HW 37 - Cool Paper "Done" Draft [revised]

Intro:

Almost everybody has thought of living in a misery without meaning, and that feeling is so dry that we barely see the shape of our own lives. Most of us visualize this feeling of insignificance as a hole in our lives, a feeling of emptiness that is never be able to fill but to cover as much as we can. The reason we felt that way as Matt Fried would describe, is that most of us receive massive of affections since we are a baby. We try to perform as what Erving Goffman claimed, that we put ourselves out there on stage, and to be certain characters that will receive some sort of response from the others that we desire to get with the same manner that we perform them to the audience. Usually due to politeness of human beings, we are fortunate enough to receive a sense of satisfaction from the others if we perform well enough to signify who we are. Because we are all practice to be a great performer to get this intangible attention to feel like in a spotlight the whole time, we create a competition over coolness for our own selfish interests. As everybody is trying to fish for coolness to get a sense of importance in life to fulfill the imaginary hole of emptiness and meaninglessness, we risk the chance from overfishing to lead ourselves to fall into the "social trap", resulting in a reflection of human foolishness.

Argument 1

“Social trap is a term used by psychologists to describe a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole.” If being cool is an “act” to acquire impermanent attention or significant value reflecting selfishness, we are as a whole are definitely overfishing for the sense of cool. By saying that, I am not arguing that it is wrong to be cool, but most of us are certainly seeking for cool in the wrong way. Such as the video Merchants of Cool, it reveals how foolish the teenagers are now a day being puppets of large corporations. They are being utilized as “rats” for the experts to experiment on, and seek what is cool to them and sold it back to them resulting they are the ultimate consumers who are supporting the “wicked” corporations to reflect their ignorance of the whole situation. Many teenagers do not realize they are being used, and often times even though they are aware of what the commercials are doing them, they simply buy it. From the video clip, Miller said, “Kids feel frustrated and lonely today because they are encouraged to feel that way.” Many of us might they we just naturally feel the emptiness whenever we encounter that, but what we are not aware of is that, that’s what the media taught us how to feel. Perhaps to put it this way, before we actually feel the sense of emptiness in us, we already visualize it as a hole from the given images from the media.

Argument 2

In Buddhism, emptiness does not parallel with the word “nothingness”. Emptiness is still something rather than simply nothing exist in this universe. As the way the Kadampa Buddhists would put it, “all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Consequently all things have no fixed identity ('inherent existence') and are in a state of impermanence - change and flux - constantly becoming and decaying”. If that was the correct definition for emptiness, it shows that a lot of the Western definition of emptiness has been mis-understood. Most of us will think that emptiness means nothing exists, is simply blank. But what we don’t understand is that if we are stuck in the idea of nothing exists, we are claiming that everything is “impermanence”, constantly changing. Within this definition of emptiness, we tend to “behave in ways that only solidify your [our] own ego and cause harm to yourself [ourselves] and others”. I believe this is true because we constantly fishing for the sense of coolness for our own satisfaction, and we tied to the understanding of it will last although we know it doesn’t. This also reveals how being cool is the idea of chasing after desire, it is certainly something that most of the people will not meet completely in lives. What most of us don’t understand was that clinging to the idea of emptiness is the consequence of understanding everything is impermanence, resulting our foolishness for seeking for a way to make things to stay in the motion of permanent. If we accept the fact that emptiness is just simply emptiness, a feeling that everybody feel, we will stop to “behave in ways that only solidify to our own ego” and won’t be competing over the sense of cool.

Argument 3

Competition over cool are everywhere, we can easily see it in groups like gender, race, age, etc. We like to knock off others to make ourselves to feel better, special and unique in the group often offers the sense of importance which satisfies people in a short-term. In school, we can define people based on their GPA, in society, we can define people based on their social class and through media we can define people based on their popularity. It seems like is all about competitions, and being successful in varies of way to live cool. All these competitions could be seemed as a Social Dilemma. One of the famous one is called “prisoner’s dilemma”, which is a game theory originally created by Merrill Flood. The scenario was,

“Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?”

“The problem results from the fact that both can play this game -- that is, defect -- and if both do, then both do worse than they would had they both kept silent. This peculiar parable serves as a model of cooperation between two or more individuals (or corporations or countries) in ordinary life in that in many cases each individual would be personally better off not cooperating (defecting) on the other.”

Based on the result of the game as described above, if both “defect, by competing cool over each other, people are worsen the situation than both just settle, and help the situation to lower the negativity of the situation. Just like fishing, if everybody are being selfish, trying to have more fish than the other, the amount that they actually needed, it will caused the problem of overfishing, which everybody will have no fish. If we can learn how to treat “cool”, this intangible feeling that make us valuable as a “common good”, then we might not be fighting over just for our short term self-interest.

Alternatives

If we see cool as a “public good” like an mp3 file, or air, we will not fight over it.

“For example, if one individual visits a doctor there is one less doctor's visit for everyone else, and it is possible to exclude others from visiting the doctor; it is a rivaled and excludable private good. Conversely, breathing air neither significantly reduces the amount of air available to others, nor can people be effectively excluded from using the air. This makes it a public good, but one that is economically trivial, as air is a free good. A less straight-forward example is the exchange of MP3 music files on the internet: the use of these files by any one person does not restrict the use by anyone else and there is little effective control over the exchange of these music files.”

The paragraph provides certain examples of something that is infinite. If we looked at the world as a massive population, why do we try so hard to get certain attention by creating a competition? I believed we all do get certain amount of attention from somebody on this planet, even simply walking down on street, people do see you. In addition to that, it reveals how people fight over something that is not there, no one wins in this game. However, cool is all about desire, a feeling of endless unsatisfaction.

One might also argued that it is okay to have competitions, and is way much better to have better conditions than the others. But what people do not realize is that they are just filling the hole of emptiness that's not there. Is as if saying, if you do not know your mistakes, you will never learn the new lesson. "Filling an empty cup with an empty glass" from Richard, was very well said that explains the idea. Many people do not even know what emptiness might be and they are not filling it, but maybe cover it. If what competition over cool and being unique is the definition of cool, then why so many people will still want more due to desire? This proves that short-term of fulfilling the desire or emptiness is not permanence, left the problem unsolved. My idea was instead of trashing each others to make ourselves to feel better, perhaps we can all work together by helping the others to become certain roles, to create a sense of importance.

Connection:

Other than myself that I believed, we all have offer help to someone in our lives. Regardless of whether we are trying to be the role of "nice person" as the purpose of helping or just really being generous to offer help, we all feel good after we were able to help somebody by doing some nice things to the world. In this situation, I think it is a game that both person wins too. One receives the help without gratified, other receive a sense of importance by offering help to the others as being acknowledge his/her existence. If we look at cook in this way, it is possible for everybody to be cool in different ways other than creating such competitions. To reverse the situation and think to ourselves as the one who receives help from the others all the time, perhaps it might be a small or tiny part of the one who offers help. But maybe to you, including myself it makes a big difference. The need of attention, the struggles of performing in such way with unique outfits, etc., all these things does not last or make us important forever. We simply receive stares from strangers and they are certainly meaningless that way. But by offering help with such generous action, it is way much better than performing such way to receive permanence significant.

Another way to feel importance in lives is to have talent, like what Devin said in class earlier. Since we are learning something for ourselves that nobody can steal from us, learning something new and have skills on it, do make us unique without competing over others in a offended way. There are lots of artists, lawyer, teachers, doctors...etc., that are out there. They do not necessary have to be the best one out of all, but simply being a successful doctor or artist performing the role that they are prefer. In game theory, this would called "zero-sum", meaning "win-win solution instead of win-lose solution" as the way Bill Clinton put it in his interview in 2000. If we all understand the concept of how to be cool in the right way, then we would not have to risk the chance of losing our self values on this planet although we all know the fact that we will die someday.

Significance:

If the cycle of being cool keeps going, then the next generation will play the cool game close enough to be same as we play it. A perfect example will the teenagers now a day, lots of them are following trends buying the newest sneakers...etc., are definitely being cool in the wrong way. I am not saying that having passion in fashion is wrong, but the idea most people perceives cool is wrong in my perspective. We all know being cool is the desire for attention and trying to seek for external approval from the others. But what most people are seeking for, are something that might not even last longer than a week, or a day. "Cool is from uncool", perhaps not much people catch that. What makes someone cool, are from the people who's lame. By saying that, who's cooler? Although it is a pointless question to judge on, trying to be cool often brings people to be fools of themselves. Many people think they play cool well, but they did not realize cool is the one that is playing them. Being cool direct us to a cultural map (box) that organize into roles. Whatever roles that the performer performs to the audience, it has to do with our origins where it reflects the values of being cool. Not only this often times limits our choice, it leads us to a situation of gain and lose. If we did not make good choices for our life and compare the good and the bad to decide our own future, we are all just prisoners of our own cultural maps and does not know how to change it or modify it that fits us the most.

Conclusion

If we realized that coolness is something that we can all shared, like public good, then we won't try so hard to be different. (The example that I read online about it doesn't matter where you live right next to the river or far away, everybody receive the same amount of water) If we accept the fact that everything is connected and we are all the same after all, then we will live a more meaningful life than being a fool competes over something that is meaningless, and worsen our lives or the situation. We all can play an important role in our own stories, if you are not the dancer, perhaps you can be the singer on the stage. Both play an important role as well as the other, and in this game, both win. In this the cool game, is not about who is more unique, but how well you play your role.

Instead of trying SO hard to worth more than this piece of furniture ($36.7 million), or risk the chance of not as valuable as this piece, why can't we help everybody to win?

• zero-sum
• common good
• social trap
• social dilemma
• Merchants of Cool
• Buddhism Emptiness (the site used to exist when I am doing research for the theorizing assignment, but somehow the blog does not exists anymore. )
• most expensive furniture