Our most common forms of interpretation and diagnosis come in the form of a kind of metaphoric structure: synecdoche. This happens when we take part of something and make it represent the entire thing. A "skirt" used to serve as a term for a specific woman or women as a whole. "I will give you a ring," signified calling on the telephone. Calling someone a "jock" refers to a part of apparel closely associated with male athletic activity and tends to contain a generally clichéd assessment of the person in question. Synecdoche may serve a purpose as an illustrative rhetorical trope, but it can also serve as an interpretation and diagnosis that can have deadening effects on our search for the becoming self.
We saw this in an earlier discussion about "I am" or "I be" statements. When we make an interpretation, we impose our perspective of something we see or experience. Once we have committed that imposition on the specific, we generalize it, and it becomes true of the entirety of what we have seen or experienced. Within ourselves, this happens when we take note of an action we have made, generally a negative one, and interpret and generalize it as a diagnosis of our self. We take an exam, and it comes back with a low grade. We feel a natural disappointment because we studied for the exam, and we thought we had done quite well. At this point we have a choice in our response. We can respond to this situation as an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of some misconception we hold about the material in question, or we can respond out of a negative meaning perspective. When we choose the first, we visit the professor and work to reach a reconception that will serve us in our studies. When we choose the second, we tell ourselves how stupid we are which serves as an interpretation: "I was stupid on this test." Once we have said that to ourselves, we shift from the particular condemnation, "I was stupid on this test," to the generalized diagnosis: "I am a stupid person." Our discussion earlier shows the results of such a synecdoche in terms of our internal dialogue and later actions (On what we be or what we choose to be—July 22, 2011 ).
This process serves to create labels for ourselves, and we use it to create and enforce labels on others. "I am" statements that label become "She is/He is" statements about others. When I taught in public schools, I heard this a great deal. Tanya asks one or two questions that Mr. Smith doesn't like. Smith makes an interpretation: "Tanya is making trouble deliberately." Nearly instantaneously, a kind of quantum entanglement, Smith arrives at this diagnosis: "Tanya is a trouble maker." Smith's conclusion becomes common knowledge in the lunchroom where a good deal of teacher venting and complaining stems from this very process: "Tanya is such a troublemaker." Such a statement can soon become an incorrigible reputation. This reputation, this label, may well stick to Tanya for her entire pre-secondary academic career and beyond.