Week 3, Prompt 1: "What Does It Mean To Be Cool?" by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (Philosophy Now)

-        Central Argument- Cool is an imaginary, illogical combination of paradoxical fusion of submission and rebellion.

-        Thorsten Boltz says, “So cool represents a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion.” I agree with this statement as he sides with the fact that cool is used as a provision used during hard times to submit and submerge to his/her enemy.

-        I have a younger cousin, a few years younger than me, who used to get bullied in school due to his mental behavior. He had detested school and always tried to stay home with a fake illness of some sort. He had very few friends, and one of them was me. We weren’t in the same school then, I was in a hostel and he was in a local school near home. One day, when I had returned and went for a visit to his place, he had complained about how much he gets teased and bullied. I felt really bad for him, but I didn’t have much to say, as I had never been bullied. His mom always said, “Don’t say a word and turn your backs on them.” I felt really bad not saying anything, so I just told him to listen to music as loud as possible closing your eyes. Today, whenever he gets picked on or bullied, he just listens to music, turns around and closes his eyes. Soon, the bullies hadn’t been bullying him. His act of self control allowed him to submit and subverts to the bullies, allowing them to be annoyed and fed up.

-        When I was young[er], I used to get into trouble a lot. Stealing apples from the neighbor, breaking car windows while playing cricket and sometimes accidently hitting the neighbor’s dog while playing football. I got into a lot of trouble and the only way I got out of it was through me and my friends “cool.” The neighbor usually asks us, “who destroyed my window,” and all we could answer is “what window.” He knew we did it so he threatened us by telling us that he would tell on us to our parents. We looked at each other, and all we could reply was, “yeah, sure, go tell them.” He was really annoyed, so he told on us to our parents, and yeah we got beaten up bad by them that night. We used our cool to submit to our actions and the consequences to that was not that bad. We usually get beaten up by our parents thrice a week, so this week was no different.

-        Then there are the typical Indians during the rule of the British. The Indians were slaves back then, and similar to the African-Americans in the US. The only way to tolerate tortured slavery was through their cool. Even if they spit on the slaves faces, their cool would keep them from humiliating themselves but instead, humiliate their masters themselves.

-        “Cool” had been used to tolerate slavery during the times of slavery, tolerate bullies, insults and tolerate punishment. Cool may be used as a self control or even fear, but cool is usually used to humiliate the enemy that is embarrassing you, hurting you and torturing you.