I think this is a fairly common first question no matter where you are.
I found it refreshing that at my brother's wedding in Holland, I chatted with probably 50 people and no one asked what I did. At big parties here, it is usually the first thing to come up. It isn't always a mercenary question, sometimes it's basic small talk, but we define ourselves by our job more here than in most European countries, I think. In certain cities (NYC, LA, DC) it can be obviously and completely mercenary, but even in smaller places I've lived it comes up right away. I have, as an exercise, tried NOT to mention my or ask about their job to people, and it's HARD.
This is a foreseeable effect of the pervasive myth of social mobility. If "obviously" anybody who works hard enough can get ahead, then anybody who does not get ahead didn't work hard enough. It is a logical fallacy clean and pure enough to use in rhetoric classes. Alas that many people would not know the word "fallacy" if it jumped up and mugged them.
What's the fallacy? I only see a faulty premise. Or does a faulty premise also constitute a logical fallacy (I don't remember). Or is the first premise "All those who work hard might get ahead," or in other words, "Some who work hard get ahead"?
NYC = money, DC = power, LA = celebrity.
Or at certain times of the year, "prom."
Or at certain times of the year, "prom."
Bwhahah... good one (especially insofar as it applies to buffistas also).
There's a scene in the doc
Born Rich
where some obnoxious titled adolescent objects to Americans asking people what they do within moments of meeting. He acts as if it's an invasion of the deepeset privacy.
Moreover,
one apparently should be able to tell what a person "does" (i.e., does he or she have money) by their accents, their interests, their topics of conversation, etc.
When I've been unemployed for long stretches of time, one of the most depressing aspects of it was dreading going to parties or anywhere social because I had no answer to "What do you do?"
The logical fallacy is, um, I have forgot the latin name. But in science, you might call it correlation is not presumptive of causation.
Poor people who got ahead worked hard. Therefore, hard work is what gets one ahead. Double therefore, non-hard work is what causes a lack of getting ahead.
It is sort of like saying that because F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway had editors, and they are both dead, that editors are fatal.
(Or my personal favorite, on basis of eyebrow-absence, that Whoopi Goldberg is the Mona Lisa.)
Given this discussion, I thought some of you might be interested in the (granted, old) link to the PBS documentary on social class in America,
People Like Us:
[link]
The documentary itself was incredibly revealing, to me at least. This site has even little games and such which supposedly help to peg your personal attitudes about the classes, as well.
The logical fallacy is, um, I have forgot the latin name. But in science, you might call it correlation is not presumptive of causation.
post hoc ergo propter hoc?
Poor people who got ahead worked hard. Therefore, hard work is what gets one ahead. Double therefore, non-hard work is what causes a lack of getting ahead.
OK, that makes sense. I wasn't sure what "can" meant in that context....
