One of the great motifs of modern times is coolness. In the early part of the 20th century, it began as a term of insouciance or what might be characterized as a social chill. Witness Miles Davis and James Dean as prototypical cool–solitary geniuses who don’t have time for the cares of the world.

In modern usage, the concept is little more than a term of praise, as in ‘She’s so cool’, or ‘That movie was so cool, man!’ As a recent study has shown, there has been a significant shift in the meaning of ‘cool’, from indifference to likability, or even caring, as in the rich jock who volunteers on weekends at the old folks home.

The study was conducted by University of Rochester Medical Center psychologist Ian Dar-Nimrod:

(Science Daily) “When I set out to find what people mean by coolness, I wanted to find corroboration of what I thought coolness was,” said Ilan Dar-Nimrod, Ph.D., lead author of “Coolness: An Empirical Investigation.” “I was not prepared to find that coolness has lost so much of its historical origins and meaning — the very heavy countercultural, somewhat individualistic pose I associated with cool.

“James Dean is no longer the epitome of cool,” Dar-Nimrod said. “The much darker version of what coolness is still there, but it is not the main focus. The main thing is: Do I like this person? Is this person nice to people, attractive, confident and successful? That’s cool today, at least among young mainstream individuals.”

Of course, this is little more than a deterioration of the word. As coolness spread throughout the West in the 20th century, it had become clear that society was really worthy of contempt, and all those who were chilly toward it were on to something. Thus, coolness became socially acceptable, and, by turns, all that was socially acceptable was to be considered cool.

A document of the early 21st century recorded the paradox with admirable honesty. From a 2003 article of mine:

(The Weather Report) Coolness prevails everywhere, contradictorily if necessary. When someone is creative, he is cool; when someone is unproductive, he is cool; when someone is friendly, he is cool; when someone is officious and disrespectful, he is cool. When someone does something that obviously impairs others, the universal response is “that’s not cool, man.” When we agree, it’s “alright, cool.” When we disagree, it’s “cool, whatever.” No matter the circumstance, coolness!

What makes coolness so universal these days requires a complex investigation to uncover. You’ll find it elsewhere. The effects of the trend are what we must examine presently. To do this, we must realize exactly what coolness is. Since the term is applied to nearly every instance and what seem to be contradictory conditions, we can presume that coolness does not mean the breezy chill that the dictionary suggests. Nothing that specific could describe the variety it does. It could be that coolness has simply replaced the word good since the natural response to witnessing something beneficial or positive is “cool.” But what does our culture find good? It cannot be the same as historical definitions because historically unappealing things like laziness and drunkenness are included in coolness’ domain.

To define coolness requires a look at what is important in our society these days. What is important is the society itself—social activity and status are of premiere import to Western civilization at the dawn of the 21st century. From entertainment to politics, the evidence is clear. Applying the original definition, we find that coolness is a breezy chill on the social plane.

The mechanics of this phenomenon must be saved for a later discourse. In the article, I go on to examine exactly how coolness betrays its social premise and actually destroys the elements of society that keep it together.

Indifference, apathy, disrespect, isolation, irreverence, intolerance, public pessimism and self-directed optimism all fit into the definition of coolness. From it, we find the various, incessant and inconsistent uses of the word.

What exactly are we doing when we encourage coolness or this social chill? It is not necessarily malicious. Most will employ the word “cool” to describe something positive in attempt to connect with other people. It is more like being accepting of others to be cool. It is tolerance, open-mindedness. These have good aims for sure and the use of coolness isn’t intended to disrupt social harmony. Still, the plague of coolness is not just semantic. It represents a real mentality that is penetrating every effort in Western life and doing so with harmful precision. Fully metastasized, coolness will be nearly impossible to remove and complete severing will be required. It is certainly the mentality that needs to be changed and ultimately, an alternative will naturally replace “cool” when generally commenting on marginally positive things.