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The Strategies, Processes, or Techniques Society Uses to Determine what lives matter, or what identities are valuable Society is the integral foundation upon which the entire mankind exists. Man cannot escape society. With all its mistakes, flaws, and drawbacks, society is still a necessary and integral part of our lives and to run away from society means to essentially live all alone in a wilderness, with no human contact or civilization around. The society provides humans the necessary support we need to be emotionally and mentally stable by finding that strength amongst our loved ones around us. As such, there have always been some identities that are considered more valuable than others in society, and it uses some well-thought out and inherently embedded techniques, strategies and processes to map out the priorities and determine the lives that matter. The lives associated with the aforementioned identities are also accordingly considered to matter more as compared to others. Since this decision regarding the prioritizing of some identities over others has been done so long ago, that it has been embedded deeply and no one questioned what process was followed to make society determine which identities are valuable and which lives matter. However, some proper techniques and processes are followed by the society to prioritize different identities and place some higher than the others. These techniques and processes are so deeply embedded in our psyche and are considered a second nature to such an extent that we often fail to recognize them. In this essay, we will be carrying out a discussion on some of the aforementioned and see how the society comes together in playing a role to determine which lives matter and which identities are valuable and thus must be prioritized over the others. The first, and obvious, a technique that is used by society to determine the value of certain identities is to explore what value that identity is adding to society. This means that the contributions of a certain identity are evaluated and then checked about other identities to see the positive or negative impact on society as a whole. The impact of identity is often checked in terms of financial benefit because above all else, money is an effective motivator and a factor that contributes greatly to society. However, there are non-financial benefits that are also considered while determining the value of different identities. These include the growth and support that identity provides to the society as a whole or to another identity, or the role of identity in safeguarding some aspect of the society (Faludi, 1994). Therefore, it is clear that whatever benefits the society directly or indirectly is something that is valued more. Again, the "benefit" that is being made to society is highly objective and varies according to the different social groups. A benefit to one group might be a drawback to another. This process is one that is rooted in common sense and logic and operates on the concept of giving and take; where the positioning of a certain identity is done based on what they can do for the society. This process is something all of us undertake while forming opinions, but since it is so involuntary and a part of our nature that we never consider what it is or break it down into different steps. Another process that is used by the society in determining what lives matter or how valuable some identities are is through the process of association. This means that some aspect of the identity is associated with a feeling that it invokes or whether it was historically considered good or bad. Based on the results of this analysis, the identities have appointed some value. A clear example of this is the racism that is experienced by black people. If we dig deeper into the systemic racism, we realize that the racism is being carried out based on the skin color of the black people and the association that has been made with darker skin color and some negative factors. The black community has no control over the color of their skin and yet they have to face the repercussions of being darker than the other segments of the society. Here, society automatically valued a fair color better than dark color, which can then be associated with how the majority of the developed society was established and run by people with fair color, and thus they had an inherent upper hand in the society. As such, any color that was different or a little darker than their color was deemed negative and inferior. To justify their mistreatment and the positioning of the black people as lower than white people, the latter associated the former with several negative traits. Back in the day, they were associated with not being educated and their lack of ability to contribute intellectually to the development of society. When the black community was able to overcome the hurdles in their way to their personal development, the negative association with this identity changed to a narrative claiming that the black community was dangerous and posed a threat to the peaceful white community. This association again lowered the value of the black community in the society and thus giving the upper hand to the white community. Another strategy that is used by the society to determine what lives matter and which identities are considered valuable is through the personal experience of certain social groups with the identity under question. However, since this personal experience of the same identity can be different for different social groups, therefore the value of the aforementioned is fluid, relative, and always changing based on which social group's perspective you consider (Noë, 2015). The personal experience is also highly subjective and can be positive or negative based on the interaction, whether or not there was any beneficial trade of products or services, whether or not any help was extended in regards to any job and whether the identity added to the social group or took something away from it. An example to clarify this technique of value associated with identities is how different ethnic groups view Christopher Columbus. To the white Americans, Columbus is a hero who "discovered" America and is the father of their homeland. He is hailed a hero for providing such a large land to the white people while also taking care of the ethnic Indian people residing in the area already and developing the land for them. The value associated with Christopher Columbus is thus quite high and he is celebrated for his contributions to the society and even has a dedicated celebratory day. On the other hand, if you consider the native American social group and their experience with Columbus, he is resultantly rated quite negatively. In their perspective, he was an outsider who attacked their land and hurt their way of living as well as turned the lives of the ethnic group upside down. The people from that group have lived like outsiders ever since on their land and experienced troubles and brutalities at the hands of the settlers. Therefore, their experience with Columbus is a negative one and this identity is not considered valuable at all and instead looked down upon with hate and fury. There is another process through which society determines which lives matter and what identities are considered valuable. However, this is not a natural process or one that is inherent and deeply embedded in the psyche and the normal way of thinking of the members of the society. This is the process of active struggle of the oppressed lives and identities that have been perceived wrongly and unjustly and have been suffering because of it. This process is often carried out by the people who are oppressed by having had enough of living life the way that they are. The position that these lives are given and the value that is associated with them is done so unfairly and is not rooted in any logic but instead just an ages long prejudice. The struggle that ensues afterward is one that challenges the status quo and attempts to change the narrative and make the identities valuable for society. Since this attempts to threaten the natural order and how things are commonly done in society, such a struggle is often met with a lot of resistance (Turkle, 2017). It then depends upon the ones carrying out the struggle to show some resilience and stand their ground to achieve their objective. An example of this struggle through which society associated value with identities is the struggle of the female gender in carving out space for itself in society. The male gender has always been considered superior due to its physical strength and the female gender has been sidelined, even though they were making great contributions to society starting from going through the life-threatening process of birthing children to raising them. All these contributions were often overlooked and instead, women were deemed as someone that is used for domestic chores only, should keep her head down and not disturb the matters of the society. Essentially, they were not given much value in society. However, after centuries of undeserved oppression, the women rose in rebellion to demand their rights and highlight their role in the successful establishment and running of the society and how without their contributions the society would not function properly. This challenge to the status quo was met with contempt by the social party with the upper hand, i.e. men. However, that is a natural reaction and is to be expected. To conclude, society consists of humans and as such, has human traits as well in its judgment of people and how it determines which lives matter and what identities are considered valuable. The processes through which this happens is often related to the association carried out amongst the identities and the values that are perceived as related to them. It is also related to the personal experiences that different social groups have with the identities, because of which the value of the group is flexible and relative. The processes and techniques are often highly subjective and prone to change over time as the external circumstances change. Thus, no value of an identity in the society can ever be considered permanent as it may change as the times change.

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Faludi, Susan. “The Naked Citadel.” The New Yorker, 5 Sept. 1994, pp. 2–30. Krolo, Krešimir. “Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and

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