University of Leeds, considers Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
along with New York, London and Paris to be one of the world's "capitals of cool" and the Washington Post called Tokyo "Japan's Empire of Cool" and Japan "the coolest nation on Earth".
Analysts are marveling at the breadth of a recent explosion in cultural exports, and many argue that the international embrace of Japan's pop culture, film, food, style and arts is second only to that of the United States. Business leaders and government officials are now referring to Japan's "gross national cool" as a new engine for economic growth and societal buoyancy.
The term "gross national cool" was coined by Journalist Douglas McGray. In a June/July 2002 article in Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970 by Samuel P. Huntington and Warren Demian Manshel.Originally, the magazine was a quarterly...
magazine, he argued that as Japan's economic juggernaut took a wrong turn into a ten-year slump, and with military power made impossible by a pacifist constitution, the nation had quietly emerged as a cultural powerhouse: "From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and food to art, Japan has far greater cultural influence now than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic superpower." The notion of Asian 'cool' applied to Asian consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
is borrowed from the cultural media theorist Eric McLuhan
Eric McLuhan
Eric McLuhan is the son of well-known media theorist Marshall McLuhan and co-authored with him the books The Laws of Media and Media and Formal Cause....
who described 'cool' or 'cold' media as stimulating participants to complete auditive or visual media content, in sharp contrast to 'hot' media that degrades the viewer to a merely passive or non-interactive receiver.
Aristocratic and artistic cool
"Aristocratic cool", known as sprezzaturaSprezzatura
Sprezzatura is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” It is...
, has existed in Europe for centuries, particularly when relating to frank amorality and love or illicit pleasures behind closed doors; Raphael’s "Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione
Baldassare Castiglione
Baldassare Castiglione, count of was an Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and a prominent Renaissance author.-Biography:Castiglione was born into an illustrious Lombard family at Casatico, near Mantua, where his family had constructed an impressive palazzo...
" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" are classic examples of sprezzatura. The sprezzatura of the Mona Lisa is seen in both her smile and the positioning of her hands. Both the smile and hands are intended to convey her grandeur, self-confidence and societal position. Sprezzatura means, literally, disdain and detachment. It is the art of refraining from the appearance of trying to present oneself in a particular way. In reality, of course, tremendous exertion went into pretending not to bother or care.
English poet and playwright William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
used cool in several of his works to describe composure and absence of emotion. In A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
, written sometime in the late-16th century, he contrasts the shaping fantasies of lovers and madmen with "cool reason," in Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
he wrote "O gentle son, upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience," and the antagonist Iago in Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
is musing about "reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."
The cool "Anatolian smile" of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
is used to mask emotions. A similar "mask" of coolness is worn in both times of stress and pleasure in American and African communities.
European inter-war cool
The key themes of modern European cool were forged by avant-garde artists who achieved prominence in the aftermath of the First World War, most notably DadaDada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
ists, such as key Dada figures Arthur Cravan
Arthur Cravan
Arthur Cravan was known as a pugilist, a poet, a larger-than-life character, and an idol of the Dada and Surrealism movements. He was the second son of Otho Holland Lloyd and Hélène Clara St. Clair of Armenian desent. His brother, Otho, was born in 1885...
and Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...
, and the left-wing milieu of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
. The program of such groups was often self-consciously revolutionary, a determination to scandalize the bourgeoisie by mocking their culture, sexuality and political moderation.
Berthold Brecht, both a committed Communist and a philandering cynic, stands as the archetype of this inter-war cool. Brecht projected his cool attitude to life onto his most famous character Macheath or "Mackie Messer" (Mack the knife), in The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
. Mackie, the nonchalant, smooth-talking gangster, expert with the switchblade, personifies the bitter-sweet strain of cool; Puritanism and sentimentality are both anathema to the cool character.
During the turbulent inter-war years, cool was a privilege reserved for bohemian milieus like Brecht's. Cool irony and hedonism remained the province of cabaret artistes, ostentatious gangsters and rich socialites, those decadents depicted in Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
and Christopher Isherwood
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
's Goodbye to Berlin
Goodbye to Berlin
Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 short novel by Christopher Isherwood set in pre-Nazi Germany. It is often published together with Mr Norris Changes Trains in a collection called The Berlin Stories.-Details:...
, tracing the outlines of a new cool. Peter Stearns
Peter Stearns
Peter N. Stearns is a professor at George Mason University, where he is provost with almost forty years of experience as a teacher and administrator. Stearns was Chair of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University and also served as the Dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and...
, professor of history at George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, suggests that in effect the seeds of a cool outlook had been sown among this inter-war generation.
Postwar cool
The Second World War brought the populations of Britain, Germany and France into intimate contact with Americans and American culture. The war brought hundreds of thousands of GIs whose relaxed, easy-going manner was seen by young people of the time as the very embodiment of liberation; and with them came Lucky Strikes, nylons, swing and jazz—the American Cool.To be cool or hip meant hanging out, pursuing sexual liaisons, displaying the appropriate attitude of narcissistic self-absorption, and expressing a desire to escape the mental straitjacket of all ideological causes. From the late 1940s onward, this popular culture influenced young people all over the world, to the great dismay of the paternalistic elites who still ruled the official culture. The French intelligentsia were outraged, while the British educated classes displayed a haughty indifference that smacked of an older aristocratic cool.
The Polish cool
The new attitude found a special resonance behind the Iron Curtain, where it offered relief from the earnestness of socialist propaganda and socialist realism in art. In the Polish industrial city Łódź, jazz, "the forbidden music", served Polish youth of the 1950s much as it had served its African-American creators, both as personal diversion and subterranean resistance to what they saw as a stultifying official culture. Some clubs featured live jazz performances, and their smoky, sexually charged atmosphere carried a message for which the puritanical values and monumental art of Marxist officialdom were an ideal foil.Arriving in Poland via France, America and England, Polish cool stimulated the film talents of a generation of artists, including Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda is a Polish film director. Recipient of an honorary Oscar, he is possibly the most prominent member of the unofficial "Polish Film School"...
, Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
, and other graduates of the National Film School in Łódź, as well as the novelist Jerzy Kosinski
Jerzy Kosinski
Jerzy Kosiński , born Józef Lewinkopf, was an award-winning Polish American novelist, and two-time President of the American Chapter of P.E.N.He was known for various novels, among them The Painted Bird and Being There...
, in whose clinical prose cool tends towards the sadistic.
In Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, the capital of Bohemia, cool flourished in the faded Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
splendor of the Cafe Slavia. Significantly, following the crushing of the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
by Soviet tanks in 1968, part of the dissident underground called itself the "Jazz Section".
Cool as social distinction
According to this theory, cool is a zero sum game, in which cool exists only in comparison with things considered less cool; for example, in the book The Rebel SellThe Rebel Sell
The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed is a non-fiction book written by Canadian authors Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter in 2004...
, cool is created out of a need for status and distinction. This creates a situation analogous to an arms race
Arms race
The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...
, in which cool is perpetuated by a collective action
Collective action
Collective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences.-In sociology:...
problem in society.
Cool as an elusive essence
According to this theory, cool is a real, but unknowable property. Cool, like "Good", is a property that exists, but can only be sought after. In the New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
article, "The Coolhunt", cool is given three characteristics:
- "The act of discovering what's cool is what causes cool to move on"
- "Cool cannot be manufactured, only observed"
- "[Cool] can only be observed by those who are themselves cool".
A piece of Simpsons dialogue (from the episode "Homerpalooza
Homerpalooza
"Homerpalooza" is the 24th episode of The Simpsons seventh season and originally aired on May 19, 1996. The plot focuses around Homer's depression about aging and no longer being cool, and his quest to become cool again by joining the "Hullabalooza" music festival as a carnival freak. The episode...
") embodies this dilemma:
Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important
than being cool.
Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square".
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring,
right?
Bart+Lisa: No.
Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried
everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to
be told you're cool.
Bart: Well, sure you do.
Lisa: How else would you know?
(The song referred to is "Hip to Be SquareHip to Be Square"Hip to Be Square" is a song by Huey Lewis and the News, written by Bill Gibson, Sean Hopper, and Huey Lewis, and released in 1986 as the second single from the multi-platinum album, Fore!. The song features Pro Football Hall of Famers and then-San Francisco 49ers Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott...
" by Huey Lewis and the NewsHuey Lewis and the NewsHuey Lewis and the News is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually scoring a total of 19 top-ten singles across the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Contemporary and Mainstream Rock charts...
.)
Cool as a marketing device
According to this theory, cool can be exploited as a manufactured and empty idea imposed on the culture at large through a top-down process by the "Merchants of Cool". An artificial cycle of "cooling" and "uncooling" creates false needs in consumers, and stimulates the economy. "Cool has become the central ideology of consumer capitalism". Supporters of this theory avoid the pursuit of cool.The concept of cool was used in this way to market menthol cigarette
Menthol cigarette
A menthol cigarette is a cigarette flavored with the compound menthol, a substance which triggers the cold-sensitive nerves in the skin without actually providing a drop in temperature....
s to African Americans in the 1960s. In 2004 over 70% of African American smokers preferred menthol cigarettes, compared with 30% of white smokers. This unique social phenomenon was principally occasioned by the tobacco industry's manipulation of the burgeoning black, urban, segregated, consumer market in cities at that time. According to Fast Company
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
some large companies have started 'outsourcing
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is the process of contracting a business function to someone else.-Overview:The term outsourcing is used inconsistently but usually involves the contracting out of a business function - commonly one previously performed in-house - to an external provider...
cool.' They are paying other "smaller, more-limber, closer-to-the-ground outsider" companies to help them keep up with customers' rapidly changing tastes and demands.
Cool defined
- "Cool is a knowledge, a way of life." – Lewis MacAdamsLewis MacAdamsLewis MacAdams is an American poet, journalist, political activist, and filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles, California.-Life and work:...
- "Cool is an age-specific phenomenon, defined as the central behavioural trait of teenagerhood."
- "Coolness is the proper way you represent yourself to a human being." – Robert Farris Thompson
- In the novel Spook CountrySpook CountrySpook Country is a 2007 novel by speculative fiction author William Gibson. A political thriller set in contemporary North America, it followed on from the author's previous novel, Pattern Recognition , and was succeeded in 2010 by Zero History, which featured much of its core cast of characters...
by William GibsonWilliam GibsonWilliam Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
one character equates cool with a sense of exclusivity: "Secrets," said the Bigend beside her, "are the very root of cool." - In the novel Lords and LadiesLords and Ladies (novel)Lords and Ladies is the fourteenth Discworld book by Terry Pratchett. It was originally published in 1992.-Synopsis:At the end of Witches Abroad, Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax left Genua bound for home, in Lancre...
by Terry PratchettTerry PratchettSir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
the Monks of Cool are mentioned. In their passing-out test a novice must select the coolest garment from a room full of clothes. The correct answer is "Hey, whatever I select", suggesting that cool is primarily an attitude of self-assurance.
See also
- African aestheticAfrican aestheticWhile the African continent is vast and its peoples diverse, certain standards of beauty and correctness in artistic expression and physical appearance are held in common among various African societies....
- Avant-gardeAvant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
- Cool BritanniaCool BritanniaCool Britannia is a media term that was used during the late 20th century to describe the contemporary culture of the United Kingdom. The term was prevalent during the 1990s and later became closely associated with the early years of "New Labour" under Tony Blair...
- Cool jazzCool jazzCool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
- ItutuItutuItutu, which literally translates as "cool" from the Yoruba language, has been used by the Yoruba and more recently by Africanist art historians to describe the aesthetic that characterizes much Yoruba and some African-American art. An "Itutu" aesthetic includes the appearance of a calm, collected...
- SprezzaturaSprezzaturaSprezzatura is an Italian word originating from Baldassare Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as “a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” It is...
- Square (slang)Square (slang)Square used as slang may mean many things when referring to a person or in common language.In referring to a person, the word originally meant someone who was honest, traditional and loyal. An agreement that is equitable on all sides is a "square deal"...
- FadFADIn biochemistry, flavin adenine dinucleotide is a redox cofactor involved in several important reactions in metabolism. FAD can exist in two different redox states, which it converts between by accepting or donating electrons. The molecule consists of a riboflavin moiety bound to the phosphate...
Further reading
- Alan Liu (2004). The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
- Lewis MacAdamsLewis MacAdamsLewis MacAdams is an American poet, journalist, political activist, and filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles, California.-Life and work:...
(2001). Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant-Garde. New York: The Free PressFree Press (publisher)Free Press is a book publishing imprint of Simon and Schuster. It was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan and Charles Liebman in 1947 and was devoted to sociology and religion titles. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe...
. - Ted GioiaTed GioiaTed Gioia is a noted jazz critic and music historian, best known for his books The History of Jazz and Delta Blues, both selected as notable books of the year by The New York Times. He is one of the editors in chief of the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. He is also a jazz musician and one of the...
(2009). The Birth (and Death) of the Cool. Speck Press. - Dick Pountain and David Robins (2000). Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude. Reaktion BooksReaktion BooksReaktion Books is an independent book publisher based in Clerkenwell, London, United Kingdom.Reaktion Books was founded in 1985 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and moved to London in 1987....
. - Peter StearnsPeter StearnsPeter N. Stearns is a professor at George Mason University, where he is provost with almost forty years of experience as a teacher and administrator. Stearns was Chair of the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University and also served as the Dean of the Dietrich College of Humanities and...
(1994). American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth-Century Emotional Style. New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
Books. - John LelandJohn Leland (journalist)John Leland is an author and has been a New York Times journalist since 2000. During a stint in 1994, he was editor in chief of Details magazine...
(2004). Hip: The History. Ecco PressEcco PressEcco Press is a publishing imprint of HarperCollins, who acquired it in 1999. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company. Until 1994 the press was the publisher of the literary magazine Antaeus.- External links :**...