Cool as defense mechanism:
In the days of slavery, Cool was part of a "survival mentality", a defense mechanism invented to cope with continuous exploitation, discrimination, and disadvantage: it deployed ironic detachment and emotional impassivity to enable its bearer to withstand the domineering orders, abuse and insults of the overseer without succumbing either to depression or to a rage that might incur flogging or even execution.
Also:
The psychological essence of Cool is self-invention, coupled to a hyper-acute awareness of such self-invention in other people; it amounts to the creation of a calm psychic mask to hide inner disturbance.
But Cool also as inherently competitive (reject one hierarchy for another):
On one level, the idea of Cool appears to be the antithesis of competition - a nonchalant, unruffled refusal to play by the man's rules - this is in fact a shallow pose that conceals ferociously competitive instincts.
Cool as a tactic to boost one's attractiveness (based on new hierarchy of cool):
Cool has always been, and always will be a male stratagem, an important aim of which is to maximize sexual conquest and personal freedom while minimizing commitment.
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