Seriously, does anybody here understand the concept of agency? “We” don’t do anything, specific people do things.
I could be wrong, but I think most people understand how it works. People get lazy sometimes with regards to being totally precise .
But why “we”?
If you want to be concice about it, why not just say “they.”
See? single syllable and no bullshit.
Language is weird; furthermore, it’s conventional. If it works… people will continue to do it.
Look at some phrases that don’t make any sense:
People always say ‘unthaw’ in reference to making frozen food not frozen.
Well I can’t think of any other ones right now.
In evolutionary science, there is a theory that if something you do is less over-all effective than something else you could easily be doing, it is because you are being manipulated.
Grasshoper females, for example, will waste time and energy going to the singing males without the males themselves moving an inch. The idea is that the singing is a genetic tool to manipulate the female into wasting energy instead of the gene-holding male.
“They” doesn’t include me. And “I” is too honest, so “we.”
When we are referring to a group of people which we consider ourselves a part of, we use ‘we’. What’s the problem? Are there sepcific examples of people referring to groups of people that they are not a part of, where they are using ‘we’?
We post our thoughts on ILP. You and I and they do. We use the English language to do so. That’s “we”. Specific people, including you and me, doing the same things.
I would think that info moves between us like ‘pass the parcel’ [game], are all your thoughts your own ~ what percentage of your thoughts are yours and not shared 5-10%? …at best. You probably think you believe in things [not you particularly but any ‘you‘ generally] that you have conceived, then at some point in your life you find that they weren’t your beliefs after all.
Collective subconscious. Just because we have a somewhat singular perspective, doesn’t mean that in actual fact it is truer to state I/me than we/us. A little like ants communicate and act as a collective via chemical signals, humanity acts as collectives and a collective whole via information sharing.
I’ll give a concrete example:
“When whe abolished slavery…”
I mean, really, get over yourself.
OK, so don’t implicate yourself in things you haven’t done. Fair enough. But, I’d still think there are plenty of good uses for “we”.
Sure, I’m not protesting the word itself.
FilmSnob, if the replies to you in this thread are to be taken at face value, it would seem as thought that’s exactly what they think you’re protesting. Perhaps you should be more explicit about what it is you’re protesting, to avoid confusion (or feigned confusion, if they’re just pretending to not understand [and i think some are]).
I think I more or less understand what you mean. I did when I read the title, because I completely agree with the sentiment. “We” and “you” and “you guys” and phrases like that are used to implicate people in things they actually haven’t done, is the point you’re making, right? Like when a black guy tells a white guy “you guys enslaved us,” when in fact the white guy in question never enslaved anybody, and in all likelihood isn’t even the descendent of an american slave-owner. and of course the black guy in question is including himself in “us” even though he was never a slave either, at least not in the sense that he means (other senses are perhaps arguable, but we can all agree that his situation isn’t the same as a plantation slave).
Am I getting what you mean mrSnob?
Definetly.
I expect there was more than one person involved in the abolition of slavery, often there are entire bodies of people taking sides in any debate, and just waiting for the conflict, sometimes they don’t even know why they do so.
I have met Nazis who cannot back up their ‘reasoning’, but somehow the body of thought has been aquired or otherwise passed down to them. I think that punk had Nietzschean influences perhaps from bowie and other contemporaries, but for most of us the direct link as such wasn’t there, we simply inherited it.
…but yea taking credit for others actions seems a bit we-ish in the way you mean [as I take it].
We need to start taking this thread more seriously.
Ah, gotcha. It can get a bit… glory-by-association.
It’s human nature to identify with our family/group/culture, I suppose, and identity is a very dominant factor in our experience of the world. So we eat certain things on certain days because We are British/American/Bolivian/whatever, we frown on some actions because that’s not what We do around here, we cheer when We win gold at the Olympics.
But why do you think we (or We) shouldn’t? What are the main drawbacks or dangers? We’re not purely rational robots, after all; many or most or maybe all of our values come from the We.
This is the only quote I see as a drawback/danger to it. And yes, I agree it is used that way, but so is “they”, with just as much bullshit. “He’s a Jew, and they killed Jesus”. Stereotyping both others and yourself is ultimately limiting - but seeing only the individual cases removes a lot of identity.