The Borg

I only speak for myself, but my placing of "we" in quotation marks does not in any way imply that the pronoun should always be set off as such. In fact, quite the opposite. My complaint is directed towards the sloppy use of the term.

Speaking of a group of engineers producing a new design for an automobile as a "we" (or more correctly, a "they") without using quotation marks is not only reasonable, but accurate in my opinion. And I fully concur with MT when he speaks of families, relationships, and so on.

The problem comes, to reiterate, with sloppiness. To take an easy example, it is common to say that "we invaded Iraq in 2003." Not only is this absurd (I personally did no such thing), it also seems to convey that the nation-state's actions are representative of all the members living within it at all times. The absurdity is extended even further when the past is included, especially prior to the birth of anyone alive today ("we enslaved blacks prior to 1865").

That is my thought. No doubt I land somewhere in between my colleagues, with beers in hand.

I don't know of any situation -- certainly none has occurred on this blog -- where I have ever avoided the use of we when speaking of family or friends with whom I have agreed on a course of action. Certainly, I use "we go to the movies", "we talked on the phone", etc. Michael, you and I ("we", if you will) have had this conversation several times, and I am quite sure I have said that we is perfectly useful in daily life, albeit generally not useful in technical work, i.e., academic articles and, as far as I'm concerned, blog posts about economics. Wouldn't you sense something wrong with an economic theory that kept referring to some sort of vaguely defined "we"? I sure would.

I set what is, to me, a very low standard for the use of we: specifically, I have to believe that both parties would be comfortable with my use of we. George Mason's basketball team simply doesn't involve me, and for me to say that it does is more than a little self-serving, i.e., I'm not so sure the rest of the "we" would appreciate it, considering that they were the actual team and I was a bandwagon-jumping fan. I'm happy and grateful for them, but I would be ashamed to claim that "we beat UConn" without some acknowledgement that my use of we in that sentence is flat silly. I watched the game on television, and I have yet to interact in any way with these guys (okay, so we did pass Jai Lewis on the sidewalk yesterday!!!). Maybe I use the same sidewalks as they do, sure: "We all walk on the same campus" passes my mutual-comfort test (who would deny that?). The statement "we all breathe the same atmosphere", extended to all living beings, would also pass my test. "We here at GMU support America's troops," however, certainly fails. See? Mutual comfort with we is situational -- for example, I bet that (after you marry) should you invariably use we when talking about you and your wife, she will correct you on at least one occasion.

Oh, and Michael, congratulations on believing that love exists. You're really going out on a limb there. Were you seeking to imply anything with that statement...?

right, so you are arguing degree?

For example, I have no problem with the statement "We beat UCONN." It is a liguistic sophism to suggest the meaning to be ambiguous, no one believes that the person speaking means the same thing as Jai Lewis would, but in a very real sense you proclude the OTHER meaning by your suggestion that the normally cited use of the word is lacking.

To address Jeremy – “…the sloppy use of the term” - I take issue first that the use of the term is sloppy since the meaning is well understood. I understand this to be the point which we differ that people don’t understand the way in which they use the word. I am to presume that this approximation to an idea is misleading in some way. I would encourage you to expand on this, since maybe my misunderstanding of your reform stems from this area of debate.

• “ ‘we invaded Iraq in 2003’” -- I hold this to be a proper way of representing what happened. I have to assume the speaker here is a citizen of the U.S. first. This method of talking I believe correctly captures the burden of responsibility that the individual should rightly take due to the actions of an enterprise which they fund out of tax money.

“Brian, I commend you for putting "we" in quotation marks. I believe this needs to be done much more often.

Anyway…” -- Since this was the proximate cause of my rant, I included it here.

In response to Brian’s statement “I’m not sure which economists David is talking about when he says “we” talk about greed? Hayek? Adam Smith? Milton Friedman? Thomas Sowell? Me? There is nothing I have learned in economics that rests on a fundamental axiom of greed.”

I don't entirely avoid we but I do try to avoid it whenever I think it will put other parties off (if that's "degree", then okay). And when I'm blogging or speaking to a group, "other parties" does include people I don't know but whom my words might reach, like Jai Lewis or Jim Larranaga or whomever might think I'm pretty dumb for referring to myself as part of GMU's basketball team. For why not be clear, if the price of clarity is low?

More broadly now...

The purpose of communication is the effect that it has on the other person -- if this were not so, I could just think to myself and never speak or write. With that in mind: I could write "We beat UConn" and rely on my readers to assume that I do draw certain distinctions, or I can write "We beat UConn" and explain the distinctions I make, or I can express the same idea but avoid using we. Those three ways of expressing myself will likely have three different impacts on the reader, i.e., in their totality these do not all say the same thing.

You say "no one believes that the person speaking means the same thing Jai Lewis would." I would turn that around and say that no two people are going to look at my words (or at me) the same way. In my experience, it is unwise to assume that people are going to understand what I mean or that people will trust in my good intentions. And seriously, I'm (we're?) aspiring to join the ranks of a profession where clarity in the written word is paramount. For me to assume that other economists will understand my arguments or that they will trust in my good intentions would be, quite frankly, batshit insane. So I may as well get into good habits ASAP.

To Jason: “Wouldn't you sense something wrong with an economic theory that kept referring to some sort of vaguely defined "we"? I sure would.” I can assume this was included to counter my statement: “I don’t know of an economic theory that says we should mistrust the way that language is used.” -- I have trouble seeing the common ground which your question presumes. We both made a statement about economic theory is about all I understand.

--“I set what is, to me, a very low standard for the use of we: specifically, I have to believe that both parties would be comfortable with my use of we” -- I don’t have any reason other than your word to think that this makes sense. I don’t know why you have to remove ALL ambiguity from a word before it can be used in conversation. I also do not agree that this is a low standard. It is more likely, sure, that with two people you can be descriptively accurate, but you have already conceded that with two people, we are more likely to BE descriptively accurate – I will address large groups below.

-- I disagree with the statement “…George Mason's basketball team simply doesn't involve me…” I can testify that it did change your actions, effect you, change your spatial choice, and I presume had internal identity effects greater than this statement lets on.

--The “ ’We here at GMU support America's troops,’ “ example is a good example of why your criteria fails. The mere presence of one person that disagrees precludes generalization. I find this a high test that language should not have to pass. For example, in Spanish it is correct for a group of women containing one man to be referred to as “Ellos” which is indistinguishable from what you would call a group of men containing no women. This is a function of language which is not precise but functions outside of your criterion. When Brian Caplan says “Motorcycle drivers tend to be risky loving people,” this is a very precise way of talking. It is not that different fundamentally from when the layperson says, “motorcycle drivers are risky people.” The proverbial wisdom aspect of common knowledge is something that is amazingly robust. Granted there are people that deviate from this norm, but the norm is there to simplify function as a human being. Again, I will give you the same credit I give Jeremy, if you think that this is a criterion that you only apply to scientist studying a certain group, I will assume that precession is appropriate there, but if you insist on interrupting conversation and claiming that the layperson is being careless, or in some way committing an error by this omission of precision, I will have to still disagree with you.

-- Much of our difference I fear stems from a fundamental difference in the understanding of the solution to the problem of collective action. I will assume that the ethics we hold are different for now and trace them back to this. I thought it would interest you to comment on my representation in the original post about Socrates, but I noticed that it went unaddressed in your reply, so maybe my guess was inaccurate.

<This was posted about the same time as the last comment, which I have not read>

"I rebel, therefore we exist" - Albert Camus, The Rebel

"My mother taught me well, so I rebel." -- Saul Williams, "Om Nia Merican"