In the world, we are divided by race, religion, finances, nationality and gender. Each of these categories have their own social maps that define what people who fit "x" description should do. It has become commonplace that teenagers in industrialized countries are shown wealth as the bottom line for what it means to be successful. The competition between us leads us to lavish our wealth on ourselves, and not contribute it to the community.
The "rebel" image of cool in our culture has gone further than creating an aspiration to be nonchalant, and has eliminated much of the value placed on community. Being an "individual" is our idea of adulthood in America and has slowly turned into isolationism in American society. This is part of my social map as an American, and exactly what I want to move away from.
I think that their is a much larger aspect to this cool unit, pertaining to our existence as a whole. Since society began, the human race has been perplexed by the question; "why are we here?". This is a question that like most has been approached scientifically, socially, and philosophically. Many people have postulated and nobody seems to know exactly what to believe. I think that this has created a void in our lives, that we fill by trying to set a goal, or making a purpose for ourselves. We treat this purpose as if it were actually our reason for living, but often times, we focus on one personal goal, and fail to contribute to society.
Wanting to feel important is what we hope to achieve by reaching the end of our map. Often times, this is not the case, in the upper class, being wealthy is rewarding, but not emotionally fulfilling. This is why, psychologists like Matt Fried conclude that people often turn to substance abuse, which gives the user a temporary sense of importance. The idea of "cool" is in a sense, an opiate which gives us a sense of validation by being reassured that the people around us approve of the character we play.
The sociologist Erving Goffman talked about the idea of our "selves" as a part of us which we are alienated from because of the overwhelming influences of society. He asserted that in a way, Shakespeare was correct in writing that "all the world is a stage & all the men and women are merely players". The influence of society has created our characters which we play almost 24/7, and often what we confuse with our "true" self.
Unlike heroin or alcohol, you cannot purchase the high of social acceptance. It has become evident that in order to gain this, you need to develop yourself into a more socially competitive and intelligent person. This is what breeds competition amongst ourselves, and why we try to 1up each other. It has worked out heavenly for businesses, as part of this competition is having more expensive things, thus the emergence of consumerism. Our self made consumer haven has been so profitable, that almost all facets of our lives have been marketed to and tailored to fit peoples ideas of what is socially acceptable,and even in some cases, determined what people have come to accept as cool.
Being "fresh" in New York is a common goal in the social maps of teenagers in New York City, and most cities around the world today. It's all about being dressed the best and looking the most put together. I like to wear nice clothes, but recently I came to realize that a certain triviality lies in this pursuit. "Getting fresh", like other consumer pursuits, has one goal, but no skill nor any constructive aspect to it. The ability to be more or less fresh relies on the access to money that the person has, serving as another outlet for people to compete and flaunt their wealth i.e. success.
Being more successful, generally = having more money. Since a better job = more money, we compete with each other to become the richest, thus the most successful. We would logically assume that the hardest workers would be the most successful, but that's rarely true. In America, the wealthiest people are athletes, actors, musicians and CEO's. The misconception of being a harder worker to achieve more, directly benefits the corporate structure, which often yields far lower than we put in.
This unit has forced me into thinking far more critically and deeply about how I live, act and carry myself, than I ever have. I have tried to reach some sort of conclusion about this "cool unit", but frankly, every revelation of the topic that I've had, I refute a day or two later. If anything can be taken away from this unit, it won't be a concrete truth, but yet another theory, trying to define the entire world and categorize it into a little box (much like we do with ourselves playing roles, and becoming confined to our "box"). I predict that most other papers will refer to "people" as a way to generalize, but really, I think we are pretty much all the same, and physiologically, we are only about 0.1% different from one another. People have been told that everyone is special and unique, but really, when you broaden your focus, you see how basic and conformist people are.
Between any two humans, the amount of genetic variation—biochemical individuality—is about 0.1 percent.(The National Human Genome Research Institute)
"We try to be successful but success is defined by the people around us and to be accepted we must conform to the dominant idea of success". This was the idea that I took away from your draft, I think relating the idea of success to the pursuit of "cool" can lead to many interesting ideas. I liked the evidence you used from Matt our readings and the quote from the Genome research Institute, you have all the pieces for a great paper but your thesis is a bit odd since it takes the idea of cool in a different direction (which will make the paper more interesting). Because your thesis is so different you have to keep connecting it to the idea of cool so the reader doesn't get confused, you can do this by explaining the relationship between "cool' and "success". I look forward to reading the finished product and as always I expect interesting thoughts and ideas from you.
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