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The Tyranny of Being “Cool”
Robert McReynolds’ post about “Smart Republicans” could not be more apropos to a conversation I had over dinner with a dear friend and fellow young Conservative. Part of our conversation included a discussion about becoming less tolerant of intolerance as we become older.
We both said that our circle of friends is shrinking with each passing year, as the drudgery of putting on a smile and biting our tongue — while someone makes a snide comment about how awful things will be now that those Republicans control the House and the Senate — increasingly grates on us. Actually, it’s the hypocrisy of the Left that drives us batty, but those on the Left don’t see it that way. They believe they are the purveyors of truth and tolerance, and those that don’t agree with them can shut the foxtrot up!
My dinner mate and I — both semi-hipsters — don’t shop exclusively at Whole Foods (what?!), don’t eat only organic (outrageous!), are Christian (you are so hateful!) and Conservative (you’re an awful person). And all of that makes us un-cool. The Academy, in their ivory tower genterie, has done a bang-up job of branding Conservatism the worst thing possible to a Millennial — uncool. After all, is there anything more horrible to a young person that to be uncool, unhip, unfashionable?
The tragedy of being uncool is aided by the vacuousness of youth and Millennial culture. When the deepest thought a 21-year-old has is about how brave Kim K was for posing nude in order to “break the internet,” it is not hard to sell that person on the virtues of being “cool” at all cost. Progressivism is cool, young, hip, and forward-thinking. Conservatism is for old, outdated, sweater vest-wearing fogies (one might make a joke about wearing a sweater around one’s neck if one were so inclined…). The Academy and the liberal media have created an “us vs. them” mentality between Liberals and Conservatives, much as there is an “us vs. them” aspect between children and their parents. And if you’re young, you don’t want to be like your parents — ugh!
As a result of this intense Millennial need for ‘coolness’ and acceptance — funny, considering the joke of how you drown a hipster (“in the mainstream”) — has pushed many young Conservatives effectively into the closet, with all the same fears of retaliation and hatred the gay community experienced “back in the day.” When I’m in certain circles, I do not feel at liberty to offer my thoughts on current events or politics, because I quite enjoy having my throat intact.
I am intensely irritated at the hypocrisy of the whole situation — those who claim to be the most tolerant are themselves supremely intolerant, and that makes me want to scream at them, which I believe is socially unacceptable? Therefore, if I can help it, I often choose to not interact with people of the Whole Foods, inner-arm tattoo, organic microbrewery bent.
I am fortunate to work at a facility that is largely conservative, though there is a group that loudly expresses their opposing views. And guess what? I’m okay with that! My dinner mate, however, works at an ad agency. “I’m pretty sure I would be lynched if I let my coworkers know my political views,” he told me tonight. What a horrible thing to feel! What discrimination festers at that office! Oh wait, they’re Liberal, so it’s okay for them to discriminate, right…?
I got a wake up call real fast when I lived in the City and I was trying to find work. I interviewed for an executive assistant position at Dwell 95, and the salary was $35k. I looked at the woman with disbelief, thinking “How can you live on that in the City?” The woman interviewing me asked if that salary was ok; I told her that it wasn’t- “I have a college degree, so…” She looked at my resume- “Your degree is in music; it means nothing to me.” I stuck it out for two years, then I got my act together and went back to school so I could get a big kid job.
This is also the problem with telling people that they should follow their dreams. Sometimes dreams don’t pay the bills, and doing what’s practical is the adult thing to do.
Mike, you’re so uncool, it’s cool. Like water that’s so hot, it feels cold. *Fist bump* dude.
That’s the question we all asked in the beginning but a funny happened; we worked our little tushies off and lo and behold! got promotions and raises and were able to afford a decent apartment, nice shoes and take a cab once in a while!
Nothing shapes a young man quite like meeting and caring for the children of an ethnic cleansing over a scarcity conflict.
Too me the image of Kosovar kids trying to break dance in a building riddled with bullet holes is why leftism is bad. It creates scarcity, it creates fundamental counterpurposes between the people, and imposes ethnic and group identities on people where they need not be. All of that goes bad, spectacularily.
Screw the hipsters and their mindless conformity to the slacker hive mind of wannabe intellectualism, that was largely discredited before christ was born.
As a little Kid, the series of strips where Calvin tries to be “cool” had a very positive impact on me.
I’m slightly embarrassed that my long-standing “old school” practice of wearing bow ties has now become “cool” among the college kids (who are younger than my own kids). I’m so far behind the times I became ahead of the wave.
But I don’t do “fist bumps.” :-)
Our children (now aged 26 and 29) got the financial reality education when they were ‘tweens and I started my own business (a law firm, which ultimately was not successful). During that time, they heard plenty of “we can’t do that right now because (select one or more from the following: 1) I haven’t found enough people who want to buy the services I offer; 2) I haven’t yet finished the projects for clients, so I can’t send them a bill (invoice) yet; and/or 3) the clients I did the work for and to whom I sent the bill haven’t paid yet (or ever)).
They were astonished when they got to high school and college (and even after) at how ignorant their peers were about the connection between work (not just going to a job, but actual work) and money.
If you peek behind the curtain I’d bet that every one of the credentialed libs are rent seekers who’s degree’s entitle them to set up a toll booth on those that are participating in the real economy. Whether they are therapists, consultants, etc. it is in their economic interest to keep government mandates and regulation to coerce other’s into paying them to maintain the lifestyle that they have become accustomed
Tabby, not only did you offer your children a glimpse into the connection between work and money, you also let them see that title/prestige does not equal money. A lot of people think all doctors and lawyers are loaded because of their title. You and I both know there are plenty of MDs and JDs that are on the struggle bus financially.
One is an I-Banker, one an archeologist, the third (you’re gonna love this…) was working for a social justice firm the last I heard.
One is an I-Banker, one an archeologist, the third (you’re gonna love this…) was working for a social justice firm the last I heard.
Bingo. In my misspent youth I worked for Lehman Bros. in the big New York a few years too. Every person held politically correct positions on every social issue, and every person knew that without municipal finance, without SEC regs requiring tribute from private businesses and without the incestuous relationship between Wall Street and the beltway we wouldn’t be nearly as wealthy and prestigious as we were.
What is “cool”?
Distilled to it’s most basic, “cool” is about making something look good while also making it look effortless.
Take the quintessence of “cool”: The Fonz.
The Fonz didn’t worry about what people thought of him. The Fonz just did how own thing, and it worked. The chicks wanted him and the dudes wanted to be him.
If people saw just how much effort went into The Fonz’ persona (Harley Davidsons, leather jackets, and hair oil ain’t cheap ya know, not to mention that perfect hair and a chiseled body take a lot of time and effort to maintain), his “cool” woulda become “pretentious”.
That was Potsie’s problem. He tried too hard.
(One could argue that his rivals despised The Fonz precisely because they saw through this charade.)
Meanwhile, even if he genuinely put no effort into it, he woulda gone from “cool” to “spaz” if the persona didn’t “work”.
That was Ralph Mouth’s problem. His schtick was easy, but it didn’t work.
That’s the problem with aspiring to be “cool”. If people see the effort it’s no longer cool, and if you don’t put in enough effort chances are it ain’t gonna work.
For conservatives, effort is the whole point of the exercise, though they use synonymous terms like “work ethic”, “individual responsibility”, and “self-government”.
It’s pretty hard to make the very antithesis of “cool” look cool.
For most leftists, their ideology is almost pure fashion, if not fad. What’s so ironic is that most of them would be aghast at the idea of blindly following fashion–they genuinely believe that they’re expressing well thought out, coherent views. They flatter themselves that they’re iconoclasts, not conformists.
I think what it takes to “break” a leftist is to get him to see how much leftism is a matter of fashion. There are plenty of examples of how, when a new issue begins to emerge, the Left has to fish around for a while to figure out what “it” (meaning “all leftists”) should believe. When they all end up in lockstep, that’s pretty ironclad proof that they’re slaves to fashion.
Pointing out that there is more diversity of openly expressed opinion on the typical factory floor than on a college campus is a good place to start. Ridiculing the leftist “herd of independent minds” is effective, too.
To me the Left always seems to be a character from High School the Musical. Like high school, it’s all about blindly following the herd while couching it in the mantle of rebellious individuality.
This is priceless.
When I was in high school (40+ years ago), there was an international tennis tournament near our house. Some college-aged protesters protested against the “bourgeois attendees who all dressed alike in their tennis whites” while the protesters themselves were all dressed essentially identical to one another in jeans, T shirts, and Birkenstock sandals. I commented on this conformity in the name of rebelliousness in a letter-to-the-editor of the regional newspaper.
Yeah, I was one of those long-haired dope-smoking FM types, with my proverbial skull-full-o-mush. I don’t think Birkenstocks had quite been invented, but we all wore jeans, and frequently tie-dye.
Somehow, I came away from the experience of those years with a genuine love of freedom. I always felt that my friends, who mostly remained leftists, had somehow misinterpreted the lessons of those years. One even became a Federal bureaucrat. I always regarded government as suspect; they loved it as long as they were running it. But, hey, that was the fashion. I just missed the fashion boat.