Call somebody a name long enough and people start treating the name like evidence. That has always interested me. A person does something, then the action gets turned into a title. The title gets repeated, the repetition starts sounding official, and before long nobody is asking what actually happened. They are arguing about the label. In Excelsior I ask, who gave you that authority? I still think that is the right question. 

Naming has a purpose. We name things because language would be useless without it. A tree, a street, a child, a tool, a crime, an office, whatever. But people are not objects sitting on a shelf waiting for somebody else to write the correct tag. A human being acts, changes, contradicts himself, learns, fails, repeats, surprises you. The name we attach to one part can start swallowing the rest. 

I wrote about conduct because conduct matters. Do not twist that. If a person lies, the lie happened. If they harm somebody, the harm matters. If they repeat the same behavior over and over, you are allowed to notice the pattern. A moral compass has to point somewhere. What I question is the jump from judging an act to pretending the act tells you everything about the human being forever. A verb becomes a noun. Somebody did something, now that is what they are. Quick work. Maybe too quick. 

We live in love with catchwords. Good, bad, freak, normal, criminal, respectable, crazy, genius, failure, saint, sinner. Put the right word in a headline and half the thinking is already done for the reader. Add a picture, repeat it a few hundred times, let everybody take a side. Now the person is almost gone. The name is doing all the work. That is not new, but the speed is. A label can circle the world before the person wearing it knows what happened. 

There is ownership hidden in naming too. We name objects, classify them, decide what they are for, what they cost, where they belong. People have done the same thing to other people throughout history. Race, class, tribe, religion, criminal record, occupation, status, all of it can become a box somebody else expects you to stay inside. Sometimes the name opens a door. Sometimes it closes one. Sometimes the flattering label becomes its own trap. Call a man strong every day and see how long it takes before he is afraid to admit he is tired. Call somebody successful and watch failure become something they have to hide. 

Self-definition does not solve everything either. A man cannot simply call himself honest and make the lies disappear. The word has to answer to conduct. If I say one thing and live another, the name I chose for myself is just decoration. That is why I do not believe identity means nobody gets to question you. Question me. Watch what I do. Just do not pretend the quickest label is the whole case. 

There is another problem with labels: they can become profitable. A scandal needs a villain. A campaign needs an enemy. A television segment needs a type of person everybody recognizes in three seconds. Once the label starts doing business, accuracy can become inconvenient. People stop asking whether the shoe fits because the shoe is already selling. That is where naming moves beyond careless speech and starts becoming power. 

Some names should not be accepted at all. People hand them out for all kinds of reasons. Jealousy, fear, convenience, politics, gossip, control. Sometimes they need you to be the villain because their own story works better that way. Sometimes a group needs a word for everybody outside the group. Fine. They can speak. You still decide what you answer to. 

This is where knowing yourself matters. Not the fantasy version. The inspected version. The one that knows where it has been wrong and where it will not bend. If you know your conduct, your history, your convictions, and the places that still need work, a stranger’s name has less power to rearrange you. It can hurt. Words do that. It can affect opportunity. That happens too. But it does not automatically become your definition. 

We should watch the names we throw at other people for the same reason. Once I decide you are stupid, evil, crazy, fake, whatever, I do not have to listen anymore. I can argue with the category instead of the person. Easy. Efficient. Also lazy, and usually incomplete. 

So call things what they are when you can. Hold people accountable. Keep your eyes open. Just remember that language can describe and distort at the same time. If you do not like the name, do not take it. And before you hand one to somebody else, ask yourself the question again: who gave you that authority?