The “We” Trap
Listen for the unspoken P.S.
It’s one of the most common words in modern discourse, especially political discourse. It’s “we,” and it is easily deployed to enable a vicious lie. This is a baseline piece of the way I view the world, so I want to make this point clearly and concisely. Let’s talk about “we.”
Any time you hear somebody say “we” need to do something, listen for the unspoken postscript “, with me in charge.” This happens all the time in political speech, and more often than you think in all kinds of organizations (work, clubs, church, etc.). Once you start hearing this it’s impossible to unhear. But you need to start hearing it, because a lot of things will start making terrible terrible sense to you once you do.
We need common sense regulation for (fill-in-the-blank), with me in charge.
We need to investigate (fill-in-the-blank), with me in charge.
We need a Constitutional Convention, with me in charge.
We need to prioritize equity, with me in charge.
We need to dismantle systems of oppression, with me in charge.
We need to mask up, with me in charge.
We need to secure the voting system, with me in charge.
We need to make sure drugs are kept off the streets, with me in charge.
We need to respect (or defund) the police, with me in charge.
We need to do something about the homeless, with me in charge.
We need raises, with me in charge.
We need to revisit our club bylaws, with me in charge.
We need to change the Sunday meeting schedule, with me in charge.
Whoever is constructing the “we” has a plan, a set of ideas and policy preferences they seek to impose on everyone else. They use “we” as a collectivist shield for their preferences. This shield works three ways. First, it looks to make you complicit in the scheme. You’re part of “we,” and why would you disagree with this thing “we” all agree is needed?
Second, “we” makes responsibility hard to define if things go wrong, but allows it to be claimed if things go right. If I convince you that “we” need to do something, and it goes bad, I can say it was everybody’s idea (“we all thought this was important, remember?”) and no one is to blame. If it goes well, however, I can strut out in front of everybody and say “see? My idea for what we needed to do was great!”
Third, it’s not just that the speaker wants to see some specific scheme implemented, the speaker also wants control of it. This is the essence of “with me in charge,” and is the real danger lurking in the trap. In the worst cases, the speaker also wants immunity from some or all of the rules he or she is looking to impose on everybody else. The speaker doesn’t want to do any of it. You’re the one who needs to do it, under the direction of the speaker.
Any time you hear somebody use “we” as part of a call to action, ask yourself if the speaker is talking only to the people in the room. If the answer is no, then nine times out of ten you can silently add “, with me in charge” to whatever they say and get an accurate picture of what they really mean.
Now you know.
