Sage Institute

Sage Understandings · I

On diminishment by labeling

Calling someone stupid does not make them stupid. The diminishment happens inside the head of the person doing the calling, and maybe inside the heads of people who hear it and take it in. It never lands as fact on the person being called anything. So when someone labels another person an archetype, the label says nothing true, permanent, or even reasoned about that person, and it grants no correctness or standing to the one saying it. A person can only be diminished to a profile by how they themselves live, never by what they are called.