I’m proud of a few blue items

Isn’t pride about status? (am I belaboring the obvious? – I don’t know)

If status-seeking is as inescapable as breathing, then why not simply embrace it as a natural part of us? The poor repute of status-seeking – which seems to be an undercurrent of much discussion about it – was explained, I believe on this blog, as nothing other than itself a product of status-seeking. That is, if you are known to be seeking status, then that betrays your own status insecurity and therefore lowers your status. So the problem with status-seeking is that it’s low-status. So the negative assessment of status-seeking is itself a product of status-seeking.

I’d like to think I don’t that much care about my status

Naturally, since it is high-status not to care. The securely high-status can dispense altogether with status-seeking, since there is no danger of losing status, and this lack of concern in turn demonstrates (and helps to secure) high status.

It’s interesting, though, that the very existence of the “status moves” mentioned demonstrate that the actual situation is more complex than that everyone is seeking (higher) status. On the contrary, it demonstrates that people are continually signaling both lower status and higher status. So it simplifies matters to suppose that everyone is constantly seeking to raise his status. In fact, if the conversational status signals are to be interpreted as signs of intent, then as often as not people seek to place themselves at a lower status than those around them.

Say you become annoyed by a comment and consider replying to the comment. If you are still annoyed when you are writing the comment, you probably will try to lower the commenter’s status. It could perhaps be useful in these situations to take a step back and try to analyze why one got annoyed in the first place and to notice one’s own motivations in the said situations.

I think you misunderstand improv. The signals listed there are tools for use on the stage, to inform the audience of the relations between the characters. Those relationships are fictional: they are, by definition, exactly what the authors (in improv, the actors) signal that they are.

The problem that the improv teacher and author Keith Johnstone started with was that actors were unable to act simple scenes realistically. The actors were unable to make most simplest scenes seem real. Johnstone attributed this to the lack of understanding of status. When the actors were made aware of status, the scenes suddenly became alive.

So, in Johnstone’s argument, explicit status manipulation is a tool for actors for making their acting seem more realistic. In real life we make status moves mostly unconsciously and we don’t pay much conscious attention to them.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704055104574652222802277420.html

Favorite quote:
“In life you don’t know what’s behind the surface and why a person behaves a certain way, so you have to be forgiving.”

You don’t, but maybe you should.

But it looks bad to do things to directly for status; that seems too desperate. So usually we have other conscious motivations, and unconsciously adjust our behavior to manage status. This lets us avoid showing or seeing how much status matters to us.

Oh man, I want to live where you live. So many people I’ve known are unashamedly status oriented. What they do tend to avoid showing, very adroitly, is unfair play… So much for ‘may the best man/woman win’.

If I can gain status on my terms, I will hardly be ashamed of it but I aren’t one to ‘flaunt it’ either, mainly because I don’t want to arouse potentially negative, even dangerous, attention.
I would certainly flaunt status i.e. a Ferrari (sp?) for the sake of picking up women… but then I’d subject them to some rather intensive Theodore Dalrymple style exploration of the moral conscience. What makes you so special? If you, through sexual attraction, could displace the prospects of a girl who’d worked very hard but wasn’t sexually attractive, would you?

A bet you do it everyday and I’ll prove it. And so on.

You as the proprietor of the site have certain status from your proprietorship that isn’t shown. Also, the written word has somewhat different status rules than in-person interactions.

I agree. Just being a blogger is status raising. It’s like walking on stage to speak. You’re on the soapbox; I’m not. Being a commenter is lower status. So on some level everyone knows to play those roles. It’s built into the medium. If someone violates the dynamic they’re ignored.