Labeling and the Value of People

  

"The first step in treating people as things is saying they are things."

 Words are powerful things. They are how we describe reality and its contents, and how we identify things and their parts and relationships. In order to be able to manipulate, influence, or control an object or system, we must be able to label it and its parts as well as define properties and purposes.

A name or label can do many things to an object. First and foremost, it enables our minds to be able to interact with that object, which then gives rise to influence and possible control.

Labels are essentially word "tools." Sometimes word weapons. They can psychologically equip a person to influence, manipulate, or control an object, but that same process can be weaponized to do harm to a person. As tools, they inherit various degrees of value or power. Some labels, just like some objects in general, are held in higher value or esteem than others. The value of the label, and the value of object itself, are both valuable in their own right. Sometimes the label is more valuable than the object. Sometimes an object has more value under certain conditions than the label of that object would suggest.

In terms of how people treat each other, humans treat each other based on how we value each other, and our value is gauged by the labels and categories attached to us and that we are associated with. The "labels" involved with what we've done, how we've lived, and what groups and classes we are a part of.

In a sense, our every waking second is in a marketplace even when we aren't spending money. When we aren't paying money, we are "paying attention," where our attention and interest in our environment and our world serves as a de facto currency in our relationship with reality. We "buy" our friends and relationships with our attention and interest. Even the word love is often synonymous with the word value.

We see it time and again that the more valuable you are seen in the eyes of your peers, the more they take interest, give attention, and spend time with you. The more valuable you are in their eyes, the better you are treated. 

The opposite is also true. The less valuable people see you, the worse you are treated. What devalues people in the eyes of other people isn't the person themselves, it is the label assigned to or associated with them. The label gives the person their identity in the eyes of their audience, and the value of that label is translated to the value of that person. 

Every person has an audience. Their friends. Their family. Their peers. Their coworkers. Every person who at some point observes an individuals behavior or life story serves as the individual's "audience."

How valuable that label is to the individual's audience will determine how that person will be treated. Most people have many labels attached to and associated with them, so every individual's value to their audience is gauged by the priorities of the given audience at a given time period. If the audience prioritizes a high valued label of the labels attached to an individual in their relationship to the individual, then that individual will be treated better. If they prioritize low valued label attached to that individual, then that individual will be treated more poorly or unfairly.

For example, lets say a person is really good at basketball but has an unpleasant attitude. A person who really likes basketball might prioritize the basketball skills over their poor attitude and treat the person well. Another person, however, might not like basketball but likes good attitudes, so a bad attitude might sour the person and they might treat that person poorly, because the basketball skills aren't the priority.

My main point with this, if people are treated better based on how they are valued, almost like a psychological/social marketplace, than getting people treated better would entail increasing their value. 

If a human being's value is determined by the label their audience assigns to or associates with them, then getting people to change the labels they focus on and prioritize in their relationship with them or assign new labels to their personhood will get them to be valued more and, hence, treated better.

The entire goal of slander is to strip a person of their value with labels that in themselves have low or no value. As said earlier, we are as valuable in the eyes of others as the labels that follow us. This constitutes most of what's called our "reputation." You destroy someone's reputation, you essentially destroy their value in social and political settings. A destroyed reputation is the most common consequence of slander. At worst, slander can kill. It can even lead to genocides. 

In order to justify murder and genocide, you must first slander your target in a way that strips them of their value in the eyes of your audience. Once the slander devalues the social and economic worth of your target, killing them is more easily justifiable.

This shows you that labels can strip people entirely of their value, but what can be taken away can also be given. Labels, thankfully, can also give human beings immense, even priceless value.

History has shown time and again that a society with a high value of human life collectively and individually are more stable and prosperous overall. They are also more ethical in their dealings, as well as more free, both in the sense of freedom of choices as well as freedom from the effects of wickedness and persecution. 

Labeling not only influences and can dictate how we value people and how we treat or engage with them. They can also serve to blind the mind. They act as a psychological filter or obstruction that can block core or extra elements of a person's nature, being or composition and history that would have otherwise been seen, valued, or understood had it not been the label that obstructed our evaluation to some degree. Labels are often shortcuts we take in analysis that grossly oversimplify people and can blind us to a more comprehensive and holistic understanding of people or groups. 

If people overall have a high value of human life they are less likely to engage in harmful and destructive behaviors and less likely to treat people unethically and unfairly. It's hard to treat people this way if you see them as highly valuable.

Labels are a way you can increase the social, psychological, and even economic worth of human beings in the minds of the communities and societies they are a part of. Positive labels have positive value, so labeling people high value labels increases those people's value because their audiences gauge their worth through their labels and the labels' value. We see people through the lense of what they are, who they are, and what they do. All those are gauged through and with labels