No one in the DC political class is cool. For all our American spirit of independence, democracy still defers to the majority, and power compels even the most singular, Machiavellian mind to mold itself in the image of the people.
Politics drains the blood out of the individual, replacing him or her with a bland and legible product, flattened into the image of at least 50 percent of the population. Prediction markets are a perfect example of this effect, shining the brightest lights into the caverns of cool, calcifying opinions into trends, trends into probabilities, and probabilities into certainties. There is nothing that poses more of a threat to cool than this, and no market hungrier for it than the politicos of Washington, DC.
The chattering classes of DC may give lip service to vitalism, but their conservative suits betray them
I think this is why I find myself responding so strongly to idiosyncrasy lately. At the Polymarket-backed “Situation Room” pop-up bar in DC last month, where ubiquitous screens streamed prediction markets for the situation-monitors of Washington, I glimpsed the end-form of totalizing legibility.
A hive-mind hollowed out and possessed by the spirit of the market, amplified by the dead-eyed, transactional “What do you do?” automaton conversation endemic to the swamp. “Nothing for you,” I wanted to say.
I left craving something that could animate me again – the knife-blade of undeniable individuality, cutting through the fog of boxy suits and mass-approved opinions. “I wish I was cool,” I texted a friend that night, and meant it.
DC is a city of trend-followers. Trend followers may want to be cool, but they don’t prioritize it. They trail behind the cutting edge, longing to be accepted. But they are too aware of other people, too aware of their own precarity and therefore of mortality, to ever lead the charge themselves. What is trend-awareness but death-awareness, and what is death-awareness but a huge bummer?
Trends – one day hot, the next dated – landmark a moment as a particular instant in time, one that could only ever happen now. It is in this way that fashion communicates finitude and our anxiety over the passing of time.
The trend-follower cares too visibly and vulnerably when coolness, famously, is about not caring what people think. Coolness is infinite, untouchable, immortal. Hop on the Acela and in three hours you can find yourself in a city that thrives on this ethos. In Washington, cool takes the backseat to legibility, which for most people is more politically useful.
The highest form of cool, is, of course, an original point of view. Coolness is unpredictable, illegible to the outside world, because it emerges from a point of view honed in the caverns of your own heart. Cool says that your investment in yourself and your own opinion outweighs your investment in the whims of the masses. It is a vote of confidence in individuality. Your favorite book, your favorite movie, that word you use that no one else does.
That’s the paradox of coolness. It is individuality that makes us feel less alone. The trend-follower, in their desire for approval, offers the crowd a mirror without realizing that the belonging they chase is structurally unavailable to them – you cannot be recognized by your own reflection.
The original mind, standing on its own, is the one which is more recognizable, witnessed in its own particularity. I respect that the most – the intentional cultivation of the self in a way that benefits others. Wearing a beautiful scent, a distinct outfit, developing your own taste without the intent of impressing someone else, will impress someone else more permanently, because it opens you up to the possibility that someone else will recognize and love the specificity of you in it. The chattering classes of DC, betting on candidates and events and votes, may give lip service to vitalism but their qualified statements and conservative suits betray them.
Being “cool,” like having children, is the true vote of confidence in humanity. Your odd silhouette and your interesting glasses and your shaved head and your niche tattoos tell me that you have sunk your teeth into the flesh of Life. You have refused the false bargain of erasure to belong. You have accepted mortality and have bet on living regardless.
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