This is the news!

Wow. Four days since I last blogged. Back then I was young, naive and optimistic. The world was an exciting place and possibilities were endless. I was leaner and lighter, the lines etched on my face weren't so deep. Now, older and not necessarily wiser, the horizons have narrowed and death is that bit closer.

Still, at least the teaching keeps me in touch with the world of 'the youth', though the first-years fresh from school were born while I was studying(ish) for my first degree and the cultural gap widens rapidly. It's fascinating seeing what they know of the 90s: they recognise but don't watch The Simpsons, whereas Friends is widely watched still, though to me it looks impossibly dated (and I hated it back in the day too). I guess I watched some 70s comedy in the 90s: To The Manor Born, Yes, Minister, The Good Life and several others, though not always by choice. With one TV in the house, we watched whatever my parents or grandparents wanted. Though I still adore Yes Minister.

My students watch remarkably little TV, and rarely on an actual television: they have access to so much programming without the constraints of technology or time. In some ways it's liberating: the past is as immediate as the present, though without the context it means something different. In other ways, the dislocation is disorienting. For instance, most of my students have never heard of BBC Radio stations 2, 3, 4 or 6, and tend not to listen to 1 or 5 unless they're football fans. BBC TV 2 and 4 may as well not exist, and channels themselves mean relatively little: it's programmes that matter. They never read newspapers other than Metro on the bus, and have never watched a news broadcast. I discovered this when lecturing about genre the other day. In the course of explaining the characteristics of a news programme, I played this opening clip, expecting laughter:



Laughter came there none: not having ever seen a real news broadcast, with its portentous music, pompous graphics and demanding editing, they didn't realise that this was a parody, and assumed it was news.

This isn't their fault, of course: contemporary news broadcasts make The Day Today ('bagpiping fact into news') seem less parodic than prophetic. Plus, most of them are young and I'm acutely aware that being a teenage news junkie made me less than normal. It's tempting to dismiss them as ignorant and incurious about the outside world, but wrong: they do have concerns, but aren't well-served by news media (especially outlets aimed at young people) and don't have the social and cultural capital to make news relevant. News happens elsewhere and features the activities of other people. My students are on the receiving end of political activity, but their disenfranchisement is so complete that knowledge, in their case, isn't power. Or so it seems, anyway. The media economy isn't really set up to engage the young masses anyway: in a world of corporate power, reducing citizens to passive consumers is pretty much the game plan. Why give them the means to hold power to account when you can distract them with the opium of the people, whether that's religion or Angry Birds?

It is frustrating: I'm always trying to encourage them to read newspapers, watch the news or engage with the world outside home and the university, but the immediate rewards are pretty low, frankly. It's partly a regional and class thing: while the children of privilege in élite universities are being trained to rule, it's hard to persuade my students that they too are equal citizens with a valid voice: because however much I'd like it to be true, it definitely isn't: they don't have the social capital to succeed en masse in a competitive society. That's why I see education as an act of civil resistance. We could do the empowering thing like an intellectual Oprah, or we can flag the inequalities inherent in the system to rile them up. I try both at different times, but it's hard to beat generations of internalised acquiescence.

Time for you shady foreign types to try the REAL citizenship test

Never mind the government's frankly bonkers citizenship test - you all did abysmally, and my 18/24 score was nothing to write home about (geddit?) either.

So try this one. I got 10/10. Feeling very proud. Record your score in the comments box.

Take the citizenship test

Have a go at this: a selection of the questions asked of immigrants seeking UK citizenship. I am ashamed to admit that, despite my addiction to news, politics, history and culture, I only managed 18 out of 24 (wrong on 8, 9, 10, 14, 18 and 24). Thankfully, my Irish passport means you can't get rid of me. Mwahhahahahahahahahaha etc. I wonder how UK citizens would fare.

Post your scores in the comments box.

Monday conundrum! What the hell is 'the British way of life'?

Ok, I'm still here. There's been a certain amount of traffic to my post on the government's plan to restrict freedom of speech to well-behaved citizens, and I'm still annoyed by the incredibly rightwing and intellectually vacuous nature of the idea. (The main discussion of this in relation to freedom of speech was in an astonishing interview on Radio 4)

However, Phil Woolas says that you can only have your say if you agree with 'the British way of life' (odd: you can say whatever you want as long as you agree), and you have to admit, there's a great argument to be had here. (What's he like? Try here).

So come on, what's your definition of 'British way of life'? Remember - you can't have anything specifically English, Scots or Welsh. Even the things that the Norn Irish unionists think are British aren't - e.g. wearing bowlers, hating Catholicism and fetishising the Queen.

'Britain' in its current state has only been around since 2000 or so - whenever the devolved Scots and Welsh assemblies opened. Before that, Ireland's withdrawal from the UK was 1922 or 1937 depending on your preference. Ireland was only technically 'in' since 1801, and Scotland was incorporated in 1601. 1563 saw the final conquering of Wales, and of course 'England' was merely a French Norman outpost for most of the 1066-1500 period. 'England' before that was a patchwork of Saxon and Celtic states. So really, it's a recent and unstable state, as Colley's Britons brilliantly demonstrates.

So what's 'British'? 100 years ago, you could have said that all the constituent nations got together to invade places, take their raw materials and hook them on opium (China, 19th century). Making things, inventing sports (playing them well was a colonial innovation). Speaking English was an English imposition on the rest of the UK, aided by eager sell-outs, but it didn't fully work. What else? Tea-drinking is quite popular in Ireland, India and China, though the former acquired the habit through the Empire.

There's a massive tradition of dissent and protest: the Peasants' Revolt, the Levellers, Diggers and so on during the Civil War, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartists, the NUM, Marx and Engels living here, and the Poll Tax rioters. Parliamentary democracy is a possible contender, though plenty of other states got there first (go Iceland) and perfected it quicker, by letting women and the poor vote, and of course lots of places don't have an unelected upper chamber and a first-past-the-post lower one.

Monarchy? A mixed blessing, and hardly original (or indeed native). Beautiful weather and landscape are strong contenders. Perhaps mass participation sports - cycling and rambling, though they were big in Germany too, until the Nazis banned them. The pound? OK, though retaining it hasn't been much use. Co-operative Societies were invented in Britain - a Welshman (Robert Owen) opened the first co-operative factory in Scotland (New Lanark) and the first co-operative society opened in Rochdale in 1839.

Strong trades unions were perhaps a British innovation, and they were closely tied to the very democratic forms of religion which sprouted in the 18th century - Methodism in particular (there's a saying - unfortunately true - that the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than to Marx). How about the famous British love of an eccentric, from Beckford to racist comic, philanderer and Mayor of London (Alexander) Boris Johnson?

Beckford:

'Boris' and his friends at university:

I guess there's literature, about which I shouldn't have to say much. I'd also be tempted to say that the vibrancy of pop culture is quite a British thing, though borders are porous in this regard. Political satire and a dark sense of humour are strong threads, though Serbs and Russians apparently share the same gloomy outlook. Nostalgia? Individualism? Consumerism? Benefit cheating? Jeremy Kyle? Eating sausages and chips on Spanish beaches? Loving animals more than their children (except for foxes)? The BBC, the Guardian, Steve Bell or the Daily Mail? White people in stately homes or mixed race couples on the streets of Wolverhampton?

Swearing. If there's one brilliant achievement of the British, it's swearing. Not so much the Welsh, as Welsh-language swearing is mostly religious oaths, but there's definitely a national love of inventive, baroque, witty swearing, such as Malcolm Tucker.

It's hard, isn't it? Cultures aren't monolithic: they influence and are influenced. Within any society there are competing and co-existing beliefs. That's what makes life a) fun and b) progressive - the dialectic ensures that ideas are debated. The goverment's plan is to preserve some bullshit idea of what constitutes Britishness (and you just know it's going to be a terrible bunch of self-righteous platitudes) and fix it in amber.

So what's the perfect Brit? A sunburned fat bloke in a union jack hat, slumped in front of Jeremy Kyle, calling Gordon Brown a See You Next Tuesday? If you don't like it, you can go back where you came from. And I'll come with you.

Or, is it an eccentrically-dressed union member of mixed race taking to the streets in righteous anger at the way the most vulnerable in society are treated, accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack - whether it be Late Junction on Radio 3 or Radio 1 (or The Archers)? I sure hope so. The point is that, like all societies, this one is plural, dynamic and mostly brilliant - trying to define it is like nailing jelly to the wall.

Foreign? Then shut your face.

I listened with utter horror to Radio 4 this morning as government minister Phil Woolas announced that freedom of speech would soon apply only to citizens of this country. Anybody hoping to gain citizenship would have to give up any ideas of legally exercising freedom of speech.

This is insane. Firstly - the UK has signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that being human and alive automatically garners certain rights. Amongst them is the right to free expression.

Secondly, and on a very practical basis: will a letter to a newspaper objecting to this or that policy be checked by the immigration service in case the author is foreign? Will people on a legal demonstration have to bring their ID cards? Then the police can take the names of anyone foreign for punishment (demerits on their citizenship points) while allowing everybody else to carry on?

It will, of course, apply only to the poor, black and Muslims. If an EU citizen (I'm on an Irish passport) protested perfectly legally and then was refused UK citizenship, what difference would it make? EU citizens have the right to work, live and vote anywhere in the EU, whereas someone from outside the EU would remain stateless, poor and vulnerable for making exactly the same protest. Mmmm, natural justice.

One of the things the UK prides itself on (falsely, to some extent: remember one side of the Northern Irish struggle being silenced on TV?) is its tolerance of dissent. That's why Marx ended up in London, writing the Manifesto, boffing the maid and knocking policemen's helmets off after a good Saturday night. Extending citizenship only to those willing to repress any independent thought is horrifying.

Can you imagine the consequences of this in recent memory? Jean-Charles de Menezes's family and friends could have been silenced. Peter Hain (South African) and other anti-apartheid campaigners would have been silenced because the Tories were firm friends of the South African regime etc. etc. etc.

Finally, this sinister suggestion conflates the state or nation and the government. Governments are partisan and temporary, and silencing dissent against a policy that could be reversed in a few months' time is astonishingly unjust. It's perfectly acceptable to deny citizenship to individuals who might damage the stability of the nation or the state - but governments are neither.

Oh no, he's droning on again

Here goes with the kind of post that you all ignore. Would it help if I added something sarcastic about Manchester United, or referred to Betty Boo?

You all know that I'm a massive fan of Pharyngula, an American science professor who has a neat sideline in speaking up for scientific endeavour in the face of religion, quackery and media stupidity.

A couple of days ago he gave the graduation speech at Keck School of Medicine. He made some comments that teachers, students and everybody else should take seriously in a climate where being an expert is increasingly being associated with arrogance and contempt:

… the responsibility of the public intellectual is what I want to say a few words about to you. You are about to receive a diploma that gives you the potential to be one of us, too.

A public intellectual is the modern equivalent of the court jester -- the wise fool who could say anything to the king, because no one would ever take him seriously as a rival for the throne. If the concept is too medieval for you, look at 21st century America, where the best news commentary on television is offered by a couple of comedians on a small cable network. It's the same principle: people on the edge of the herd, whether it's the mass media or the general electorate, are unconstrained by the group norms and are given greater freedom to speak out and express themselves. The weirdos, by their very nature, have more latitude, and we also institutionalize the principle in ideas like academic freedom.

Did I just call you all weirdos? I'm sorry, yes I did. You're all receiving advanced degrees from USC, and that automatically makes you all a bunch of nerds. You should be proud.

You are also the lucky few, the ones with talent and discipline and the fortunate opportunity to pursue science and medicine, and you have acquired another kind of debt: you have been granted this privilege, and now you owe society repayment. We need you to make the world a better place. To quote a comic book character, with great power comes great responsibility.

Power? That diploma may not give you political power, or the ability to beat up criminals, and it may not even guarantee you a job, sorry to say, but it does represent something significant: it's intellectual capital. You will have acquired some small measure of authority and credibility with that acknowledgment of your accomplishments, and I'm here to tell you to spend it.

There's lots more, about the graduate's duty to communicate and to criticise error. Don't just become pliable work units. Become troublemakers, agitators - at work, or in the public sphere. I know it's easy for me to say this in my job (which isn't quite as cushy or secure as you may think), but we'd live in a better society if we didn't let the shysters, conmen and bullshitters set the tone in politics, the media and pretty much every other sphere of our lives. You do have the skills and intelligence to object now and then - you just need the courage. One of the few things I'm proudest of is ticking off a copper for bullying some skate kids at the railway station. It was a small thing (though scary) but it reminded me, her, and them, that we're citizens with a role to play in each others' lives.

I do wonder, sometimes, what my job is. There's a debate in my office at the moment about the nature of professionalism. We agree that it's about defending the public good - in terms of educational motives - rather than just taking your money and doing whatever our bosses say - which at the moment means dumbing down and being 'market-oriented'. The intrinsic value of education is under attack - one of our incoming deans openly rejected the idea that small subjects should be taught. Brilliant. What a philistine.

Not many people may need to speak a particular language or understand a particular culture, but they'll come in useful at some point, and surely there's something valuable about just caring about things, however 'obscure'. If more people understood Afghan culture, or about financial planning, or the sociology of MPs, perhaps this country would be in a better state.

OK, rant over. Back to pop culture. I'm listening to Modern Life Is Rubbish. It's so elegiac.