The aesthetics of cool: a theory on Obama's misunderstood coolness

[flamingdem]

What is "cool". A lot deeper than the "cold" we're sold as describing Obama. I recommend the work of Robert Farris Thompson, Yale Professor, who has a new book "The Aesthetics of Cool".

African cool

Author Robert Farris Thompson suggests that Itutu, which he translates as cool, is one of three pillars of a religious philosophy created in the 15th century<10> by Yoruba and Ibo civilizations of West Africa. Cool or Itutu contained meanings of conciliation and gentleness of character, the ability to defuse fights and disputes, of generosity and grace. It was also associated with physical beauty. Typical for Itutu is the reference to water because to the Yoruba coolness retained its physical connotation of temperature.<11> He cites a definition of cool from the Gola people of Liberia, who define it as the ability to be mentally calm or detached, in an other-wordly fashion, from one's circumstances, to be nonchalant in situations where emotionalism or eagerness would be natural and expected.<12> Joseph M. Murphy writes that "cool" is also closely associated with the deity �sun of the Yoruba religion.<13>

Thompson finds the cultural value of cool in Africa which influenced the African diaspora different from that held by Europeans, who use the term primarily as the ability to remain calm under stress. According to Thompson, there is significant weight, meaning and spirituality attached to cool in traditional African cultures, something which, Thompson argues, is absent from the idea in a Western context.

"Control, stability, and composure under the African rubric of the cool seem to constitute elements of an all-embracing aesthetic attitude." African cool, writes Thompson, is "more complicated and more variously expressed than Western notions of sang-froid (literally, "cold blood"), cooling off, or even icy determination."(Thompson, African Arts)

The telling point is that the "mask" of coolness is worn not only in time of stress, but also of pleasure, in fields of expressive performance and the dance. Struck by the re-occurrence of this vital notion elsewhere in tropical Africa and in the Black Americas, I have come to term the attitude "an aesthetic of the cool" in the sense of a deeply and completely motivated, consciously artistic, interweaving of elements serious and pleasurable, of responsibility and play.<14>

http://english.turkcebilgi.com/Cool+%28aesthetic%29

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. I've heard a better theory than that.

It has to do with him growing up in Hawaii

http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/2011/02/02/cartoon-column-our-first-hawaiian-president/

[flamingdem]

3. I like it!

Of course that's hugely huge as far as cool goes. But in that case I might say "relaxed" more than the sense of West African cool.

[uponit7771]

6. +1

[flamingdem]

2. Here is a link to an early study by Robert Farris Thompson

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3334749

An Aesthetic of the Cool

The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of a basic West African/Afro-American metaphor of moral aesthetic accomplishment, the concept cool.

[rocktivity]

4. A while ago, a DU-er posted this pic

to illustrate the relationship between Obama and the Rethugs;



A while ago.

:headbang:
rocktivty

[flamingdem]

5. He he, I can see it. Except for the front teeth Bugs is Obama

- chomping on the carrot watching the crazies calmly.