On Being Cool
On Being Cool
The concept is ubiquitous without being properly defined.[1] Yet we all know what it is (well, not all of us). John Lennon was cool, Paul McCartney not so much. Steve McQueen was cool, but not Sylvester Stallone. Brando, Newman, Redford, Jagger, Presley—all cool. For me, it starts with the hair and the clothes; then the voice, the attitude, the stance. But the concept expands out from there and cries out for abstract definition. A marked feature is what we call independence, autonomy, detachment, lack of conformity. Integrity is central. Humor matters. Originality too. Intelligence is indispensable. Accomplishment is required. James Bond is one salient model: handsome, well-dressed, beautifully spoken, imperturbable, perfect taste, can do everything. Plus, the women love him (this is cool 1950s style). Bond doesn’t go around like he owns the place; he doesn’t care whoowns it. The cool customer is all these things, with the perfect footwear of course.
But are these people really that cool? Bond doesn’t even exist. And nor do the actors: they play cool characters. They are not so impressive off-screen (inarticulate, ill-educated, inept). Rock stars are none too brilliant and can’t even hit a tennis ball. So, who is really cool? It is necessary to be widely accomplished, a cut above the herd. Ideally, a person should be adept in the mental, the physical, and the artistic. Like a musician who is also a writer and skier. Or a baseball player who is also a classical pianist. Or a fashion designer with an advanced degree in physics. Best of all a rock star who writes acclaimed philosophy books and pole vaults—as well as wears the right shoes and makes you laugh. Now that would be cool. But there is no such person; actual people tend to be disappointingly limited. No one is an athlete, a musician, and an intellectual—and looks like Paul Newman. So, is it that people are only relatively cool compared to others? Only fantasy figures are truly cool—or gods. Of actual people, who comes closest to the ideally cool individual? Barak Obama comes close, you say. I see your point—he is a pretty cool dude. I have heard Tom Brady suggested. I am sympathetic to Jamie Foxx and Richard Feynman. But no one seems to me to have the requisite range—the missing Bond factor. No one is really cool. Certainly, no one in philosophy is.
Or am I forgetting someone: what about that philosopher who plays drums and guitar and sings, and also does many sports (tennis, table tennis, kayak surfing, knife throwing, skateboarding, trampoline, mountain-biking, etc.)? Also, motorcycling. And I hear he is a cool dresser with a nice collection of sneakers and an excellent sense of humor. I forget his name at the moment, but you know the guy I mean. Didn’t something funny happen to him a few years ago?[2]
[1] I have written about this subject before: see my “Being Cool”.
[2] I have confined myself to cool men here, but if I include women, I have an immediate nominee: Abby Phillip. However, I don’t know enough about her athletic and musical coolness to be definitive.
It’s cool how you subtly intimated that a certain some person is cool without going so far as to refer to him directly, knowing that doing so would draw unwanted attention to him and possibly imperil his cool status. Nice.
Very perceptive of you–it was a delicate task. And I did think of it as a cool move, but certainly imperiling his cool status.
How about cool is about a quality of what you are because what you do is so intangible that people wished they were you. In some ways it is like famous for being famous, in others the precise opposite.
I have no idea what you are saying.
Speaking of cool, you know what else is cool? Not speaking more than necessary. An aura of authenticity and depth are cool attributes that are spoiled by speaking frivolously. Few things are less cool than being a blowhard.
I quite agree. Terse is cool.
Coolness is also a relative thing. So for 70s kids it was Fonz, John travolta. Bond became less cool and more woke with each incarnation. But if there’s a current generation youngster, they might find Daniel Craig as cool. Or has cool actually gone extinct?
One aspect of it is not relative: detachment, calm, indifference to other people’s opinion. Coolness is never what people think is cool.
In that case, I was rarely cool
Not many people are. But you might have been a cool dresser.
That I was .
How did you know? 🤔😂
Because you focused on sartorial cool. I was the same way.