You may be right about marketing and common knowledge; if so, then I suggest that the standard “how are you? fine” script is common knowledge; everyone knows that a “fine” answer can be, and likely will be, given even if the person in question is not doing well at all.
I agree that when executing the how-are-you-fine script people are ipso facto discouraged from giving information about their state that contradicts Things Are Fine. That’s because when executing that script, no one is actually giving any information about their state at all. If you actually want to find out how someone’s life is going, that isn’t how you do it; you ask them some less stereotyped question and, if they trust you sufficiently, they will answer it.
Again, if the how-are-you-fine script were taken as a serious attempt to extract (one one side) and provide (on the other) information about how someone’s life is going, then for sure it would be deceptive. But that’s not how anyone generally uses it, and I don’t see a particular reason why it should be.
You may be right about marketing and common knowledge; if so, then I suggest that the standard “how are you? fine” script is common knowledge; everyone knows that a “fine” answer can be, and likely will be, given even if the person in question is not doing well at all.
I agree that when executing the how-are-you-fine script people are ipso facto discouraged from giving information about their state that contradicts Things Are Fine. That’s because when executing that script, no one is actually giving any information about their state at all. If you actually want to find out how someone’s life is going, that isn’t how you do it; you ask them some less stereotyped question and, if they trust you sufficiently, they will answer it.
Again, if the how-are-you-fine script were taken as a serious attempt to extract (one one side) and provide (on the other) information about how someone’s life is going, then for sure it would be deceptive. But that’s not how anyone generally uses it, and I don’t see a particular reason why it should be.
I was going to write a longer response but this thread covers what I wanted to say pretty well.