homework 34 `

The concept of Cool and the cool-pose has the unique ability to constrict our life style and form our lives at the same time we are trapped in the figurative box of archetypes and social roles. We are born into a role, political alignment, neighborhood, or race and without giving it a single thought 99 percent of us jump right into the symbols established by our cool predecessor's. They tell us what to do and how to live while making it near impossible to change.

Coolness is often utilized to marginalize racial, economic class, and gender stigmas. Although the archetype signifier's may not have been originally created to enforce societal rules they have become so popular that in too a many cases signifier's have become the only way for us to act. Most people say that your cool pose and the tribe you reside with make you stand out, but in reality they have just become the mandatory symbols of our social circle. Without them we just look lost and strange. The symbols have become giant marks on our skin that allow you to walk by anyone on the street and they immediately know "this kid is a rebel" or "he doesn't care about school" or "he goes to private school."

Whether or not we need new maps or if the whole map idea should be eradicated is a very complex issue. Without them many people would feel lost not knowing where to go in life. Since everyone wants to be accepted either by their culture or by another we would become wanderers having no idea if its right to this or that. However the culture maps offer much too little room for us to change or get to the next level. Similar to the analogy Andy made in class about the actual map that stops at the tip of New Jersey making extremely difficult for us to get into New York (New Jersey and New York being two different cultural maps.)

The poet Gwendolyn brooks who wrote the poem We Real Cool explains in an audio what she believes a group of cool boys think of themselves. The Boys the poem is about regard themselves as real cool, leaving school supposedly makes them so cool and great. This idea that cool young men don't go to school has been seen and played and re-written so often that even the boys themselves believe it. But all it really is is them conforming to the cultural map provided because they believe it is their social responsibility. The New York Times article A Poverty of the Mind by Orlando Patterson has a good quote: "SO why were they flunking out? Their candid answer was that what sociologists call the "cool-pose culture" of young black men was simply too gratifying to give up. For these young men, it was almost like a drug, hanging out on the street after school, shopping and dressing sharply, sexual conquests, party drugs, hip-hop music and culture" The cool pose culture that these kids follow is masked as what you should be doing. If you want acceptance and integration with your peers than follow the social map, even if all they are doing is limiting themselves. This is the cycle of our social maps, it locks us in to a state/social circle and uses a great bargaining chip, our compulsive need for acceptance.