Cultural References

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Peter Coghill, and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing Robbie Coltrane. Peter, Robbie Coltrane, tell us.

Speaker B: 00:00:31

in Blackadder. I think early: 1980

Speaker C: 00:02:25

Well, and also that their meaning, like you said, shifts over time. You remember them for one thing. Yeah. Children of the millennium will remember them for something else.

Speaker A: 00:02:37

Yeah. I mean, I was I don't think we should worry about too much about whether people are dead or not. Like Valerie Singleton. Right. But like, to one generation, she's Sue Peter. And for others. She's a kind of, you know, respectable TV interviewer, journalist. Yeah, quite. I mean, two things. I mean, one, this makes me think. And to kids, sorry, from the last 20 years. Who is she? Right. Irrelevant, really. Do they need, should they need to? So two things. One, Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson. So it annoys me when, let's say, watching Love Actually. And people go, oh, it's it's Mr. Bean in the shop. So, no, that's Rowan Atkinson. And are you not aware of, you know, all the great stuff from the early 80s before we even start talking about Blackadder? And we can talk about Secret Policeman's Ball and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, phenomenal performer, et cetera, et cetera. And I mean, Mr. Bean actually bits that I kind of quite like. But it's. Feels like the sort of thing Germans like. Yeah. And of course, I should say the reason. Honestly, I'm not sorry. Honestly. But also, of course, I think part of the reason why, of course, is there's no language in Mr. Bean, which helped a lot. One, two, I was thinking of this just the other day, which was we've just gone past Halloween when we were at the time recording and my family said, hey, let's watch a horror film. And so I said, hey, you really need to watch The Shining. OK, it's a really important film. You need to be there in your bank of, even though I didn't think this at the time, but your cultural reference. But I never watched it. You know, I've seen it a number of times and they're all a bit nonplussed. So my wife, who doesn't like horror movies anyway, it's not really quite a horror movie. It sort of is, sort of isn't. But but my kids were like, you know, and I couldn't help but feel, well, maybe they just don't really need to know this stuff. But I mean, yeah, and interestingly, the most famous one of the most famous lines in that is itself a cultural reference. Right. Here's Johnny. Here's Johnny, which I think was improvised. Fantastic acting

Speaker B: 00:04:46

from Jack Nicholson, by the way. Do they need to? Why should the younger generation adopt older cultural references? I think it should work more the other way. In order for us, you know, the old crusties to remain, remain relevant, relevant and engageable by our employees and our younger friends, we need to adopt their cultural references. Yeah, but their cultural references

Speaker A: 00:05:10

erts. And I apparently in the: 1970

Speaker C: 00:07:07

you have. I think Peter posed a really interesting sort of question, which is, well, Peter, whose responsibility is it to adjust cultural references? Right? When does it make sense for you to drop old ones like the giver of old cultural references? And when does it make sense for people who weren't around when those cultural references were relevant to bloody well do some work and work out what they were, you know, to learn them historically? A good example of where this this boils down to was another film watch family film watching experience. My my youngest daughter and I, my eldest daughter and my wife had gone away for the weekend. So it was home alone. We did a movie night. We watched war games, which I'm sure Nick will will approve of. We watched war games. And about every 15 minutes, I had to stop and explain what some piece of technology. So like at some point, there's arcade games. Yeah, there's a Walkman. There's a phone box. Yeah, there's a supercomputer telephone on and on an actual landline. Yes. And modem. And yeah, it totally disrupted the sense of the plot like the story couldn't happen. There's another film, the film about Freddie Mercury. I can't remember what it's called. The recent one. Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah. Right. Which I watched with my oldest daughter. And in that I sort of said, what do you like to think? Think of it? Oh, yeah, really enjoyed it. But there's that really unrealistic bit where he finds his his future sort of partner by looking through that book that's got everybody's addresses in. Like, why would why would there be a book? That's a bit far fetched, isn't it? That's a phone book. This idea that you'd have like that was the way you would find where people lived or what they had to get in contact with them was just totally. And so. So, yeah, you know, I can see there are arguments both ways. Sometimes you've got to drop a cultural reference, but sometimes you've got to it's the other people's job to to remember. And I think that that's a really interesting

Speaker A: 00:09:17

little dilemma there. Yeah. Yeah. TV Tropes has a word for exactly that, which is or phrase, which is aluminium Christmas trees, which is where something becomes accidentally unrealistic because people can't believe that that was ever a thing. And apparently that I think like there's there's some TV program where the dad makes a reference to buying an aluminium Christmas tree and everyone thinks it's a joke about how cheap and terrible something. But actually they were just quite common aluminium Christmas trees. And this is a similar similar experience. It's like, well, that actually has changed the way people are going to interpret this thing from the past because it uses cultural references which no one understands now. And also it's really tempting to go and I have a third point. And also Peter was talking about this a little bit as well as well. Clearly, our cultural references are better and superior and you definitely need to know ours because the ones that are coming along now, they're just silly, stupid and pointless. Well, they are all Avengers Endgame 4, you know, war games. There's

Speaker B: 00:10:14

definitely an element that goes, no, ours really are better. But are they? Our parents probably think our cultural references are pretty terrible. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I've got I've got a sense of

Speaker C: 00:10:25

of thinking on that note of how you might determine whether a cultural reference is a good one or not. And that might be longevity. So if you look at classical illusion, biblical illusion, you know, if I say, oh, he was a real Judas, right? Everybody from our part of the world would have an appreciation of what that means. So that partly tells you what a cultural reference is for, right, which is to unlock a load more information based on, you know, whatever the reference is. But also, I think the timelessness, you know, Shakespeare allusions to if I say, you know, if somebody does something and I say it too, you know, everybody knows what I'm talking about. So I think one measure of a good cultural reference is one that survives, outlives its actual, you know, the memory of the people involved in the culture. Yeah. And there should be a bedrock of common

Speaker A: 00:11:33

, but facts. If I say to you,: 1492

Speaker B: 00:16:09

crystallise your your knowledge becomes less. You're less plasticised, fossilised in our case. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're you're less plastic. You just you take on. Yeah. Some people become

Speaker A: 00:16:21

more plastic as they get older. Yeah. So have I just asked the question? Oh, I mean, well,

Speaker C: 00:16:26

l reference, which is the the: 1980

Speaker A: 00:17:23

Congo, Brazzaville. Yeah. And what they love it. Umbongo, Umbongo, they drink it in the Congo,

Speaker C: 00:17:27

Brazzaville. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. And but but then there's also all sorts of other cultural references which you which are laid down throughout your life. I mean, you learn most things in your childhood. Right. So you learn those cultural references then. But they're not necessarily the ones of your here and now. They can be historical cultural references that you pick up. But then you get other sort of phenomena of timelessness, like Stranger Things is, I guess, a cultural reference for teenagers today. But, you know, Kate Bush went to the top of the charts because it's set in the 80s. So they're learning lots of 80s cultural references. We didn't know that whole thing, by the way. But you're a gatekeeper. Yeah. Kate keeper. Yes. So I think there's an element of, you know, those kinds of cultural references being about you being able to like there's an intimacy about them. Right. And people say, you know, that those kind of cultural references can be used to bond people, but they can also be used to exclude people right of different different ages. But that also applies across cultures. You mentioned cultural cultural references. One of the key or cultural differences in cultural references that they're not they're not universal. One of the one of the key areas of study for cultural references is translation. Right. Because when you translate something, there are very often cultural references in there. Yeah, definitely. And they don't you can't just say you can't translate them. So you then have to go searching for what is the equivalent of that thing in this country. One of the things I looked up was was idioms, right, which are a form of cultural reference. And I've got I've got a few Chinese idioms, which I was going to I was going to try and work out what they mean, what they mean. Right. Exactly. So nine cows and one strand of cow

Speaker A: 00:19:23

hair. Oh, yeah. No, I was gonna say, is it like you've actually got you've got loads of something, but only one of the important thing. But I don't know why cow hair would be important. Yeah, no, I think it's close. I was gonna say an empty vessel or it's it's about it's about something

Speaker C: 00:19:42

being inconsequential. You've got nine cows and only one cow. It's a little bit. It's not quite like the way we use a needle in a haystack. But I think it's it's similar. It's like there's lots of something and there's one thing. It doesn't it doesn't matter in that case, whereas the needle in the haystack does does matter. So there's another one. You can catch birds by trap in front of this

Speaker A: 00:20:03

gate. Well, is this a kind of there's more one way to skin a cat or is that have I got that right?

Speaker C: 00:20:09

You've gone straight for another idiom, haven't you? Exactly. Well, I think the idioms are useful to answer it right back because there's universal values underneath it. Say again. You can catch

Speaker A: 00:20:18

birds by trap in front of this gate. Oh, is it like a thing that is commonly used by lots of

Speaker B: 00:20:29

people or something? Or is it something to do with it's particularly easy to do what you're trying to do in this context? Maybe you don't have to do all the other stuff you can do. What it's actually

Speaker C: 00:20:41

used for is to mock things that are not popular. Right. So I don't. What's the phrase again? You can catch birds by trap in front of this gate. So you would say it apparently in a context where you're like, oh, here's a party with no no guests at it. I'm at a party. There's no guests. You know, you can catch birds by trap in front of this. Do you mean it's sort of like tumbleweeds? Yeah. Yeah. Like or a business that hasn't got any customers, you know, an empty restaurant or

Speaker B: 00:21:07

something. So quiet. The gate is quiet. There's nobody around. So the birds are there. I don't I

Speaker C: 00:21:14

can't really work it out, but it obviously works in China. And last last one. A chicken falls in

Speaker A: 00:21:20

soup. Oh, it does feel like something pretty profound. A chicken falls in soup. This is is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle. Like you've already got a chicken soup and now a chicken's

Speaker C: 00:21:38

gone and fallen. Is it actually used to refer to somebody like getting caught in the rain or getting soaking soaking wet? A chicken falls in soup. Yeah. Like, you know, you can imagine that being being wet, can't you? But I think what that illustrates is that cultural references can leave us a little bit bemused. Right. We assume there's a there's a universality about, you know, it's raining cats and dogs or whatever, of course, you know. But actually, that's just our shared cultural reference. Much as if you refer to a person, we all assume if you say, oh, they were, you know, they're a bit of a they're a bit like Elon Musk. Many people around the world would understand that. But if it's a more esoteric cultural reference, you can use it as a code with just the people, you know, who who know that or you can use it to to bond with, you know, with people who will understand it. You're like it's like an it's like a nod and a wink. But I think

Speaker A: 00:22:40

I think the code aspect is what is interesting is I'm thinking the whole the whole purpose of well, if we had to find an actual utility for having cultural references is that, you know, you can import a lot. It means that it's almost like, you know, if we agree that I'm going to I'm going to just say, you know, number 14 instead of a particular kind of coffee, it's just much faster. If I can say, oh, you know, et tu, Brute, to connote a whole great big bunch of things about treachery, then then that's great. And I feel like that is that is actually very useful. It can all draw from the same reference bank. And what was just the so I and I think the you know, I would say it's sort of been a bit unpopular, at least variably popular over the last 30, 40 years to do things like teach kids Latin and, you know, the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible and Shakespeare and all of these other things. Because I think it's seen as elitist and exclusionary. And actually, what I think what we're saying here is it's not it's actually potentially inclusionary is giving them it could be potentially giving them a key to a door full of things that they wouldn't otherwise have. And actually goes back to the shorthand thing as well, because it's shorthand in terms of communication, but shorthand in translation, translating a universal bit of knowledge or this guess what the things that you're thinking are not the first time anyone's ever thought that, you know, yeah, and it's useful, just go straight back to that.

Speaker C: 00:24:22

I think I think you've sort of unlocked something quite interesting there, which reminds me of the Reformation, right? And the idea of whether the cultural references should be taught, right? IE, you teach somebody Latin so they can read a Bible, right? Or, which is was the I suppose, the Catholic position, right or the Protestant position, which is no, no, you don't have to push people towards your cultural reference, you translate it into English and you give it to them. It's like Peter's point, whose responsibility is it to, should you learn the cultural reference or should the cultural reference be changed, which is more or less exclusionary, you know, in the Reformation terms, it was about keeping power within the church, only those who knew Latin, which could, you know, really read the word of God, and therefore had the power. In Protestant terms, it was, you know, let's give it to the masses, right? That's a good thing, isn't it? But actually, to Nick's point, should they just have taught everybody Latin?

Speaker A: 00:25:25

Actually, this is a spin on culture wars, which I have not Peter in a minute, but go on. Yeah, but this is something I just haven't thought of it in this way that actually, you can see a lot of arguments about things like education, and, you know, elitism, as essentially being an argument about who should move towards the other one's cultural references. I've not thought of it like that. But, but yeah, I mean, it's interesting that the King James Bible was designed as a tool to popularize religion, which was otherwise, or popularize some literature that was otherwise unavailable to people. And now it's seen as elitist, because it's kind of in slightly old fashion language. And that you have to teach people and Shakespeare was phenomenally popular, because people enjoyed watching his plays. And now, you know, we need a book to tell us what mortal coil means. We don't actually get the literal meaning of a lot of those things, even though we might be familiar with them. Talking of which, let's shuffle on to Peter. Well, maybe we need a new King James Bible then. King Charles Bible. No, I hate modern translations of the Bible. I think they nailed it. They nailed it with the KJV. Low, yeah. Low, they nailed it. They smote it.

Speaker B: 00:26:40

It's way up there in your top 10 translations of the Bible. It is, I reckon, yeah. Yeah, okay, good. Well, I keep moving on. I know Fraser's probably got a question at the end, but I'd like to explore this, you know, meeting the young in part way. How do I know out of all the millions of things that are going on right now, that some of which might have the longevity that make them a cultural reference? How do I spot them before they do? I suppose it's the same way of saying, you know, which horse do I back? But actually, there's some which you do. Is there any criteria that I can apply to them so I can remain relevant?

Speaker A: 00:27:21

Well, actually, I feel a bit sorry for my kids, not just because- I do. You're their dad, yeah. Lol. I got in there before you. You did. I burnt the turf. Well, like all my jokes, this is way too obvious, but yeah, go on. So, because the culture that I had as a kid was really very inaccessible to my parents' generation. I mean, you know, the computer games, for example, wasn't something they would ever think to do, really. And, you know, the kind of music you listen to, you listen to on your friend's Walkman. They can't listen to that, really. They don't know anything about it. Whereas now, it's democratised culture, really, the internet. And, you know, if I want to, I can very easily find out what the kids are doing these days.

Speaker B: 00:28:05

How do we go about doing it without-

Speaker A: 00:28:07

Well, but should we? I'm beginning to talk myself into thinking you shouldn't. Like, when my kid saw that I'd made a meme for a presentation at work, and he said, oh, dad, you made a meme that's so cringey. And I was like, yeah, it is. Was it a Hello Fellow Kids meme? Yeah, well, I mean, that's the thing. I sort of, yeah, maybe we should leave them to it. Maybe they need to have their own cultural reference.

Speaker C: 00:28:33

Was it your milk avatar? What was his name? Bunty or something? Humphrey. Humphrey.

Speaker B: 00:28:37

Yeah. But I think we do need to engage with it on some level to be effective at engaging with them. You know, we've already acknowledged that these cultural references, these idioms provide us a shortcut to a bigger bunch of concepts. So if we refuse to engage with exennial and millennial references, when we're working with these people- Peter, you're a millennial. I'm very borderline millennial. We'll be working for them and with them and, you know, they'll be working for us. How do we tap into that conceptual shorthand?

Speaker A: 00:29:20

You can't because you end up looking like Nick and his kid saying, oh, it's so cringey. It's like, you know, standing in front of another cultural reference, standing in front of the ocean and saying, I want to stop the tide.

Speaker B: 00:29:31

I'm not convinced. I think there are probably ways of doing it sympathetically that aren't cringey, that aren't now. In the same way that we get cultural references that our parents would probably use.

Speaker A: 00:29:45

But I think there's two sets of cultural references. Almost that's what we've kind of, I think we've kind of sort of said that even if we've concluded that even if we've not stated it. You've got your proper old Shakespeare, Latin, Bible. You've got those, you've got to have those in the bag. The common storehouse. And then you've got your contemporary cultural things. And guess what? You're just, those are always going to be changed.

Speaker C: 00:30:06

Only the way you want them to be. One day, at one point, there were a bunch of disciples, right, who knew what Jesus was. And then suddenly there were a billion of them. And they were contemporary references at the time. It's like, hey, do you remember the fish and the whatever?

Speaker A: 00:30:25

But the thing is, to them, to the disciples, Jesus, of course, was not a cultural reference. The cultural references for the disciples and others would have been things like the Lamb of God and sacrifice and all sorts of weird Judeo sort of things. Those would have been the references. But Jesus himself wouldn't, would have just taken the cross as a big

Speaker C: 00:30:47

cultural reference, right? At some point it wouldn't have been. And now it is. And that could have, that might have just been a throwaway thing like, oh, look at these, you know, smiley cats. It's not quite as large as that, but it becomes. And so to Peter's point, how do you spot the ones that are going to endure? I think basically that's a question about how do you spot what is going to be a big deal, you know? So it might have been a big deal at the time. Like, let's say something like Game of Thrones. I suspect there's quite a lot of cultural references around that that might survive into the future over,

Speaker B: 00:31:26

you know, the next few decades. I think there's a slightly more methodical approach you can apply. So within any generation. God, Peter, tell us what we need to know about. Well, I can't tell you, I can't give you a lift, but I can try to sketch out a method, right? So within any generation, there are sort of subcultures. And I think these subcultures kind of map on to previous subcultures in other generations. So, you know, there's a sort of, you know, I'm thinking back to growing up, you had the goths and the emos and you had the, you had, you had. I don't think we called them emos. Well, some got. OK, let's say. I'm trying to apply his method live. So I think certain tropes there apply to certain tropes you get in. I don't even know what you what the subcultures are, but map on to subcultures today. And that map that the mapping will bring along with it will be the sort of appeal to certain cultural references. So if you can identify what the sort of thing a certain type of person is likely to be into. So I think people who are into war games are probably map on to people today who are into slightly more obscure sci-fi, you know, retro sci-fi, maybe they'll get that. So if you sort of find out who they are and what they're into, you can find out what sort of films to watch and what cultural references. This sounds very, very unintuitive. I don't

Speaker A: 00:32:57

think I can apply it. Yeah, I don't because it feels to me like that mapping is actually the tricky bit. It's like so I say, OK, so why am I doing this? So so I kind of, you know, look at, I don't know, 4chan and Pepe the Frog and I go, what kind of thing is this? How can I relate to this? Is it right? Like, you know, is it a bit like Back to the Future? No, it's not. But I don't

Speaker C: 00:33:21

have a thing which I can map it on to. I'm going to try and move Peter's thing forward, which is, I think, let's say you take alt-right, alt-right being a continuation of, let's say, far right groups previously. What do some of them refer to? They use Nazi iconography, right? That's a cultural reference from the past that they recognize. Taking a less sinister version, you know, you take the Goths and Emos and so on. They quite often get into avant-garde type stuff, you know, like Bauhaus or something like that. But they might also look at, you know, Byron's poetry or something, right, as a throwback to something, you know, a long time ago. You know, was Byron a

Speaker A: 00:34:10

Goth? So if I meet someone wearing quite heavy eye makeup, all I've got to do is make reference to Lord Byron and presto, we've got an instant connection. And your mates. Yeah. OK. Let's

Speaker C: 00:34:22

try it out. Let's go and find a party. Look at my mics. Oh, that was Shelley, wasn't it?

Speaker A: 00:34:29

We need to wrap up. However, I've got a rather exciting question. Are we happy to wrap up? Yeah, yeah. OK. Before we start really being cringy. Yeah. So I've got a question. Cultural references. Have you ever used one yourself that has fallen flat or has embarrassed you in some way? Because I've got a bunch of times when I've tried to employ a cultural reference. It just just didn't work. Should I kick off? You lead off. Go on then. I'm actually wearing a cultural reference right now. Now, can anyone? For all you viewers out there. So describe. We've covered this, but this is a podcast. Well, paint us a picture with your

Speaker B: 00:35:07

words. What am I wearing? Well, he's he's doing a very pale comparison of Steve Jobs. He's got brown jeans. He's wearing a black polo jeans, blue jeans, rather, and a polo neck, a black

Speaker C: 00:35:19

polo neck. And anyone, any cultural references there? Yes. Steve Jobs. No, not Steve Jobs.

Speaker A: 00:35:24

OK, a. What about if I say to you all because. Oh, the Milk Tray Man. All because the lady loves. Did you choose to dress like the Milk Tray Man? No. So maybe subconsciously. So I think the trouble is that the differences between you and the Milk Tray Man are perhaps greater than the similarities. No, no. I think that's perhaps the trouble. I love chocolate, although he doesn't. The lady loves chocolate. No, he's constantly giving it away. He is, isn't he? Yeah. Well, I went along to my ukulele group last night and I walked in and the lady of probably 60 something immediately said to me, ah, all because the lady loves straight away. So not only is he trying

Speaker B: 00:36:00

to dress like the Milk Tray Man, he hasn't changed since yesterday. What does this tell you,

Speaker A: 00:36:04

mper. He hasn't changed since: 1998

Speaker C: 00:37:55

Chris? Yeah, no, I found myself a few years ago. Somebody was saying, you know, something that they really aspired to do. And, and I broke in with Dear Jim, can you fix it for me? And then realized that that was not a cultural reference that and that's an interesting case. Because clearly, cultural, the context of cultural references can change dramatically over time. You know, things like, you look at, you know, references to Cecil Rhodes or something, and how, how they shift over time, you get this sort of historical revisionism, that was a particularly dramatic time of when it was like, oh, no, that's not, that's not a cultural reference.

Speaker B: 00:38:45

That's not good anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Peter? I can't think of any specific examples of when it's happened. But Nick, Nick, and I both do this, we use kind of online abbreviations in normal conversations. So we'll say LOL, and we'll say LAMO. And we'll say YOLO. So you do this IRL? We do this IRL. Even FTF? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So yeah, so sometimes I've used those. And they've just fallen flat. And I don't think it's necessarily good that people wouldn't use them themselves on in their texts or chat. It's just, it's just that this is more is out of context. And they don't sort of get it that it's how it's been done verbally rather than in text.

Speaker C: 00:39:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also that nobody actually does that anymore of below the age of

Speaker A: 00:39:38

40. It's a bit, what was the word, loogie? No.

Speaker C: 00:39:43

Yeah, that one. That one. Yeah. Kloogie. No, it wasn't Kloogie. Wasn't it lurgie, loogie?

Speaker B: 00:39:50

I can't remember. Lurgie? I thought it was kloogie. Something like that. It wasn't lurgie. Anyway.

Speaker A: 00:39:56

Right. Well, I think they think the podcast is all over. And it is now. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare, and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.