The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information

by Alan Liu

Knowledge work is now the reigning business paradigm and affects even the world of higher education. But what perspective can the knowledge of the humanities and arts contribute to a world of knowledge work whose primary mission is business? And what is the role of information technology as both the servant of the knowledge economy and the medium of a new technological cool? In The Laws of Cool, Alan Liu reflects on these questions as he considers the emergence of new information technologies and their profound influence on the forms and practices of knowledge.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction

552 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Alan Liu is Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His previous books include Wordsworth: The Sense of History, and two books published by the University of Chicago Press, The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information and Local Transcendence: Essays on Postmodern Historicism and the Database.

Reviews

[Mjhancock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alan Liu argues that an emphasis on coolness is a response to the modern office workplace and the proliferation of the Internet. At length, he suggests that the way we move beyond the superficialities of coolness is to engage them with arts and the humanities, and make the academy more relevant in the broader scheme of things. It's a book of four parts, and each part is a fairly in-depth study of its own (and can, to a certain extent, be read separately from the other parts). First is The New Enlightenment, which explores what's meant by "knowledge work," in terms of class, subjects, and, particular for businesses, teams. The second section, "Ice Ages," studies the culture of the modern office. It starts with the automation of the workplace, in terms of how it transcends alienation and turns work into something more impersonal and systematic--a cold existence rather than a hot "us vs them." Liu builds on this foundation by adding informating (collecting information about this automation) and networking (turning the collected information into a self-perpetuating network). Section 3 is The Laws of Cool, and how coolness as ethos, style, feel, and bad attitude are simultaneously correct and incorrect ways of describing the response of the average worker in the face of such automation and the cyber-potential. And section four argues for what humanities and the arts can do to bring greater awareness and meaning to this coolness. It's a very long book, but its modular nature helps the reader keep track of things. Some of section three is rather outdated (it's hard to talk about cyber-stuff in 2004 in a way that's relevant in 2012) and while the analysis in section 4 is very good, the humanities + technology argument is nothing that hasn't been done elsewhere. But the early stuff on business culture is some of the best theorizing about the subject I've seen. If you ever want to do a theoretical reading of the Office, or Office Space, or just want to see a cultural critique of office work, this is the book I'd recommend.

[João Pedro da Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting take, from a Literary Studies scholar, on the rising aesthetic cool/uncool dichotomy that dominates today’s emerging media landscape: «Cool is the techno-informatic vanishing point of contemporary aesthetics, psychology, morality, politics, spirituality and everything. No more beauty, sublimity, tragedy, grace or evil: only cool and not cool» (p. 3). For me, the most interesting parts of the book are his definitions of “cool” as an ethos, a style, a feeling and a politic attitude (pp. 176-285) and a quite eye-opening history of the “cool” concept (pp. 301-316).

As somebody noted before, the book does drifts a lot and some parts are definitely out-dated (Part II, mostly). But there are some really interesting insights about the “coolness” dictatorship that seems to rule today’s interaction on the Web.

[Alexa Doran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible and sooooo depressing how much Liu got right about the direction corporate America, and thus all of America, was headed in. This text is sprawling and random in both satisfying and annoying ways.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty lengthy book and academic in nature. And it drifts. Still, I'm getting some useful ideas from it.