A We-free December

The new pronoun politics: "I" rules

I propose a moratorium on the generalized first-person plural for all blog posts, social media posts, opinion writing, headline writers, for all of December. No “we, “us,” or “our,” unless the “we” is made explicit.

No more “we’re living in a golden age,” “we need to talk about,” “we can’t stop talking about,” “we need to wise up.” They’re endless. “We’ve never seen numbers like this.” “We are not likely to forget.” “We need not mourn for the past.” “What exactly are we trying to fix?” “How are we raising our children?” “I hate that these are our choices.”

Why am I calling a halt? First, to see if it is possible. Second, because of the excellent new Apple TV show Pluribus, about a virus that turns almost everyone on Earth into one collective “we.” The hero is one of eleven individuals who seem to be immune. The show is all about I versus we. Watch if you can.

A we-free December would make these New York Times sentences impossible: “We need to change how we build housing.” “We’re not warriors clashing, we’re sojourners exploring.” “Each of us longs to grow, to become better versions of ourselves.” “How far we have fallen!”

No more social media and Substack posts like: “we must confront.” “We have lost.” “We need to rethink.” “We are told.” “Why are we still doing this?” “We’re at the start of something.”

I could not write: “Can we please stop?” followed by studies that show how “this is not good for us.” But you see how it flows so easily.

Shows like “Pluribus,” Star Trek villains like the Borg, or novels like Ayn Rand’s Anthem (1938) don’t seem to have an effect on collective pronoun use. A collective agreement not to use the collective seems contradictory. I propose it anyway.

But first, understand the grammar, if you’re a serial user.

“We” is what linguists call a deictic word. It has no meaning without context. It is a pointer. If I say “here,” it means nothing unless you can see where I am standing. If I say “we,” it means nothing unless you know who is standing next to me.

You could use “we” to mean you and your partner, you and your family, you and your company, you and your town. The reader should be able to tell the “we” the writer means. Take “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” We, in this context, means the signers of the Declaration of Independence specifically. Now, it is taken to mean all Americans.

But in a headline like “Do we need to ban phones in schools?” the “we” is slippery. The linguist Norman Fairclough called this way of speaking to a mass audience as if they were close friends synthetic personalization. The “we” creates fake intimacy and fake equality.

Nietzsche thought a lot about how language is psychology. He would look askance at the “we” in posts like “should we ban ugly buildings?” He might ask: who are you that you do not put yourself in the role of the doer or the doing? Are you a lion or a lamb?

Perhaps you are simply a coward hiding in the herd, Martin Heidegger might say, with das Man. Don’t be an LLM. Be like Carol!

Hannah Arendt would say you’re dodging the blame. “Where all are guilty, nobody is.” Did you have a hand in the policy you are now critiquing? Own up to your role.

Perhaps you are confusing your privileged perch with the broader human condition. Roland Barthes called this ex-nomination. You don’t really want to admit that you are in a distinct pundit class, so you see your views as universal laws.

Adorno would say you are selling a fake membership with your “jargon of authenticity,” offering the reader membership in your club. As E. Nelson Bridwell in the old Mad Magazine had it: What do you mean We?

You are probably not, like Gwendolyn Brooks, speaking about a very specific “we” that you name and celebrate, in this case seven pool players at “the Golden Shovel” in the greatest “we” poem of all time:

If you are speaking for a very specific we, then say so. As Mark Twain is said to have said, “only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms ought to have the right to use we.”

I could go on. But you get the drift. The bottom line is that “we” is squishy. I is the brave pronoun. I is the hardier pronoun. I is the—dare I say it—manly pronoun.

Carol Sturka from Pluribus

Manly?

A few weeks ago, I lamented the ubiquity of sociology in a post responding to that Helen Andrews Feminization piece.

My critique didn’t mention Andrews’s pronouns, which are a mess. She starts with “I” but then quickly goes to “we” (she read something that “unlock[ed] the secrets of the era we are living in”) to “they” (women) and then positions herself belonging to the “we” who suffers because of “them” (women), even while being a woman.

The most interesting bits are first person, when she talks about being apprehensive about her National Conservative conference speech and when she admits to having “a lot of disagreeable opinions.” The limpest parts are the whole middle section where Andrews uses “we” as a shield. Her argument collapses if she admits it is a personal grievance. So she turns it into a crisis.

I say she should have used the manly “I.”

Readers of Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and especially Arthur Conan Doyle, appreciated how these authors privileged a specific form of forceful self-expression. They regularly used a term that, to the modern ear, is biological, but to the Victorian ear was a projectile. It meant throwing out a dart of truth:

• “What could be so bad for the country?” ejaculated Randal.

• “What on earth has that to do with it?” I ejaculated.

• “Not the Countess of Morcar’s blue carbuncle!” I ejaculated.

• “Son of the Mist!” ejaculated Dalgetty. “Son of utter darkness, say I.”

Even women threw such darts, like Dickens’s Mrs. Clennam (from Little Dorrit):

• “What should there be more than that! What could there be more than that?” she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way.

And Jane Eyre:

• “What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness, and especially in his incivility, to credit his sincerity: “me who have not a friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?”

Manly writers throw darts of truth and express themselves forcefully. It’s worth thinking about.

Are you ready for a we-free December?

If only a few abusers of “we” signed up for the we-free December, I would be happy.

Be ready for specificity. No more “we need to do better.” No more “we have lost the ability to speak to one another.” No more “we need to rethink...” No more “we are obsessed with this thing.”

Why December? December is a retrospective season, a celebratory season. One generally sees many pieces reflecting on “how we got here” and “what we learned,” to be followed, in January, by “where we’re going.” It’s easy to use a “we” in year-end pieces for armchair interpretation. You sit and ponder what happened to “us” and what “we” should conclude.

This December, try some manly self-expression. Say what you think happened and what you think it means. Blurt it out! Throw that dart!

I am a small voice in a big world of writers. Even if 1000 regular writers and commenters and posters opted in, I suspect the discourse would shift.

So do it. Channel your inner Carol. See what happens. For one month.