I think Greg Gutfeld is pretty cool. He's a panelist on "The Five" on Fox News, always funny and insightful. His 2014 book Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War On You treats some of the political content he covers on the news panel show, but ventures more broadly into culture. His libertarian leanings are strong. If you've seen him on TV, you know he leans conservative, but he's too much of an iconoclast to fall into line with mainstream conservatives.
Not Cool explores what, if your source is mainstream culture, is considered cool and contrasts it to what is really cool. Environmentalism is cool. But there is more to creation care than recycling. Gay marriage and transgenderism is cool. But traditional marriage is the foundation of society. Celebrity lifestyles are cool. But hypocrisy among celebrities is rampant. Liberal arts is cool. But business and science create progress. Socialism is cool. But capitalism lifts people out of poverty.
Gutfeld says all of this and more, but more articulately and more hilariously. As an example, "There's nothing cooler than putting the planet before people. . . . How many have died because it became cool to demonize DDT?" Rachel Carson, whose book led to a world wide DDT ban, is the coolest, a patron saint of environmentalism. Not only have millions died due to malaria, less severe consequences included infestations of bedbugs. "The cool, too shallow to do the research, rallied around this precious pesticide. The result--more New Yorkers are scratching, and somewhere else far away, people are dying. Not cool."
Gutfeld has the personality of a standup comic, the perspective of Reason magazine, and the insight of Mark Twain. Be uncool and read his book.
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