Lately i have noticed multiple strange uses of the collective “we” on fedi.
“We” are going to war with Iran, “we” bombed schoolchildren, “we” have failed to build an efficient railroad network.
I'm a bit boggled by how even progressives (even leftists?) identify with their national goverments to the point of incorporating into a single “we”.
“You” did not do any of that. Your government and your ruling class did it in your place, in spite of you.
Yeah, I didn't co-sign any of this.
@magitweeter On one hand, yeah - I do this all the time and I probably shouldn't.
On the other hand, "we" in the collective sense really are doing incredibly stupid shit that the ruling class exploits to make things worse. Go to a community meeting and people are screaming about communism & bike lanes, lack of parking, trans people or immigrants or whatever nonsense is their latest bugaboo. It's sobering to see something that is in our best interest (like homeless housing) attacked by neighbors
@Andres4NY It's still unclear to me why you identify with such a “we”. I certainly don't.
Separately, “calling their electeds” means appealing to the not-“we” who actually make the decisions, so in a sense it's a different version of the same thing.
I use "we" all the time when talking about the shitty things the United States does to avoid absolving myself of responsibility.
I use "we" because I am part of this country and the rest of the world will blame me just as much as a MAGAt. Who I voted for doesn't matter at this point. The fact that I've voted against this fascist rise consistently doesn't matter.
At best, my government tolerates and pays lip service to caring about people like me and my wife. At present, it actively hates us both.
Does that matter? Do our disabilities and our marginalized identities matter?
I should have done more. I should have stopped it. I should have made a difference.
It's the collective "we" of "we, the people", a lie that was never true. We bare responsibility with no power. Those who should be held accountable never will be. So "we, the people" have to carry the guilt.
We let this happen. Is that true? It feels true.
I am not blameless, but this? This is not my fault. This was a carefully built, multistage plan designed by private think tanks and perfected over there-quarters of a century. Billions, if not trillions of dollars, have been spent to make sure this happened.
The authoritarians want us to feel culpable. They want us to believe it's our fault, that we brought this on ourselves, just like every other abuser.
I should stop saying "we" did this and acknowledge it was done to me and to us.
You can take it a notch back, and say:
- We robbed the Spanish Armada and accumulated tremendous wealth
- We killed, terrorized, and abducted hundreds of thousands of people from W.Africa and forced them into slave work in the new world
- We drove hundreds of native tribes to extinction then severely abused the few that survived. Still do!
- We even attempted a genocide on our neighboring Scots, Irish, Welsh, and brought them over as 2nd class citizens at gun point to escape dark deadly prisons
- We then got rid of royals from home (France England), so we can keep the profits all to our selves
- We financed and supported Hitler in exchange for his commitment to destroy the Soviet Union, then sold him out when he was about to lose all of Europe to Stalin.
- We are the only proud nation that has used nuclear bombs on civilians, hundreds of thousands, millions affected, for generations, the nightmare is kept alive.
- We invaded and raped, killed, destroyed Korea, turn half against the other half
- We moved the party over to Vietnam, where we killed more than anyone could conceive of being able to count.
- We conned the SU that NATO wouldn't expand and on the basis of its voluntary splitting up in nation states, we kept surrounding and choking Russia, effectively taking over all of Black Sea and Baltic..
- We have ruled and spread terror from Terra del Fuego to El Paso, to assure that the threat of communism is erased, dictators, covert operations, death squads, freedom fighters, even used drug cartels as partners to defeat guerillas
- We even manufactured an enemy when there wasn't (Jihadists) , just to use the excuse to invade and destroy countries who may have resources we need to control or are near routes of resources we need to control.
- We have been supporting and feeding leaches/corporations in military, medical, financial, media, oil, coal, industries by borrowing more and more from the entire world, yet we may appear rich and powerful, when we are the most bankrupt state in the planet and in history. But the rich stay rich, the poor stay poor, and the poor carry the debt for generations.
- But we never have enough, there has to be more and more and more we can steal, rob, extort, terrorize,
We the people, the #Epstein pedophiles club, one nation, one tribe under $GOD$
@magitweeter it's something I've done both automatically and consciously without identifying as remotely responsible or in agreement. To me it's a way of resisting feeling absolved of responsibility to do anything about it (no, it's not my fault but it is my problem) and also resisting crafting an us-vs-them narrative (it is a systemic issue and I am within that system). I do hate the way it feels to say "we" but it sometimes feels irresponsible to substitute "they". Does that make sense?
I've also wondered whether I'm just rationalizing identifying as American in international politics, and if that's actually not helpful. I definitely shifted (further) away from that after moving abroad.
@iris It makes sense, and i believe it's part of the problem. I believe you're being made to feel as if you have a degree of responsibility in something that you're not responsible for at all.
You are being ruled by a small group of people who have taken your collective decisionmaking for themselves. Calling them “they” is not innacurate.
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