Coolness as individualistic defiance never took root in Chinese culture

Evidence

China was also at a market disadvantage in that coolness—the exaltation of individualistic defiance as the supreme virtue—had yet to fully infect Chinese society the way it had in the West. Patriotism and communalism remained strong, often expressed through earnest traditional themes and wholesome group activities. While some disillusioned Chinese youth embraced an unambitious, tang ping (“lying flat”) lifestyle as a form of silent protest against status-obsessed society, even these acts of withdrawal had yet to result in the kind of countercultural, transgressive artistic expressions that resonate on a global stage. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 747

Categorization

• SEED: The tang ping ‘lying flat’ withdrawal as proto-cool without transgressive output is a strong essay angle on why protest aesthetics need a vocabulary of defiance.
• DEFINE: Here ‘coolness’ is explicitly defined as the exaltation of individualistic defiance as the supreme virtue — a definition worth preserving for the omnivore-monoculture argument.