A game of 20 questions to determine social status....

[christian5327]

I try to avoid asking silly questions such as "What do you do for a living?" or "Where do you live?". Some people are so sly about playing this game of 20 questions. Once, I was in a foreign country that values personal status more highly than even here in the good old USA.
"So, your father is a machinist in California?"
"No(I laugh of course because he thinks it is so clever to play 20 questions in an indirect manner.), my father is a lawyer and I'm from Seattle."

Needless to say, within a few minutes, this person needed to excuse himself to mingle with other people.I could tell that he felt intimidated; again, it serves him right for trying to play the status guessing game.They say that people in modern society play 20 questions in order to find common ground. In DC for example they also ask about the school that you attended. This is all the result of perceiving work as a major component of identity. People overlook the sad reality that one day a person's occupation becomes as important to them as before they ever conceptualized that field of work. As for school, every place whether it is ivy league or poison ivy all impart information the way that a vendor imparts peanuts at a baseball game. Again, individuals attempting to define themselves as the product of an affiliation with a high status institution. We no longer seem to be defined as John the kind and courageous father but rather John the 300,000 per year Wall Street Junior Associate with a law degree from X. I play 20 questions with artful responses. I usually say that I am a pimp of young girls or a shipper of humans. I like frequenting shelters or I say that I have a suite at the closest 4 star hotel. 20 questions is not going to succeed in insuring me against a future without social security or a future in which I may have to learn two new phrases. Social class probes only serve to alert me to someone that is so dependent on the system for their own validation that they need constant reassurance in everyday encounters of 20 questions. Whether you win or lose in 20 questions still means that you have lost your identity to the system. It is the same system that will force me to learn two innovative stock phrases.
"Hi, welcome to Mcdonald's/Burger King/Wendy's, may I take your order?"
"Hello, welcome to Walmart/Kmart/Target.

[tahann]

You speak, as if, you have found a way out of the system.

If that is the case, it would be more interesting to hear more about that than these comments (rants?) about the system.

[christian5327]

You speak, as if, you have found a way out of the system.

If that is the case, it would be more interesting to hear more about that than these comments (rants?) about the system.

This is not a rant. I have found a way out of any system. I can refuse to reveal any status markers concerning myself. I can also refuse to ask questions concerning another person's status. I take a person as a person along with their ideas without anything else interfering with this.

We can discuss this over the telephone if you would like. I will pay for the charges by calling you. When I visit Manila, we can discuss different issues and dynamics face to face, one on one. A counterargument that you can use is that I have revealed my information on pinoyexchange. I can simply state that it might all be a cover in order to preserve anonymity. At any rate, I cannot prove that any of the things that I say about myself are true. Anything in this life can be fabricated or forged. A plane ticket from Manila to Seattle can easily be fabricated as proof. A 206 area code from a cell phone could originate from another place other than what I claim---Seattle. For all anyone knows I could be living in Makati or Manila right now. Anyone can write these posts. I could easily have someone else write these responses and posts. My first name and last name are very common in the Philippines and the United States. For example, I claim that my father graduated from UP Law. Sure, one can find that there was a Domingo Santiago that graduated in 1966 but that person might not even be my father, let alone related to me. I could be another person with the same name that I claim for myself, even not at all.

What will be real is the dialogue face to face, whether it is one on one with you or in a group Timex 7 setting. The power of logic and reason and its relationship to veracity is irrelevant. Both a truth teller and a deceiver can offer interesting insights using logic, reason and rationality, all three of which would be valid independent from the perceiver's identity as a fraud or honest person.