How? Seriously, how? A joke, in fact a self deprecating joke title is a show of status?
So far you have proven nothing and provided a weak link.
This is a summary of my thoughts:
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If your inner status (self-image or self-estimate) exceeds your outer status (your position in society), you will be unhappy. E.g.: you think of yourself as a learned intellectual, but are treated as someone inferior to that or are unrecognized altogether in the field where most of your self-estimate or identify come from
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If your inner status matches your outer status, you will most likely be satisfied. E.g., you think of yourself as a learned intellectual and are reasonably recognized and treated as one - e.g., people solicit your opinion on public affairs
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If your outer status exceeds your inner status, you may be unhappy, but in most cases you will be happy and will eventually tune your inner status to your new reality . E.g., you received a promotion or are suddenly recognized for something that you are yet to internalize
Of course, most cases aren’t that clear and there is a lot of overlap, but that’s it in a nutshell. A formal definition of status may be easier to pin down and define, but there are informal ways of both status and recognition that make sense to add to the context.
E.g., if for any number of reasons X happens to be better at carpentry than his peers and has spent many years building on that knowledge and absorbing it, then he will expect to be recognized for this status. If X is sitting down and watching a TV show with friends and something comes up that is related to carpentry, X is likely to remark on what’s going on, and he’d hate it too if someone challenged his status.
This is one way of looking at it, and I find that it helps explain issues of status in employment (I have been a manager for many years, I expect to not go down below that level), education (I have a PhD and that’s Dr SharltoCopley for you), or socioeconomic class (having been fired, how do you maintain expensive habits?).
ETA: People studying political science will tell you that the reason dictators don’t want the population to enjoy a higher socioeconomic status is because this usually means that people (now looking at themselves differently), will ultimately demand representation and more liberties (because they are now a step higher on Maslow’s hierarchy of human motivation).
Closest I’ve come to a cruise ship is serving on a Carrier.
Country Club, no, no interest. Not my thing at all.
retirement areas, I’m retired with my wife getting close. We moved to an inexpensive walking town in the area we liked. We lowered our status if anything.
nursing homes, what? Nursing Homes are a status symbol? To who?
cemetery plots, I want to be cremated and have my ashed spread on the water.
No grandchildren yet. Is hoping they’re happy and smart a status thing? I think not.
Status is a paradox: both a tangible imperative and illusory. Here’s a clear example: “a high-status SMDB member.”
I have sensed that imbalance in myself and others throughout life. There seems to be some motivation to keep that in balance.
I think that most people want those who they both know and respect to think well of them. This may well, however, lead them to do things that other people think of as low-status.
Some people care what strangers think of them; others don’t. I think the tendency to do so may decrease with age, on average; but I’m sure there are exceptions to that.
Some people aspire to what many in their society think of as “high-status” things; other people don’t, either because they think those things are silly, or because they just don’t care about them.
Some people consider the (to them) perceived status of a given item or way to spend time when making many or most of their decisions. Other people don’t.
I suppose there may be some people trying to pick an assisted-living home based on status. My mother and I were just trying to find some place that wouldn’t try to make her get up and eat breakfast at seven in the morning.
I find it a very odd concept of status to focus on things like country clubs and nursing homes; and think the example given of having one’s carpentry knowledge recognized makes a lot more sense. But there are a lot of people who think of carpentry as a low-status job; so simply talking about “status” without considering what it means to the specific person doesn’t work. There are plenty of cases in which two groups of people are each looking down on each other – think of the people who despise “academics” versus those who despise those who do physical labor. (And I think that all those people are being silly, because they’re all despising genuinely useful and interesting work.)
I believe that Americans do spend a lot of time on status-seeking, but that may be a function of being the most extraverted culture in the history of mankind. Status is how you appear to others, which is something extraverts, particularly the shallowest ones, find very important.
I am not interested in the admiration of others. I admit I did when I was young, but I outgrew it. The only people’s opinions I care about are my small group of friends and my immediate family. Otherwise I try to look like my demographic, so as to not draw undue attention. That’s it.
Perhaps below an unidentified age, this is true. School is especially about status. Most work places try to make it about status but I am just not interested at this point in my life. I want to do a good job and feel I earned my paycheck, but I have never been out to be “someone” in the workplace.
I love fashionable, flattering clothes, but I have no desire to be known for being fashionable.
My family has shown no interest in the things I love. That’s fine with me. I just wish they’d be more concerned about the environment than they are, but I’m not exactly the golden child either (she says as her air conditioning is running full force today).
What’s my status? Who cares?
Heh, I just spent a week in Vegas and getting exposed to covid due to a status I’ve accidentally obtained at my job, but I’d rather not have.
I make enough money at my job that I can support myself and pursue my interests without worrying about most monetary constraints. I got there because I genuinely am interested in and enjoy my actual day-to-day work. I solve tech support problems, so basically people bring me puzzles to figure out. Most of it is fairly technical, but a great deal of it is just figuring out what exactly this person wants to do. It really is kind of a delight most of the time. Of course, they’d still have to pay me to do it most of the time.
So, my professional status is generally something I enjoy, but it actually ends up coming with extra obligations that I didn’t want (we want you to have a global impact, Scabpicker), and the status wasn’t the goal. I like figuring out the puzzles, and other folks promote me because I’m kind of good at it.
I guess I have some status in my private interests. Others seem to want to work with me, and I occasionally get paid to do something I’d do for free. That’s a nice level to be at, and I don’t have to work like crazy to maintain it due to my day job.
So, I guess you could say I was obsessed with status as long as you set the bar kinda low. I work a job I don’t hate that supports me, and I have personally fulfilling hobbies I enjoy. That’s pretty much 95% of what I set out for, and the other 5% is probably unrealistic, anyway. I’m beyond satisfied WRT status, and as far as I can remember, I was 25 years ago when I had 1/10th the wealth and status I have now.
It is easy to say status is unimportant - if you have it. If you are white, American, reasonably educated, reasonably financially independent.
Take away any one or more of those, and see how important a LACK OF status feels.
For me, status is best represented by the ability to be left alone when I wish. Which many folk lack.
Because your obvious joke is a perfect indicator of the way that status bleeds into every interaction with other people. Self-deprecating about status is a recognition of how pervasive status is.
You can’t escape status indicators by saying you don’t care about them. Maybe you don’t consciously. But you have to make choices about them and they will reflect your attitudes.
The best way to think about status is that its pervasiveness is very similar to racism, sexism, classism, and other isms. Whites don’t recognize their own whiteness and what it means to those who are not white. Men don’t recognize their own maleness and what it means to those who are not white. Etc. Status is partially a set of deliberate choices but also encompasses a set of unconscious acts that may be more noticeable to others than to yourself. Not acknowledging the universality of status needs is like not acknowledging systemic racism. It’s everywhere whether we like it or not.
Surely there is status among the non-white, non-US, not well educated, even not well off financially. There is generally some level of status between any two people as well as in any group. I think you’re confusing status with privilege.
Status is always relative to someone else, a comparative quality. The thing about status is that any characteristic or object that can be valued by anyone can be a measure of status. And it doesn’t depend on what you think about yourself, but what others think about you.
Therefore, attaching importance to status is a sign of emotional immaturity. Many people grow out of this, many others don’t.
I have two of three, but not reasonably financially independent. Not at all. So?
I do have to agree that reasonably educated probably helps me not care so much about status. I love to learn but never reached the master’s degree that my field of work now demands. And I’m not going to try to get it. I need to get by, not be someone.
No, it’s like saying I don’t care about seeking air. On one hand, I need air to live. But on the other hand, for the vast majority of my life there is sufficient air available, and I need to spend almost zero time seeking it out.
A great deal of status has been bestowed on me by virtue of passive activities like aging or being white, and more active activities like being good at my job. But this status is simply a side effect of living, not a goal.
We can all recognize people that seek status in its own right. Those that don’t have very little respect for those that do.
Of course, marginalized groups of people do not automatically accrue status, and may need to seek it out just to live at a decent level.
Try being old and female. Lots of people will be happy to ignore you.
That is indeed often what I want them to do. But they’re not doing it because they think I’m high status; they’re doing it because they think I’m low status.
I think the OP is painting “status” with an overly broad brush.
Do I want to have a high professional status? Definitely. That means raises, promotions, other financial incentives, greater likeliness to work on the projects I want to work on, greater ability to get stuff done, so on and so forth. But I also don’t feel a need to constantly one-up my coworkers or treat my workplace as a cutthroat winner-take-all environment. Which wouldn’t really enhance my status anyway.
Do I want to be some pretentious social climber, constantly keeping up with the Joneses? No. At least not beyond living a relatively nice lifestyle for its own sake and having good relationships with friends and family.
I knew I needed a better name for the ten minutes I spent reading about muons on Wikipedia while pooping this morning. It was clearly a quest.
The general point I believe is that we seek a status that we are comfortable with. Not wanting to keep up with the Joneses doesn’t mean you’re not affected by status, it may just mean that you are comfortable with the status you have.
I have absolutely no desire to be a super rich jet setter, in fact I think some of it would make me feel uncomfortable, I’d feel like I don’t belong. On the other hand I sure as hell don’t want to be sweeping the streets, and it’s not just because the pay would be crap.
I agree with @Exapno_Mapcase and I suspect that the closer you are to your ideal status, the less likely you are to notice it.
I agree, if you are a dishwasher and you are valued as a dishwasher and you have a secure place washing dishes you just might be fine with that.
But he said “Americans spend 100% of their lives in a quest for status.” Depending on the interpretation, it’s either tautological or false. If it’s tautological, it’s useless, and disingenuous to limit to “Americans.” Like saying “Americans spend 100% of their time on propagating their genes.” If you want to go there–sure, it’s arguably true, but it’s a useless fact and applies to all living beings.
If you’re right that people only seek out status until they reach a point that they’re comfortable with, then it’s not true that people spend 100% of their lives in a quest for status.