Philosophy
An interesting conversation today that tried to distinguish between being hip and being cool. One could be utterly unhip, but a very cool person. To be hip, it was argued, requires being hip to something, it means being on the cutting edge, being more current than current. Being cool on the other hand, is something else. But what else? Is it an attitude? a disposition? an image?
The claim was made that cool was relative, what is cool to one is not necessarily cool to another. This struck me as wrong. James Dean, for example, is objectively cool. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. We may disagree about what is cool, but it is something we could discuss and give reasons for, this is not the case with subjective qualities like taste. If chocolate tastes better than vanilla to you, then there is no rational argument that will make you say, "Oh, I thought it tasted better, but now I realize I was wrong." But we can say, "I thought this was uncool, but now I get it, it is cool." And in this case, you were wrong in your original judgment of coolness.
What, then, is the difference between hip and cool and is cool relative? What do you think?
- Justifying Fashion
This is fashion week in New York. To be honest, I've always had an antipathy for fashion. Growing up as a nerd in an upper-middle class suburb, fashion always seemed to me to be a two-pronged evil. On the one hand, it was something...
- False Needs, Technological Regress, And The Mechanical Pencil
As I wasted a perfectly good hour of vacation fixing the shorter of the short people's mechanical pencil -- a stocking stuffer he asked for and received -- Marx's notion of false needs came to mind, that is, the idea that in order to sell more...
- James Dean And Modern Cool
Yesterday would have been James Dean's 78th birthday. In just three films and a tragic accident, the man defined the modern notion of cool -- disaffected, alienated, but good-hearted. Is there anyone alive today who deserves mention in the same sentence...
- Gay Vs. Cool
Aspazia has an interesting post on the utterance, "that's so gay." The context of her discussion is to question Vanessa, from Feministing's contention that uttering the phrase is an act of deliberate homophobia. Spaz does not contend it to be...
- When Did This Blog Become (semi) Popular?
This little one-man operation usually gets about a thousand hits a day. I can't tell you how pleased that makes me, especially considering that we're not associated with any cool, popular or powerful organization at all. Hell, I don't even...
Philosophy
What is the difference between hip and cool?
An interesting conversation today that tried to distinguish between being hip and being cool. One could be utterly unhip, but a very cool person. To be hip, it was argued, requires being hip to something, it means being on the cutting edge, being more current than current. Being cool on the other hand, is something else. But what else? Is it an attitude? a disposition? an image?
The claim was made that cool was relative, what is cool to one is not necessarily cool to another. This struck me as wrong. James Dean, for example, is objectively cool. Anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong. We may disagree about what is cool, but it is something we could discuss and give reasons for, this is not the case with subjective qualities like taste. If chocolate tastes better than vanilla to you, then there is no rational argument that will make you say, "Oh, I thought it tasted better, but now I realize I was wrong." But we can say, "I thought this was uncool, but now I get it, it is cool." And in this case, you were wrong in your original judgment of coolness.
What, then, is the difference between hip and cool and is cool relative? What do you think?
- Justifying Fashion
This is fashion week in New York. To be honest, I've always had an antipathy for fashion. Growing up as a nerd in an upper-middle class suburb, fashion always seemed to me to be a two-pronged evil. On the one hand, it was something...
- False Needs, Technological Regress, And The Mechanical Pencil
As I wasted a perfectly good hour of vacation fixing the shorter of the short people's mechanical pencil -- a stocking stuffer he asked for and received -- Marx's notion of false needs came to mind, that is, the idea that in order to sell more...
- James Dean And Modern Cool
Yesterday would have been James Dean's 78th birthday. In just three films and a tragic accident, the man defined the modern notion of cool -- disaffected, alienated, but good-hearted. Is there anyone alive today who deserves mention in the same sentence...
- Gay Vs. Cool
Aspazia has an interesting post on the utterance, "that's so gay." The context of her discussion is to question Vanessa, from Feministing's contention that uttering the phrase is an act of deliberate homophobia. Spaz does not contend it to be...
- When Did This Blog Become (semi) Popular?
This little one-man operation usually gets about a thousand hits a day. I can't tell you how pleased that makes me, especially considering that we're not associated with any cool, popular or powerful organization at all. Hell, I don't even...