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INTRO

Cool is a method and means for us to feel accepted. It gives us a sense of belonging and in most cases purpose. We use the aesthetic idea of cool so we can provide ourselves with a standard goal to work toward. It is the path we unwittingly follow because it is the way we think we should live. Coolness is used as the guide and reference book to which we should act. The movie stars, musicians and athletes that are seemingly always cool are used as the visual aids to replicate and copy. We all are trapped in the cool box and are forced to walk down the cool path with the threat of being alienated.

In summary coolness is a basic, life-spanning, constant goal we are constantly striving towards. It is the attempt to show those immediately around us that we can be significant and acceptable. As a result of our obsession with attracting and sustaining approval we do what ever we can to be seen as a fitting part of society and a necessity, whether it is in sports, politics, entertainment, or intellectually. By using material signifier’s set up around our lives we perform a role that we hope will deem us heroic and pivotal.

ARGUMENT 1 archetypes

However, if we all looked heroic and cool in the same way we will end up wise to the real reason for our need to be cool. Therefore we enact different versions of cool (archetypes.) These archetypes allow us to pick a path that may seem slightly different. Each archetype allows the individual to belong to a specific group and feel accepted by a small mass. And most of all we can jump away from our conventional lives and move to something new and original. Why are these archetypes so popular? Since it is nearly impossible to become cool, heroic or even acceptable to everyone in society we pick an archetype to stick to because it gives us a sense of belonging even if it ostracizes us from the other archetypes. As Mr. Fanning said in his lecture to the class “getting a tattoo is like joining a tribe.” By getting a tattoo, he joined the tribe of rebel. Each archetype in society is a tribe and wearing or getting the signifiers is like joining that tribe. Naturally, we join the tribe that will get us the most success and attention.

Archetypes provide us with the ability to stand out from those in different tribes and blend in with those in the same tribe, to stand out while fitting in, we look like a hero and become accepted. Which is something hard to come by, rarely do we as a mass receive the means to look acceptable to those like us and rebellious and unorthodox to those who are not.

Further more why is rebellion so enticing. We always seem to gravitate and put those who have the strength to a rebel on a stage. The book Cool Rules by Dick Pountain and David Robins explain how we use cool “Cool is an oppositional attitude adopted by individuals or small groups to express defiance to authority-whether that of the parent, the teacher, the police, the boss, or the prison warden.” (Pountain, and Robins.) The cool pose is a way for us to express an anger and retaliation to the major forces in our culture. This proves that we as a society don’t like the values we instill or the way we group ourselves. Thus showing one of the paradoxes of the cool culture although cool is a major player in our culture we use cool to reject our culture.

Unfortunately, most people spend their entire lives trying to stand out, look heroic in their archetypes, and fail drastically. Making the enactment of archetypes and need to be noticed futile and pointless, living a life obsessed with only aesthetics in kind is itself meaningless. Even worse is that most people don’t realize or refuse to accept how futile their attempt to be cool and heroic is and don’t realize how much more their life could have meant if they weren’t so obsessed with aesthetics.

One example of this uncommon realization is from the book The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy. In the book Ivan Ilych becomes terminally ill, and it is only when he is close to death that he realized how pointless it was to live a life obsesses with monetary success and material items. "It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.” (Leo) Ilych is saying that he was fooled by thinking that doing what society said would make him happy but it just masked what he should have been doing, it turned out his life under the archetype of success had the reverse effect of what it should. He realized that because he spent his whole life trying to be a hero for his wife but it only made his life meaningless.

ARGUMENT 2 performances

As I mentioned briefly before we all fall into specific archetypes and we portray these archetypes in different ways, here I will expand on this idea of performing for approval and acceptable portrayal of an archetype.

We can’t just claim to be a part of a tribe (archetype) we must prove it, and show it so that people can identify us. In other words we perform the role so that we can further prove we are part of a tribe. We are all performers trying to portray a specific type of character. The archetypes are all depicted in different ways as to separate them from one another. The differences are known as signifiers, signifiers are often clothes, hairstyles, tattoos, and vocabulary. We use the signifiers to perform which create signified’s/characters. The signifiers being material items like clothes and hair explain why material items play such a large part in societies perception of cool. The material signifiers help us perform our cool obsession. The Wikipedia page for the book the presentation of self in everyday life by Erving Goffman a psychologist who studied this theory states: “According to Goffman, the social actor has the ability to choose his stage and props, as well as the costume he would put on in front of a specific audience. The actor's main goal is to keep his coherence, and adjust to the different settings offered him.” ("The Presentation of Self In everyday life") The actor, which is a metaphor for the average person, uses a costume (signifier's) to maintain his coherence and act with acceptable actions. Goffman is saying that we are all performers using the props and costumes around us to portray ourselves as cool, heroic, and acceptable. Using collected props we enact dramatic roles for the audience in front of us hoping to gain acceptance into their sub-culture.

Some argue that Shakespeare originally introduced the theory that we are all performers trying to attain acceptance. His quote from the play As You Like It “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances” explains that society and obsession with acceptance has brought life down to simply performing for each other following their lines and narration never really experiencing or introducing anything new out of fear of losing approval. We aren’t daring enough to try and come up with a different way to act with each other. Pretty much everyone plays the cool game because pretty much everyone is scared to death of social detachment.

Even I have realized my own performances and our insatiable need for endorsement. When I was younger I had two basic groups of people I was friends with, my school friends and my camp friends. I think it was because the two groups we so different I had to play different roles to get their validation. They came from two slightly different cultures, one urban and the other suburban. For my suburban friends I was forced to act much more centered around pop-culture and stars, where as with my school friends those values didn’t hold much weight. In one situation I was forced to look and act a lot more MTV and stereotypical teenager. I was forced to perform in separate interests so I could be accepted and awarded a stamp of approval.

Evidence of what signifier’s mean and instruction manuals on how to play a character are everywhere. Even in music, songs are great examples of instructions on what you should look like or do in order to be cool or acceptable in that archetype. The Eric Clapton song I’ve Got a Rock n’ Roll Heart gives a manual on what a tough man should like in order to be seen as a man. “I get off on ’57 Chevy I get off on screaming Guitar.” Eric Clapton, who is often regarded as one of the coolest people in the 1970’s is giving his listeners tips on how to become more convincing performers for the character of tough, cool guy.

Our obsession with cool and addiction to approval from others forces us to use our lives like a stage performing for an audience who we desperately seek approval from. Performance has become natural; pretty much all of mankind performs so that they can be accepted by their archetype. We do this without realizing that the underlying reason for everyone’s performance is the same, our constant need and crave for approval. Our need for approval is filled with acting like a performer fitting in to any and all archetypes.

ARGUMENT 3 the origins of our crave for approval
So where does this need for approval stem from? All cultures seem to have some way of attaining and sustaining approval. In Native American cultures in order to be accepted and gain your manhood you would go out on a sort of expedition. In western culture you must wear certain clothes and listen to certain music. But why? It is a need we have been chasing since we left infancy. We all at least on the sub-conscious level realize the insignificance of our lives and try to at least become acceptable if not heroic and significant and use the idea of cool to try to get to the level of approval from others and from there attention and heroism.

When we were babies we were given immense amounts of attention and affection. Everyone looked at us like we were amazing masterpieces of art, and took care of everything we needed. And we accepted it as the norm, got used it and enjoyed being the center of attention which is in no way surprising so now as a result nearly everything we do is done with the goal of trying to attain that feeling of centric attention. Much of this is adapted and expanded from the lecture “The Psychology of cool” by Matt Fried who brought up the point that we have been coddled to thing we are the center of our universe since we developing and have ever since been trying to obtaining this feeling ever since infancy, even into our adulthood and as we become elderly we try to look special for the nurses in the retirement home. We use cool as a mechanism to reach approval and then significance in all stages of our lives.

Schopenhauer, a physiologist and social theorist said that there are three major forces that distinguish us as normal and acceptable our broadcast sense (health beauty education), our possessions or financial ability, and our presentation to others. In order to gain a status of normality we must reach an approvable look, financial ability and life style. This is why the concept of cool is so popular, our definition of what is cool contains each of these concepts, and thus what is will grant us normality is our ability to look cool.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion as a society we use the cool-concept to fill the demand for approval. We use archetypes and variations of people to jump into a specific box. The box allows us to perform and act for the approval of others in similar boxes. We insist on performing and acting out in these cool forms because of an essential want for attention in societies brain chemistry.

We are a culture of people who are scared to be left alone, scared to be alienated and afraid of feeling like only a select few will come to our funeral. Victor frankl started the idea of Sunday neurosis and the existential vacuum where we realize the insignificance of our lives in the spectrum of the rest of world and try desperately to seem significant. Cool enacts us to seek approval and assimilate with a small group hoping some of them will know and remember us.

• Verbal communication-Lecture with Mr. Fanning January 6 2010
• Cool rules quote- Pountain, Dick, and David Robins. Cool Rules Anatomy of an Attitude . London: FOCI, 2000. Print.
• The death of ivan ilych quote- Leo, tolstoy. The Death of Ivan Ilych. Print. Web copy url- http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/WorldeBookLibrary.com/deathivan.htm
• Goffman Wikipedia quote- "The Presentation of Self In everyday life." Wikipedia. 25 October 2009. Web. .
• As You Like it quote url- http://shakespeare.mit.edu/asyoulikeit/asyoulikeit.2.7.html
• Eric Clapton I’ve Got a Rock n’ Roll Heart lyrics url- http://www.lyrics.com/ive-got-a-rock-n-roll-heart-lyrics-eric-clapton.html
• The psychology of cool Matt fried personal communication December 8 2009
• Schopenhauer information and reference- from here http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=3886&kapitel=3&cHash=41723e61122#gb_found
And from here: http://sofandy.blogspot.com/2009/12/hw-30-psychological-and-philosophical.html
• Victor frankl reference- http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/frankl.html