Culture 2.0

There are two inputs into my brain-stew today¹.

Firstly, English schools have been told that when you're talking about diversity, it's OK for white folks to have an ethnic identity too. In addition, the thinking is that we need to do better on teachin' people to be British. I approve of the list of things they've boiled Britishness down to: not breakin' the law, minding your own business and it not being our place to judge.

Me, I know what my culutral and ethnic heritage are. Three of my four great-grandfathers were blacksmiths and the fourth was called John Smith. I'm a Devon boy, which means I have an accent that is like Devon cheese: mild to rustic. The ideal of the Devon man as a "good ol' chap"- not to be confused with good ol' boy- is the one I grew up with. The good ol' chap is a friend to all, generous with money, hard-working, profoundly unpretentious, and skillful. I know I'm not the last, but I'm doing my best to be the others.

Migrant workers from Poland and the Baltic states have integrated amazingly well into the part of Devon I'm from. There aren't many people down there who aren't from there- I remember the first time I saw someone who was not ethnically English, at the age of nine. Now there are a large number of Poles in Okehampton, and what you hear everywhere is "Say what you like, they work hard". There is a general feeling that some sons of Devon could learn a lesson from the new arrivals rather than spending their time haging around outside village-hall discos in shell-suits, drinking Woodpecker cider.

Secondly, I've had good news and now need to take action on it². I feel, vaugely, that the appropriate thing I need to is to "git'r'done", or something. I know there are people who know exactly how the phrase should be used, but wish everyone would stop saying it. It occured to me that a litmus-test of culture is the set of words you understand. Obvious? Perhaps.

As a Devon boy I know crush as a noun, swale as a verb, and the distinction between something that is lush and something that is a properjob. However, my parentage also gives me duppy, ignorant meaning aggressive or truculent, and the proverb that duppies know who to frighten.

However, In the past week I've heard more words by ZeFrank than by my parents. I also know the significance of phrases like Sportsracer, street-chicken and power-move.

My education at Oxford gave me quad, Bumps, hacks and so on, not to mention the white bronco, Cinco de Mayo or conscious clichés like Shelob queen of the Spiders³.

As a geek I can describe situations according to their saving throws and might instruct someone to take twenty on a certain task.

Sometimes terms can be familiar without having had any direct contact, nor the slightest desire to.⁴

These words are shibboleths, badges, banners.

The point is that had I been born five hundred years ago, I would probably have spent my whole life in the company of the same few hundred people. I wouldn't have one set of friends for whom the codewords include Dan Merino, former Quarterback of the Miami Dolphins and other friends who don't know what a quarterback is or why dolphins would have one. This is a phenomenon of the social mobilty of the modern age, but it's really gone critical with internet. Some of the recognisably distinct cultures I'm a touched by of are British (Devon), Physics, Mansfield College, Barbados and US (blue).

On the off-chance that sociologists haven't gotten around to it yet, I'm going to call this either "polyculturalism" or "Venn-culture".

1). I really hope people start using "brain-stew" to describe a set of poorly-thought-out ideas.
2). Riddles in the dark.
3). I mean, I have no idea of Shelob is the queen on spiders, or just a really big one. It might be like calling Phil The Power Taylor the King of Men.
4). I estimate that I recognise about 3/4 of the terms on that shirt, not to mention im in ur base verbing ur nouns, g2g, series of tubes, OMGWTFBBQ and dozens more.