I commented on the original. Basically, Tolkien and Lewis are going to appeal to a totally different sort of young man. Guys who are into Tate aren't going to be impressed by a bunch of college professors who wrote books--you want an athlete who behaves ethically or a war hero (though we don't have any).
And if you think about what made them unique, it was Tolkien and Lewis's *refusal* to be cool--to ignore current literary fashions in favor of their passion for mythology and their belief in eternal Christian verities.
This is really excellent. Johann Kurtz, whose work I like very much indeed, offered his own note-sized response to the idea of 'cool' as applied to Tolkien and Lewis (short version: like you he's not a fan).
That original crosspost has seemingly taken on a life of its own. It's become the never ending Substack note. The one thing I have posted on Substack which has had further reach than anything else, and it turns out to be something someone else wrote. One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
What has become clear to me is that there is an astonishing elasticity to the range of meanings people give to the word 'cool'. And I suspect - don't know - that a great deal depends on the chronological vantage point from which a person is first exposed to the very idea.
Several years ago, at my church, they did a group reading of Carl Trueman's book, "Strange New World". We had wide participation from high school to the elderly. Now I am of the opinion that Trueman's book, and it's more lengthy companion "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self", possess substantial explanatory power about important facets of the time we're living through. But the reaction of the participants turned out to be quite surprising. Almost everyone below the age of 30 found Trueman's thesis impenetrable, because they couldn't see that the culture had changed much at all. For them, things were much as they always had been except maybe more-so. For the elderly participants, their greater natural social isolation and less intense connection to cultural flash points made them wonder what Trueman was making such a big deal about. The group for which Trueman's insight was like a bomb going off in their heads were those people who, like Trueman, had lived through the cultural changes that got us here.
I find myself wondering how much of a person's reaction to the idea of 'cool' is generational.
As I told Johann, my own reading of Boze's use of 'cool' was as an effort to draw the attention of the kind of Tate fan who is largely motivated by the popular zeitgeist of the moment. Contextualization is a thing, after all, when you're trying to persuade.
Your essay is wonderful - quite beautiful really. There's much to say about how the West is failing its young men. Too much for a comment. But if we had wanted to contrive an educational system that would intentionally deprive young men of economic viability, competence, and skill, I'm not sure what we would have done differently.
"We castrate, and bid the geldings be fruitful." - C.S. Lewis
Keith, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I hadn't seen Johann Kurtz's take either, so I have been catching up. I think you're absolutely correct about the word having different generational resonances. It's definitely something that I think is rhetorical on Boze's part, it just gave rise to questions for me that I had to hash out in an essay.
Is it at all possible to talk convincingly about cool without mentioning African-Americans, jazz, hip hop? Miles Davis anyone? Seems a category error to think of Lewis or Tolkien as cool.
Perhaps because that category hasn't been cool in that sense since half a century or so. Instead its worst attributes have been promoted by greedy record companies and regressed media to sell records, concert tickets, clothes and sneakers.
Hip hop, even in the 80s and 90s, was never cool in the Norman Mailer's "hipster" sense or the Mile Davis sense (now that's a cool cat). It was just fashionable and marketable. It wasn't the "cool guys" liking it. It was the mass suburban white kids.
Your concept of cool is flawed. Hop hop was the epitome of cool in the 80s and 90s. After that it started being played out, but remained a driving cultural force . Cool = African American culture, and hip hop was that in the 80s and 90s. Most listeners of jazz back when that was cool were white dudes who weren’t themselves cool either.
The very concept of “cool” is a product of African American culture. Yes, others can have it, but that’s its origins. The farther pop culture gets from that, the less “cool” it gets.
Yeah, no. African American as what the US considers cool (the "hip" cats) was a brief moment around the 40s and especially 50s (when Normal Mailer wrote his famous piece, Miles Davis did the Birth of Cool, young fashionable people idolized jazzers, and so on). There was also a brief moment of "radical chic" blackness in the late 60s.
What was cool for most of the rest of that time was totally different. For the mainstream audiences, it was something like Steve McQueen cool. Or Bob Dylan cool. Or Peter Fonda Easy Rider era cool. Or Travolta cool in the late 70s. Or Madonna and Tom Cruise in the 80s. And MJ who was hardly "African American culture" and more generic gentrified mass audience pop (I'll give you Prince and Eddie Murphy)
Hip Hop was seldom the thing "the cool people" followed. It was something white suburban kids listened to for Christ's sake. It was fashionable, and some kids though they were part of a "culture" with breakdancing and such, but that's a different thing.
You seem to believe “cool” is decided by essentially urban hipsters or intellectuals. I don’t think this is true. I think your concept of cool relates more to upper class snobbery, hence your irrational, yet predictable, disdain for “white suburban males” (who are still basically uncool).
There's no cool without snobbery. It's inherent in the notion, cool is basically effortless snobbery: being "in the know", tastefully and non-chalantly "ahead of the curve" or "outside the game" - and of course more stylish.
But it doesn't has anything to do with "upper class" - it wasn't the upper class enjoying Steve McQueen or Velvet Underground, the first was a mass market actor, and the second something indie kids, of generally middle class, listened to. Both examples just had the coolness factor, as mentioned in countless articles, books, etc at the time and until now.
Your concept of cool is basically "in fashion" or "what everybody listens to".
> irrational, yet predictable, disdain for “white suburban males”
Nothing irrational about it. “White suburban males” might be lots of things, but they're never cool or early adopters of what's cool. That's 100% rational assessment. You might find someone who disagrees with this, but they'd likely be living in the suburbs themselves, and wear socks with Crocs.
Predictable, yes, just like someone not liking vomit smell is predictable.
“being "in the know", tastefully and non-chalantly "ahead of the curve" or "outside the game" - and of course more stylish.”
This vibe itself originated with African American culture. Other groups just copied it. I’m not an SJW, I “defended” white suburban males lol. Who I know are not cool, and I said so.
Snobbery is not and has never been cool. You are wrong. Snobbery requires effort, there’s no such thing as effortless snobbery.
> This vibe itself originated with African American culture. Other groups just copied it.
Even that is an Americanism. Europe has it's share of figures projecting the "cool" vibe, unrelated to African American (or American in general) culture. No shortage of cool in France, like flaneurs (19th century), bohemians (the original "hipsters", they influenced America, not the other way around), or existentialist circles (early 20th century) for example.
> Snobbery is not and has never been cool. You are wrong. Snobbery requires effort, there’s no such thing as effortless snobbery.
Oh, you'd be surprised.
It only requires effort when you start without the panache and taste and have to compensate. Some are born into it, others naturally develop it. And those can still snub the wannabes.
Copy that. But as a teacher of high-school boys, I’ve never pushed the notion that Tolkien and Lewis are cool. The closest I’ve been to that is suggesting that the works of two of Tolkien’s and Lewis’s students are cool. So when I recite “This Be The Verse” or read them the burnt-rug passage from _Lucky Jim_, it’s in hope that their interests will seep into the lives of T&L as they age. Like it did with their teacher.
Yeah-yeah, I’m at a military academy.
O.K., and I’m their physics teacher. But I also make it a point that young men would do well to avoid the Jean Tatlocks of our day.
Thank you!! I think women have a tremendous role in supporting men and current cultural narratives really undermine this. I have another piece coming out on that soon.
CS Lewis had a term he used when discussing the attributes of one era while living in another. He says that the present always inflicts “chronological snobbery” on the other timeframe. I believe he would have thought himself cool in the mental vernacular of his earlier days. and abhorred his claim to the former coolness as he aged, letting it age with him like wine..
I agree that the “forgotten” element of cool is “realness”. Another word for “real” is “authentic” and we all know that this word has been hijacked and commodified. It’s no longer easy for modern young men to distinguish “real” role models from those that are only seemingly so. Especially in such an overwhelming and fractured landscape. Maybe this is what leads them to static figures from a time less saturated by surface variants of cool. Figures with sufficient depth of merit, skill and wisdom that cannot dupe the already tired youth.
Skate and surf culture used the word “poser” to mark someone who presents the part but lacks sufficient realness or skin in the game. Clearly, this attitude is exclusive, but that’s what protects culture sometimes.
I like this observation. I’d disagree that we do have heroes in the military for people to look up to. But, a lot of them died being brave and heroes in every sense of the word. That’s a big part of the lesson as you quote at the end.
Desmond Doss is an example that’s a bit more than surface level bravery and heroism.
Doss would be as close as I can think of someone “cool” in the same sense as Tolkien and Lewis, but people would be truly horrified what he had to go through and live through to be that hero.
You are so right! I also think Tolkien and Lewis are great for inspiring people toward the good, true, and beautiful — teaching them how to recognize and admire it — but I don’t think they are great at inspiring especially men to heroic virtue, and the little steps it takes to get there. Many of the men I know who are really into Tolkien and Lewis are good at reading, writing, debating, etc. but they’re not super in tune with the world around them, or the needs of the women in their lives (I say this because heroic men take their role as protector of women seriously, not just in ideology but in action) These men couldn’t chop wood if the directions were written on the axe, and they are not up for the hard task of sacrificing themselves everyday for their family. Now, I do know men who enjoy the works of Tolkien and Lewis who *do* possess these qualities, and they admire Tolkien and Lewis, but they don’t look to them as say, “incels” look to Andrew Tate.
Yes! We need to emphasize the more active virtues—Lewis and Tolkien write about these, but weren’t always examples of them because of their own more studious vocations.
Emily, what a phenomenal writing piece...I am floored. As I read the title, I reacted negatively, being a lifelong lover of Tolkien and CS Lewis. As I read, I understood your meaning. Young men are in desperate need of being honorably loved, appreciated for their bravery, blessed for their strength and intensity. I lost two family members in war, one, an Uncle in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and a brother who died in Vietnam in 1968. We forget the determination, even under fire. Tolkien's master work, Lord of the Rings, is a map of many honorable men, as is C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia (I also love and re-read The Silver Chair, many times!). As an Elder of 72, I never forget the sacrifice of men. The war between men and women needs to stop! Bless your heart and soul for this deep and evocative writing. Wendy
This essay started out as an interesting and thought provoking and literary take. It started to crescendo with the observations and opinions taken from the Marine movie. It is a great essay and, I think, is “spot on” regarding young men and coolness and how each defines the other. Love it.
Very nice. I've never liked 'cool.' Hollywood was big on cool. The cool guy was the rule-breaker, the outlaw, the sexy bad ass. Cool reigned in high school. I wasn't cool but I knew who the cool kids were. Fast forward 25 years and the cool kids did poorly in the real world.
I think coolness has caused a lot of problems. Rap and hip hop were/are cool, but they have taken over the minds of millions of impressionable young men, sending them hip-hopping off into the weeds of drugs and crime.
Cool people shit on non-cool people. I've never liked them.
And yeah, I agree, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein are not cool. They are solid wise old men.
I commented on the original. Basically, Tolkien and Lewis are going to appeal to a totally different sort of young man. Guys who are into Tate aren't going to be impressed by a bunch of college professors who wrote books--you want an athlete who behaves ethically or a war hero (though we don't have any).
And if you think about what made them unique, it was Tolkien and Lewis's *refusal* to be cool--to ignore current literary fashions in favor of their passion for mythology and their belief in eternal Christian verities.
This is really excellent. Johann Kurtz, whose work I like very much indeed, offered his own note-sized response to the idea of 'cool' as applied to Tolkien and Lewis (short version: like you he's not a fan).
That original crosspost has seemingly taken on a life of its own. It's become the never ending Substack note. The one thing I have posted on Substack which has had further reach than anything else, and it turns out to be something someone else wrote. One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
What has become clear to me is that there is an astonishing elasticity to the range of meanings people give to the word 'cool'. And I suspect - don't know - that a great deal depends on the chronological vantage point from which a person is first exposed to the very idea.
Several years ago, at my church, they did a group reading of Carl Trueman's book, "Strange New World". We had wide participation from high school to the elderly. Now I am of the opinion that Trueman's book, and it's more lengthy companion "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self", possess substantial explanatory power about important facets of the time we're living through. But the reaction of the participants turned out to be quite surprising. Almost everyone below the age of 30 found Trueman's thesis impenetrable, because they couldn't see that the culture had changed much at all. For them, things were much as they always had been except maybe more-so. For the elderly participants, their greater natural social isolation and less intense connection to cultural flash points made them wonder what Trueman was making such a big deal about. The group for which Trueman's insight was like a bomb going off in their heads were those people who, like Trueman, had lived through the cultural changes that got us here.
I find myself wondering how much of a person's reaction to the idea of 'cool' is generational.
As I told Johann, my own reading of Boze's use of 'cool' was as an effort to draw the attention of the kind of Tate fan who is largely motivated by the popular zeitgeist of the moment. Contextualization is a thing, after all, when you're trying to persuade.
Your essay is wonderful - quite beautiful really. There's much to say about how the West is failing its young men. Too much for a comment. But if we had wanted to contrive an educational system that would intentionally deprive young men of economic viability, competence, and skill, I'm not sure what we would have done differently.
"We castrate, and bid the geldings be fruitful." - C.S. Lewis
Keith, thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I hadn't seen Johann Kurtz's take either, so I have been catching up. I think you're absolutely correct about the word having different generational resonances. It's definitely something that I think is rhetorical on Boze's part, it just gave rise to questions for me that I had to hash out in an essay.
Is it at all possible to talk convincingly about cool without mentioning African-Americans, jazz, hip hop? Miles Davis anyone? Seems a category error to think of Lewis or Tolkien as cool.
Perhaps because that category hasn't been cool in that sense since half a century or so. Instead its worst attributes have been promoted by greedy record companies and regressed media to sell records, concert tickets, clothes and sneakers.
Hip hop, even in the 80s and 90s, was never cool in the Norman Mailer's "hipster" sense or the Mile Davis sense (now that's a cool cat). It was just fashionable and marketable. It wasn't the "cool guys" liking it. It was the mass suburban white kids.
Your concept of cool is flawed. Hop hop was the epitome of cool in the 80s and 90s. After that it started being played out, but remained a driving cultural force . Cool = African American culture, and hip hop was that in the 80s and 90s. Most listeners of jazz back when that was cool were white dudes who weren’t themselves cool either.
💯
The very concept of “cool” is a product of African American culture. Yes, others can have it, but that’s its origins. The farther pop culture gets from that, the less “cool” it gets.
Yeah, no. African American as what the US considers cool (the "hip" cats) was a brief moment around the 40s and especially 50s (when Normal Mailer wrote his famous piece, Miles Davis did the Birth of Cool, young fashionable people idolized jazzers, and so on). There was also a brief moment of "radical chic" blackness in the late 60s.
What was cool for most of the rest of that time was totally different. For the mainstream audiences, it was something like Steve McQueen cool. Or Bob Dylan cool. Or Peter Fonda Easy Rider era cool. Or Travolta cool in the late 70s. Or Madonna and Tom Cruise in the 80s. And MJ who was hardly "African American culture" and more generic gentrified mass audience pop (I'll give you Prince and Eddie Murphy)
Hip Hop was seldom the thing "the cool people" followed. It was something white suburban kids listened to for Christ's sake. It was fashionable, and some kids though they were part of a "culture" with breakdancing and such, but that's a different thing.
You seem to believe “cool” is decided by essentially urban hipsters or intellectuals. I don’t think this is true. I think your concept of cool relates more to upper class snobbery, hence your irrational, yet predictable, disdain for “white suburban males” (who are still basically uncool).
There's no cool without snobbery. It's inherent in the notion, cool is basically effortless snobbery: being "in the know", tastefully and non-chalantly "ahead of the curve" or "outside the game" - and of course more stylish.
But it doesn't has anything to do with "upper class" - it wasn't the upper class enjoying Steve McQueen or Velvet Underground, the first was a mass market actor, and the second something indie kids, of generally middle class, listened to. Both examples just had the coolness factor, as mentioned in countless articles, books, etc at the time and until now.
Your concept of cool is basically "in fashion" or "what everybody listens to".
> irrational, yet predictable, disdain for “white suburban males”
Nothing irrational about it. “White suburban males” might be lots of things, but they're never cool or early adopters of what's cool. That's 100% rational assessment. You might find someone who disagrees with this, but they'd likely be living in the suburbs themselves, and wear socks with Crocs.
Predictable, yes, just like someone not liking vomit smell is predictable.
“being "in the know", tastefully and non-chalantly "ahead of the curve" or "outside the game" - and of course more stylish.”
This vibe itself originated with African American culture. Other groups just copied it. I’m not an SJW, I “defended” white suburban males lol. Who I know are not cool, and I said so.
Snobbery is not and has never been cool. You are wrong. Snobbery requires effort, there’s no such thing as effortless snobbery.
> This vibe itself originated with African American culture. Other groups just copied it.
Even that is an Americanism. Europe has it's share of figures projecting the "cool" vibe, unrelated to African American (or American in general) culture. No shortage of cool in France, like flaneurs (19th century), bohemians (the original "hipsters", they influenced America, not the other way around), or existentialist circles (early 20th century) for example.
> Snobbery is not and has never been cool. You are wrong. Snobbery requires effort, there’s no such thing as effortless snobbery.
Oh, you'd be surprised.
It only requires effort when you start without the panache and taste and have to compensate. Some are born into it, others naturally develop it. And those can still snub the wannabes.
Copy that. But as a teacher of high-school boys, I’ve never pushed the notion that Tolkien and Lewis are cool. The closest I’ve been to that is suggesting that the works of two of Tolkien’s and Lewis’s students are cool. So when I recite “This Be The Verse” or read them the burnt-rug passage from _Lucky Jim_, it’s in hope that their interests will seep into the lives of T&L as they age. Like it did with their teacher.
Yeah-yeah, I’m at a military academy.
O.K., and I’m their physics teacher. But I also make it a point that young men would do well to avoid the Jean Tatlocks of our day.
Every lucid moment is teachable.
I’m so glad you wrote this, it’s clear these words had to come from you. Thank you!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the connection between older women and young men and your words are searing in the best way.
Also “like an electric guitar at teen praise and worship night” made me laugh out loud 😂
Thank you!! I think women have a tremendous role in supporting men and current cultural narratives really undermine this. I have another piece coming out on that soon.
This piece is now out! https://fairerdisputations.org/emotional-labo/
CS Lewis had a term he used when discussing the attributes of one era while living in another. He says that the present always inflicts “chronological snobbery” on the other timeframe. I believe he would have thought himself cool in the mental vernacular of his earlier days. and abhorred his claim to the former coolness as he aged, letting it age with him like wine..
I agree that the “forgotten” element of cool is “realness”. Another word for “real” is “authentic” and we all know that this word has been hijacked and commodified. It’s no longer easy for modern young men to distinguish “real” role models from those that are only seemingly so. Especially in such an overwhelming and fractured landscape. Maybe this is what leads them to static figures from a time less saturated by surface variants of cool. Figures with sufficient depth of merit, skill and wisdom that cannot dupe the already tired youth.
Skate and surf culture used the word “poser” to mark someone who presents the part but lacks sufficient realness or skin in the game. Clearly, this attitude is exclusive, but that’s what protects culture sometimes.
Yes—thanks for the thoughtful comment!
I came ready to bear arms, I left in agreement. Well-written, soul-friend
Me too!
I like this observation. I’d disagree that we do have heroes in the military for people to look up to. But, a lot of them died being brave and heroes in every sense of the word. That’s a big part of the lesson as you quote at the end.
Desmond Doss is an example that’s a bit more than surface level bravery and heroism.
Doss would be as close as I can think of someone “cool” in the same sense as Tolkien and Lewis, but people would be truly horrified what he had to go through and live through to be that hero.
You are so right! I also think Tolkien and Lewis are great for inspiring people toward the good, true, and beautiful — teaching them how to recognize and admire it — but I don’t think they are great at inspiring especially men to heroic virtue, and the little steps it takes to get there. Many of the men I know who are really into Tolkien and Lewis are good at reading, writing, debating, etc. but they’re not super in tune with the world around them, or the needs of the women in their lives (I say this because heroic men take their role as protector of women seriously, not just in ideology but in action) These men couldn’t chop wood if the directions were written on the axe, and they are not up for the hard task of sacrificing themselves everyday for their family. Now, I do know men who enjoy the works of Tolkien and Lewis who *do* possess these qualities, and they admire Tolkien and Lewis, but they don’t look to them as say, “incels” look to Andrew Tate.
Yes! We need to emphasize the more active virtues—Lewis and Tolkien write about these, but weren’t always examples of them because of their own more studious vocations.
We don't need them to be "cool". We need writing books that slap to mogg Tater-tweets. Word games aside, I hope the point is clear. Lol.
Great Article.
Emily, what a phenomenal writing piece...I am floored. As I read the title, I reacted negatively, being a lifelong lover of Tolkien and CS Lewis. As I read, I understood your meaning. Young men are in desperate need of being honorably loved, appreciated for their bravery, blessed for their strength and intensity. I lost two family members in war, one, an Uncle in the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and a brother who died in Vietnam in 1968. We forget the determination, even under fire. Tolkien's master work, Lord of the Rings, is a map of many honorable men, as is C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia (I also love and re-read The Silver Chair, many times!). As an Elder of 72, I never forget the sacrifice of men. The war between men and women needs to stop! Bless your heart and soul for this deep and evocative writing. Wendy
Thank you, Wendy, for your kind words and your family’s sacrifice. 🤍
This essay started out as an interesting and thought provoking and literary take. It started to crescendo with the observations and opinions taken from the Marine movie. It is a great essay and, I think, is “spot on” regarding young men and coolness and how each defines the other. Love it.
Very nice. I've never liked 'cool.' Hollywood was big on cool. The cool guy was the rule-breaker, the outlaw, the sexy bad ass. Cool reigned in high school. I wasn't cool but I knew who the cool kids were. Fast forward 25 years and the cool kids did poorly in the real world.
I think coolness has caused a lot of problems. Rap and hip hop were/are cool, but they have taken over the minds of millions of impressionable young men, sending them hip-hopping off into the weeds of drugs and crime.
Cool people shit on non-cool people. I've never liked them.
And yeah, I agree, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein are not cool. They are solid wise old men.
Thanks!!
I love this! This is so good!
Thank you!!
Thank you for this article. That was a much better expansion on the thoughts I was having on that original article.