The Power of Cool

[Ben]

I have said this a lot. Victor David Hanson just says it better:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/300700/power-cool-victor-davis-hanson#

[Monkeyleg]

That article nails it very well. VDH is a great thinker, and a critic I wouldn't want to have on my back.

[Sergeant Bob]

VDH puts another one in the 10 ring. I have been thinking about that very thing a lot lately.

[Perd Hapley]

Fail. He neglected to mention that Saturday Night Live gets a pass for its constant stream of racial jokes, while anything a conservative says or does may be interpreted as racism.

[longeyes]

Unfortunately, since the days of James Dean and Steve McQueen "cool" has increasingly become identified with a Peter Pan complex.  America itself has become "cool," preferring sizzle to steak, and all around us we see the signs.

[AJ Dual]

Every time I'm reminded of the hypocrisy, double-standards, and illogical emotive reasoning of what passes for "the modern Left", I can't help but think that the only real solutions in terms of "what to do about them" are the kind we can't pursue because we'd destroy ourselves in the process.

[MicroBalrog]

Unfortunately, since the days of James Dean and Steve McQueen "cool" has increasingly become identified with a Peter Pan complex.  America itself has become "cool," preferring sizzle to steak, and all around us we see the signs.

You mean, the generation that gave us the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the military draft, the Gun Control Act of 1968, held back the introduction of major inventions like the shipping container, and murdered each other at twice the rates seen today? Those nice people?

Modern America has lower taxes, lower regulations, and more freedom than anything the generation of Steve McQueen has given us.

This idea that America's best days are behind her, that human achievement is over, that any moment the illiterate sheepherders will swallow us all is anti-civilization.

[MicroBalrog]

Also what VDH forgets is that the reason there's more resentment against oil companies than against Google is very simple:

Google and Facebook's services are free to the user (their revenue stream comes from elsewhere).

Oil revenues are from things you buy on a daily basis. While of course rising gasoline prices are not oil companies' fault, on an emotional level it's easy to get angry when the price for these things rises. There's also the fact that oil companies do have a background of doing very nasty things (like funding mercenaries in unsavory parts of the world) in ways that Google does not. After all there are no Google mercenaries. Yet.

[Ned Hamford]

After all there are no Google mercenaries. Yet.

Or you just haven't heard about them.   

[MicroBalrog]

Not to mention, social networking and communications are quite important. They're not the frivolous frippery Comrade Hanson implies.

[longeyes]

You mean, the generation that gave us the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the military draft, the Gun Control Act of 1968, held back the introduction of major inventions like the shipping container, and murdered each other at twice the rates seen today? Those nice people?

Modern America has lower taxes, lower regulations, and more freedom than anything the generation of Steve McQueen has given us.

This idea that America's best days are behind her, that human achievement is over, that any moment the illiterate sheepherders will swallow us all is anti-civilization.

I wasn't deifying McQ or Dean; quite the contrary.  I think one man's cool is another man's so-what.  So much of this is just a "media thing" designed to sedate the masses and sell magazines.  Cool, for me, is based on honorable exploration beyond the self.  More on that another time...  :)

[MicroBalrog]

I wasn't deifying McQ or Dean; quite the contrary.  I think one man's cool is another man's so-what.  So much of this is just a "media thing" designed to sedate the masses and sell magazines.  Cool, for me, is based on honorable exploration beyond the self.  More on that another time...  :)

Oh, no, you weren't, but you did assign some kind of superiority to their generation.

[Perd Hapley]

Not to mention, social networking and communications are quite important. They're not the frivolous frippery Comrade Hanson implies.

Huh? You mean this?

We simply don’t mind that Google and Amazon rake in billions, but we despise Exxon and Archer Daniels Midland for doing the same. It is not that we need social networking and Internet searches more than food and fuel, but rather that we have the impression that cool zillionaires in flipflops are good while uncool ones in wingtips are quite bad.

 

[Tallpine]

I was a hypocrite when hypocrisy wasn't cool 

[longeyes]

Oh, no, you weren't, but you did assign some kind of superiority to their generation.

No, I didn't; that was not my intent at all.  I was suggesting that they were the forerunners of a certain style of "cool" that is prolonged adolescence.  "Cool" doesn't mean much to me.