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For other uses of cool, see Cool (disambiguation).

Cool, in popular culture, is an aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no one meaning. It has associations of composure and self-control (cf. the OED definition) and is often used as an expression of admiration or approval.

International cool

According to Dick Pountain and David Robins, attitudes similar to the modern vernacular, or slang, use of cool have existed for centuries in several cultures.

Cool in Africa and the diaspora

Scholar Robert Farris Thompson has described African American cool as having corollaries in several African cultural traditions, citing the Yoruba concept of "Itutu". He cites a definition of cool from the Gola people of Liberia, who define it as the ability to be mentally calm or detached, in an other-wordly fashion, from one's circumstances, to be nonchalant in situations where emotionalism or eagerness would be natural and expected. Joseph M. Murphy writes that "cool" is also closely associated with the deity Òsun of the Yoruba religion.

Thompson finds the cultural value of cool in Africa and the African diaspora different from that held by Europeans, who use the term primarily as the ability to remain calm under stress. According to Thompson, there is significant weight, meaning and spirituality attached to cool in traditional African cultures, something which, Thompson argues, is absent from the idea in a Western context.

"Control, stability, and composure under the African rubric of the cool seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic attitude." African cool, writes Thompson, is "more complicated and more variously expressed than Western notions of sang-froid (literally, "cold blood"), cooling off, or even icy determination."(Thompson, African Arts)

The telling point is that the "mask" of coolness is worn not only in time of stress, but also of pleasure, in fields of expressive performance and the dance. Struck by the re-occurrence of this vital notion elsewhere in tropical Africa and in the Black Americas, I have come to term the attitude "an aesthetic of the cool" in the sense of a deeply and completely motivated, consciously artistic, interweaving of elements serious and pleasurable, of responsibility and play.

Many, trace today's pop-culture cool to concepts of cool in traditional African cultures, transmitted to white American society and later internationally via the African American experience. Cool has been used to describe a general state of well-being, a transcendant, internal peace and serenity. (Thompson, African Arts.) It also can refer to an absence of conflict, a state of harmony and balance as in, "The land is cool," or as in a "cool heart." Such meanings, according to Thompson, are African in origin.

Idioms of cool heart and cool territory do not ... communicate in Western languages the same sorts of meanings of composure and social stability unless the phrasing is used by, or has been influenced by, the presence of black people of African heritage.

The black jazz scene in the U.S. and among expatriate musicians in Paris, helped popularize notions of cool in the U.S. in the 1940s, giving birth to "Bohemian", or beatnik culture. Shortly thereafter, a style of jazz called cool jazz appeared on the music scene in reaction to bebop, emphasizing a restrained, laid-back solo style.

Majors and Billson address what they term “cool pose” in their study and argue that it helps Black men counter stress caused by social oppression, rejection and racism. They also contend that it furnishes the black male with a sense of control, strength, confidence and stability and helps him deal with the closed doors and negative messages of the “generalized other.” They also believe that attaining black manhood is filled with pitfalls of discrimination, negative self-image, guilt, shame and fear. Schools place him in lower academic groups; teachers reject and are intimidated by him; and economists label him disadvantaged.

Aristocratic and artistic cool in Europe

"Aristocratic cool", known as sprezzatura, has existed in Europe for centuries.Template:Ref harvard. The Mona Lisa is a classic example of sprezzatura. The sprezzatura of the Mona Lisa is seen in both her smile and the positioning of her hands. Both the smile and hands are intended to convey her grandeur, self-confidence and societal position. Sprezzatura involves showing disdain for the mundane work needed to create the air of appearing graceful and courteous. Sprezzatura can also be applied to the poets of the time, who wanted to make their poetry seem to be the result of careful and meticulous work instead of the product of effortless and spontaneous action.

French aristocrats have also been described as cool.

Asian warrior castes

Template:Sectionstub The ethic of the Samurai caste in Japan, warrior castes in India and East Asia all resemble "cool".Template:Ref harvard. Samurai have been presented as "cool" in modern American movies such as Ghost Dog.

Hispanic machismo

Template:Sectionstub The "machismo" of Hispanic cultures is similar to the modern "cool".Template:Ref harvard

In Turkey

Template:Sectionstub The cool "Anatolian smile" of Turkey is used to mask emotions. A similar "mask" of coolness is worn in both times of stress and pleasure in American and African communities.Template:Ref harvard

Uses

Cool has been used to describe a general state of well-being, a transcendant, internal peace and serenity. (Thompson, African Arts.) It also can refer to an absence of conflict, a state of harmony and balance as in, "The land is cool," or as in a "cool heart." Such meanings, according to Thompson, are African in origin.

While slang terms are usually comprised of short-lived coinages and figures of speech, cool is an especially ubiquitous slang word, especially among young people. As well as being understood throughout the English-speaking world, the word has even entered the vocabulary of several languages other than English.

Cool can be used to describe composure and absence of excitement in a person, especially in times of stress, and can refer to something that is aesthetically appealing. It is also used to express agreement or assent.

Cool is often used as a general positive epithet or interjection which has a range of related adjectival meanings. Among other things, it can ean calm, stoic, impressive, intriguing, or superlative.

Theories of cool

Cool as social distinction

According to this theory, cool is a zero sum game, in which cool exists only in comparison with things considered less cool. Illustrated in the book The Rebel Sell, cool is created out of a need for status and distinction. This creates a situation analogous to an arms race, in which cool is perpetuated by a collective action problem in society.

Cool as an elusive essence

According to this theory, cool is a real, but unknowable property. Cool, like "good", is a property that exists, but can only be sought after. In the New Yorker article, "The coolhunt", cool is given 3 characteristics:

• "The act of discovering what's cool is what causes cool to move on"
• "Cool cannot be manufactured, only observed"
• " can only be observed by those who are themselves cool".

Cool as a marketing device

a heavily manipulative corporate ethos.

— Kalle Lasn

According to this theory, cool can be exploited as a manufactured and empty idea impossed on the culture at large through a top-down process by the "Merchants of Cool". An artificial cycle of "cooling" and "uncooling" creates false needs in consumers, and stimulates the economy. "Cool has become the central ideology of consumer capitalism". Supporters of this theory avoid the pursuit of cool.

The concept of cool was used in this way to market menthol cigarettes to African Americans in the 1960s. In 2004 over 70% of African American smokers preferred menthol cigarettes, compared with 30% of white smokers. This unique social phenomenon was principally occasioned by the tobacco industry's manipulation of the burgeoning black, urban, segregated, consumer market in cities at that time.

Cool as an opinion

Quite often cool is in the eye of the beholder. One person, usually a member of a certain social demographic could consider something to be cool whereas a member of a separate social demographic could consider completely the opposite to be worthy of the label. Trends are usually considered cool when only a small minority are involved in them. More people becoming interested in this trend pushes it towards the mainstream, therefore classifying it as uncool. Something else will then emerge as a new trend, and the cycle will repeat indefinitely.

Cool definitions

• "Cool is a knowledge, a way of life."
• "Coolness is the proper way you represent yourself to a human being."
• "Cool is an age-specific phenomenon, defined as the central behavioural trait of teenagerhood."

See also

• African aesthetic
• Charisma
• Cool jazz
• Itutu
• Lame (slang)
• Square (slang)

References

1. Dick Pountain and David Robins, Anatomy of an Attitude, Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000.
2. Thompson, Robert Farris. "An Aesthetic of the Cool." African Arts, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn, 1973).
3. Murphy, Joseph, M. and Sanford, Mei-Mei. Òsun Across the Waters: A Yoruba Goddess in Africa and the Americas, p. 2.
4. Thompson, Robert Farris. African Arts.
5. Thompson, Robert Farris. African Arts.
7. Boddie, Jacquelyn Lynette. "Exploring the turn-around Phenomenon Experienced by African American Urban Male Adolescents in High School." Retrieved on 02-26-2007.
8. "The Marshal de Brogho was appointed to command all the troops within the isle of France, a high flying aristocrat, cool and capable of everything." http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/jefferson_f_05.html
9. Way cool way of the samurai, Bruce Kirkland, http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Reviews/G/Ghost_Dog/2000/03/10/752999.html
10. ^ Heath, Joseph and Potter, Andrew. The Rebel Sell. Harper Perennial, 2004.
11. "Merchants of Cool"
12. The African Americanization of menthol cigarette use in the United States Phillip S. Gardiner Dr.P.H
13. Lewis Macadams, author of "Birth of The Cool" .
14. Robert Farris Thompson , Flash of the Spirit, New York: Vintage Books, 1983, p. 13.
15. Marcel Dansei, Cool: The Signs and Meanings of Adolescence, p. 1.

• Cultural appropriation
• Popular culture