Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You by Greg Gutfeld

path to work to get you to sign a petition to save the paramecium. And, for the record, paramecia are assholes.
    On the ladder of cool, however, social consciousness maintains the top spot. At the bottom, hanging on to the lowest rung of uncool, resides its opposite: the boring capitalist. Meaning, the person who is greedy and always out for himself. The person making a buck is inferior to the person who gives a fuck. Never mind that the greedy dude is usually making a buck to support a family, and often a community. And, oh yeah, a country.
    Of course, it’s the boring capitalist who often bankrolls the people who hate him. If it weren’t for the person bringing in the money, nothing else would work. For a community to grow to a size that sustains those who don’t contribute to the growth of said community (whom I call leeches but society has chosen to call grad students), you need an immensely powerful creature to build a structure that allows those loafers to exist. But even a whale can only support so many parasites.
    Without a “capitalist consciousness,” there is no “social consciousness.” A poor society cannot help the poor. This is why no one should listen to Al Sharpton. If it weren’t for people Al Sharpton hates, there would be no Sharptons. This is troubling to me. Why is the average businessman boring but the radical type deemed cool? I came up with some possibilities:
    Businessmen are boring on purpose . The suit and tie and drab hair are meant to hide the inherent riskiness of capitalism. That’s the irony: The real daredevils are those who playwith their own money. Those who start businesses, who risk it all, and often who lose it all, over and over. Someone has to provide the funds for the safety nets the cool demand—and the providers are the uncool capitalists who took risks with their capital and are now taxed to the hilt. The vast majority of people supporting our national dependency are businessmen—large and small, male and female—who put their asses on the line every damn day. They are the truly cool, even if they look like dorks drinking Scotch and doing karaoke poorly in a Midtown bar (it’s always to Taylor Dayne). The real risk-takers build products and then brands, while those railing against them are as safe as soy milk.
    It’s easier to understand caring than it is to understand business . Ask any television news producer what makes more immediate, arresting television: a young, earnest protester railing against corporations, or a corporate employee defending his company? Perhaps if the producer took a course in “how money works,” he might see the merits in the latter. But he didn’t get into journalism to do math. He got into journalism to tell a story. (And generally, to speak truth to power, which really translates as “The speaker is a dick.”) In that story, it’s the emotional subject that trumps the uncool reality of life. Plus, you might score with the protester, who wants to get famous and get access to your minibar. The participants satisfy each other’s needs while obliterating any sense of truth.
    Business is anti-charismatic . Banks are meant to be dull. There should be no flash accompanying your cash. Which is why we don’t want Mickey Rourke to be our financial adviser; he’d put all our money in Eastern European brothels and expensive tequila that plays Pac-Man with your liver. We just want to drink with him. So attributes like “charm” and“sexiness” and “romance” never evolved in the business world. Meanwhile, the young men who lack the cash to get girls into bed have instead built an arsenal of anti-authoritarian lies to get laid. (I did this for a while myself, but it didn’t work. I just can’t grow dreadlocks.) How else could a piece of trash like Bill Ayers get laid? As a terrorist, this loser couldn’t even do that right.
    Guilt for being successful . Once you’re successful, there are others who are envious of your achievements,