Years ago, being cool was a common ambition. Today few aspire to be cool. Being cool is not cool.
Moral superiority is the new goal. Both the Woke Left and the Patriotic Right hold that their political beliefs emanate from, and confirm, their moral superiority.
They may be wrong about many things. They may be confused and wavering about careers, investments, marriages, children, friends, and the weather. Yet about politics, they have NO doubts They know how everyone should think and act, because their own political thoughts and actions are impeccable, exemplary, and absolute.
Moral superiority is rewarding if outrage and umbrage is your idea of fun. If not, reconsider cool. Compare life in the 1964 song The In Crowd (lyrics below) with that of today’s Woke and Patriots.
| COOL | WOKE | PATRIOT | |
| I’m in with the | In Crowd | Progressive Scolds | Oath Keepers |
| I go | Where the In Crowd goes | To facilitate DEI training | To a Prosperity Christian Evangelical Church |
| I know what ____knows | The In Crowd | MSNBC | InfoWars |
| I party | Anytime of of the year | During National Brotherhood Week | On January 6 |
| Dressin’ | Fine | with a “Tax the Rich” sign at Opera Galas | Open carry and MAGA hat |
| Makin’ | Time | Accusations of cultural appropriation | Border walls |
| We breeze up and down | The street | Terrified College Deans | Global child-trafficking rings |
| We get respect from | the People we meet | Cis-Plorables | Deplorables |
| People know we’re | Out of sight | Out of line | Out of our minds |
| I know every latest | Dance | Gender | Voter fraud |
| It’s easy to find | Romance | Marginalized Identity | Jewish space lasers |
| At a spot where | The beat’s Really hot | A safe space deters stereotyping and demeaning verbal assaults while also fostering the creation of new vocabularies for resistance | Where the BIPOC are not |
| If it’s______we aint there | Square | A socially constructed hierarchical system of power | Vax & mask |
| We make every____count | Minute | Microaggression | Fetal heartbeat |
| Our share is always | The biggest amount | Exhausting emotional labor | Everything not nailed down, and anything we can pry up is not nailed down. |
| Other guys _______us | Imitate | Unconsciously deprecate | Cannot deep state |
| But the original’s still | The Greatest | Got exclusions that invalidate the cultural heritage of others | The only valid Constitutional interpretation |
| We got our own way of | Walkin’ | Composing a new vernacular to parse the complexities of intersectionality | Misrepresenting, fabricating and outright lying |
| We got our own way of | Talkin’ | Defunding | Detecting conspiracies and witch hunts |
| Spendin’ | Cash | Your tax dollars | Trump tax cuts |
| Talkin’ | Trash | Latinx instead of Latino | Spic instead of Latino |
| I’ll show you a real | Good time | Example of oppressive entitled social privilege | Marxist teacher training program in your local school |
| Come on with me and leave your _______behind | Troubles | White fragility | Critical race theory |
| You ain’t been nowhere till you’ve been | In with the In Crowd | On the traditional land of Coast Salish people, including the Duwamish People, past and present | Admitted to freedom-loving, masculinist, post-truth utopia |
| (yeah, yeah, yeah) | LSD | Booster shots | Opioids mixed with Ivermectin, purchased at livestock feed lots |
Here are the lyrics of that once-cool song:
I’m in with the in crowd
I go where the in crowd goes
I’m in with the in crowd
And I know what the in crowd knows
Any time of the year, don’t you hear?
Dressin’ fine, makin’ time
We breeze up and down the street
We get respect from the people we meet
They make way day or night
They know the in crowd is out of sight
I’m in with the in crowd
I know every latest dance
When you’re in with the in crowd
It’s easy to find romance
At a spot where the beat’s really hot
Oh, if it’s square, we ain’t there
We make every minute count
Our share is always the biggest amount
Other guys imitate us
But the original’s still the greatest
We got our own way of walkin’
We got our own way of talkin’, yeah
Anytime of the year, don’t you hear?
Spendin’ cash, talkin’ trash
Girl, I’ll show you a real good time
Come on with me and leave your troubles behind
I don’t care where you’ve been
You ain’t been nowhere till you’ve been in
With the in crowd, yeah
Oh, with the in crowd (yeah, yeah, yeah)
We got our own way of walkin’, yeah (yeah, yeah, yeah)
We got our own way of talkin’ (yeah, yeah, yeah)
In the in crowd
Loved this. Not only was it the funniest thing I’ve read recently, but since it hilariously rips the left and right wing nuts equally, it has pioneered something new. It lacks a name, and probably always will, because the only possibilities that come to mind –centrist or even-handed humor, moderate satire, common sense put downs, etc., are risible themselves. So it may have to be known as the humor that dare not speak its name. No matter. It’s funny.
Funny but sad
I first began to realize that cool was no longer cool while watching the 1986 time-travel fantasy “Peggy Sue Got Married”. Carried back to her ’50s high school days, Kathleen Turner has just dumped her boy friend Nicholas Cage. Cage says something like this:
“Peggy Sue, what’s wrong?
I got the hair….
I got the teeth….
I got the car…..
I’m the man!”
I always wear my hair shirt while reading satire, that way I can enjoy the humor while simultaneously punishing myself for it.
And then that leads me to thinking about Miles Davis, and the supposed Birth of The Cool.
A pitch perfect piece. Congrats