more reader mail

This one comes from a youngish academic:

“More generally I’m sick of the way young people’s quest for coolness has brought to the fore the kind of cynical, laconic, and condescending obnoxiousness that to some extent defines our age. I can’t remember if it was you or K-Punk a few years ago that had a post about the importance of being able to be a fan. That was some really profoundly excellent advice for living, and has tremendously shaped me and [my wife’s] approach to our children. If we can teach them to be passionate in their interests and also open in the right way to new things that can inform these interests (and this kind of openness is what is destroyed by the pose of cool), then I think I’ll have done a good job.”

Hear, hear.

I mentioned last week that I also think the hip/cool have entered their decadence. They are the product of a critical era in which transcendent detachment was the intellectual gesture par excellence. But this is no longer a liberating idea.

Note: it was K-Punk who made that excellent post about fans.