/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20032454]

Are there unironically any books about the emergence of "cool" as a phenomenon? It is a foundational element of the modern psyche but is absent from my readings of the ancients and medieval scholars. So many of our sins, pleasures, and joys are visible in those readings, but not "coolness". Where did it come from? Has someone done research on this?

[Anonymous No.20032456]

>>20032454
Bacchus my boy, Bacchus

[Anonymous No.20032472]

>>20032456
Can you be more specific? If you mean, the god, then I would counter that drinking and fucking aren't about coolness, they're about physical pleasure.

[Anonymous No.20032478]

The beats had something to do with it.

[Anonymous No.20032509]

>>20032478
It probably coincides with the shift in popular values from admiring figures of authority and power (usually old) to figures of fashion and style (usually young). Rock 'n' roll was a huge deal because that dynamic was never there before. Probably what's undeniable about "coolness" is that it doesn't exist in isolation: to be cool, someone has to observe you being cool, which is why it only became a big deal in the era of projected images. TV and cinema are the realm of manufactured images, so in a sense it gave westerners a new approach to aesthetics, where an image wasn't really in service of any particular ideal, but just existed for the sake of it

[Anonymous No.20032513]

>>20032454
Reading about Julius Caesar you hear mention of how he wore his toga in an open style which was in opposition to the style worn by his conservative opponents and supposedly gave him a debonair look. I think there are assorted examples of "cool" from history but you're right that recently it's come into a period all of its own.

[Anonymous No.20032524]

>>20032513
Maybe there was never a critical mass of peasants bored enough to give a shit until modern material excess.

[Anonymous No.20032540]

>>20032524
Well interestingly there was a critical mass of bored, dispossessed layabouts during the time of Caesar.

[Anonymous No.20032542]

Understanding Media
It might be a little different than what you're looking for, but it does have some good insights.

[Anonymous No.20032557]

>>20032509
>It probably coincides with the shift in popular values from admiring figures of authority and power (usually old) to figures of fashion and style (usually young).
Is this truly a modern phenomenon? I'm surprised it wouldn't crop up in history.

[Anonymous No.20032564]

>>20032454
This might be what you're looking for

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rebel_Sell

[Anonymous No.20032632]

>>20032454

I read "the birth of cool" by douglas MacAdams but it didn't help me much. The wiki runs the gamut from daoism to Itutu without identifying that cool is in fact a matter of the ratios observed between the feet and the head.

[Anonymous No.20032667]

Is he the first western writer to make the case that it can be good to be bad?

[Anonymous No.20032675]

>>20032667
Woops

[Anonymous No.20032678]

>>20032557
Not that anon but there are many things that have to do with being cool. First is the industrial revolution. Being cool is always a young thing. It is a break away from the parents definitions of cool. The industrial revolution propagated this separation between parents and children because in times past if your father was a fisherman then you were going to be a fisherman. He was taught by his dad how to do it and you will be taught by him, this goes on for generations. It creates a respect for the parent as a keeper of knowledge. With the advent of technology and free choice in vocation we suddenly see the honoring of elders decrease with youths. The industrial revolution created an environment where a kid didn’t have to grow up to be a fisherman, he could be whatever he wanted. Fishing was no longer cool. As the technology increased and the learning curve of it increased older generations were left behind while the kids adapted quite well to it. This created an air of superiority in children wherein they think their parents are square because they don’t understand how to use the tv. This disparity has only increased as time went on. Now children who are 18 look at 25 year olds as ancient people.
I may be wrong on this but it’s just a thought

[Anonymous No.20033000]

>>20032454
I liked the Marlon Brando rant in IJ

[Anonymous No.20033005]

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that jazz musicians had something to do with it

[Anonymous No.20033041]

>>20032454
It originated from hepcats digging the smack and reefer in Jazz clubs in the roaring 20's. That's the stone cold bible.
Well that's where the last 100 years of 'cool' came from. Truth is cool has probably always been around any time a nerdish or unpopular adolescent male reinvented himself, masking his adolescent rejection with a persona of feigned indifference and hyper-competitive machismo.
The rock star who spent all his lunchtimes in the music room at school playing guitar and never got to talk to girls.
The race car driver who always had his head full of gear ratios and tyre wear, more at home with a wrench in his hand than holding Susan Ballingtimes's from down the road.
The Skateboarders who were too weird for the popular kids.
They mask that adolescent rejection with a shroud of irony and indifference. The girls think behind his shaggy hair lie 'soulful eyes' of a deep thinker.
That dynamic would have existed all throughout history

[Anonymous No.20033893]

>>20032509

This

I would also add anti-elitism to his point. Values shifted from being tailored by an exclusive and literate elite in the upper and upper middle class towards appealing to popular taste, which not to sound redundant, is very very vulgar

[Anonymous No.20034042]

>>20032454
"Cool" has always been a metric of reproductive desirability. That's why there are a million ways to optimize it and why a poor man can be cooler than a rich man however hard he tries; it's a measure of your assessed value as the semen donor.

[Anonymous No.20034898]

>>20034042

No, being "hot" signifies reproductive desirability. Just say "hotness" you weird creep

[Anonymous No.20034947]

>>20032454
>>20033005
>>20033041
Bingo, listen to this album OP
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_the_Cool

[Anonymous No.20034994]

>>20034898
Fuckability is related but not the same.

[Anonymous No.20035172]

>>20032557
the heian-era japanese aristocracy was obsessed with fashion and fads

[Anonymous No.20035185]

since cool is a synonym for authenticity it roots are ancient. "cool" is essentially the same as the classical conception of virtue

[Anonymous No.20035220]

>>20032454
>These guys seem pretty cool.
There's some aspect in black culture where they see 'cool' as something like 'chi' (and it goes back to at least the late 19th century). Some manlet I knew told me about it years ago but I never looked into it--but it seems like a rabbit hole along the lines of what you're looking for...

[Anonymous No.20035298]

>>20032509
No, the modern idea coincides with the rise of technology, mainly radio but also transportation. Cool is just social clout with no real responsibility, no tough decisions to make, little risk of taking the blame. Before radio you only had to be the least retarded person in the community, after radio the least retarded person had to contend with the best the country had to offer. The musician visiting your town was no longer just some traveling musician, it was some famous person you heard on the radio or saw in a news reel. The overall idea is nothing new, been around for centuries, but what exactly constituted a cool person was more varied and regional than it was before long distance communication and transportation became easy.

[Anonymous No.20035335]

>>20032509
No, fashion has always been a function of social differentiation. It has simply transfered from its traditional usage as a means to separate plebs from rulers to a means to assert wealth over the poor peopl- oh wait

[N E M O . !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20035853]

Eloquence consists in the harmonical warmness of preciseness; elegance consists in the rational coolness of conciseness.

Be cool like the shore, and warm from the core.