“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world is being destroyed.” Hannah Arendt in her essay ‘Truth and Politics’, 1906–1975.
Amid today’s constant barrage of fake news, lies, obfuscation and outright hatred, it can be difficult to discern right from wrong. I’d like to suggest a way to navigate through this (mis)information, and I’m grateful to Yorkshire Bylines for agreeing to run a series of five articles to flesh out these ideas.
This is about politics – but with a very particular definition of that much-sullied word: politics is the total complex of relations between people living in society, and between people and their environment, with other living things, and with past and future generations.
The origin story
The idea for these articles came from a throwaway remark I made late in the morning of Friday 20 March 2015. Two days after the final budget of the 2010–2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, a friend and I reflected on the contrast between austerity-era cuts and the pre-election promise to raise the 40% tax threshold to £50,000. I summed up my overall thoughts about the budget with a glib, passing comment:
“I suppose it all depends on whether I or We is your personal pronoun of choice.”
I will be the first to admit that this is a fairly clunky and impenetrable sentence, but it stuck with me – an odd, persistent thought that I couldn’t shake. There was something about the I / We thing that stuck in my head. It was like one of those burdock fruits that you pick up on your clothing during a walk in the country – I couldn’t shake it off.
Developing the initial ideas
Almost every day some item on the news, or something I read, or that someone said, triggered an I / We train of thought. I began to think of there being an I way, or a We way, of viewing issues.
Political policies were more, or less, I or We. The actions of political parties, or companies, or countries, or individuals seemed to take place in a soup of ‘I-ness’ and ‘We-ness’. There seemed to be certain qualities that just naturally attach themselves to I or We thinking. I’ll come back to this later, but for now let’s just say that ‘selfish’ quite clearly, in my mind, associated itself with I, and ‘selfless’ with We; ‘short-sighted’ with I, and ‘far-sighted’ with We.
The connections came naturally – there was no need to force certain ideas, or attitudes, into the I camp or the We camp. Words just seemed to belong. I wasn’t looking for good or poor qualities and then inserting them selectively into my concept of I and We. It was the other way round … I and We just existed (initially as vague ‘feelings’ rather than clearly defined ones) and they drew the qualities to themselves.
A first stab at defining I and We
Eventually, from these coalescing ideas, a couple of loose definitions emerged:
I – an individual, group or state that seeks to advance its own interests, without regard for others*. Essentially: ‘Me first and blow the rest.’
We – an individual, organisation, company, political party or nation state that seeks to understand the effects of its actions on others* as fully as possible, and then attempts to make those effects as positive as possible, or, failing this, to have no (or few) negative effects. In essence: ‘We are all in this together and what benefits you, benefits me.’
*In both cases, ‘others’ can be known or unknown, and can be other individuals, organisations, companies, or nation states. ‘Others’ can also be future generations, the past, the environment, or other living species. Or concepts such as truth, honour, reliability, respect.
Follow the train of thoughts
There seems to be no limit to the number of areas, issues or problems that the I / We thought-game can illuminate. Economics, equality (racial, gender – you name it), the environment, history, transport, health, education, defence, international politics, migration business models, health and safety laws, plastic pollution, recycling, media ownership, taxation, and wage levels.
Virtually any issue can be viewed through the I / We lens, revealing suggestions for courses of action (policies) with their own justifications and effects – this is what we should do, and this is why we should do it, and these are the benefits that would accrue. (Note that the benefits would be expressed in either I or We terms – an I aficionado would see the We benefits as anathema – and vice versa).
Not the same as Left / Right; Labour / Conservative; Socialist / Capitalist.
I and We can transcend political or religious creeds or dogmas – they plough their own furrows. The way they generate policies works equally well whether someone is choosing (and it is a choice) to look through an I lens or a We lens. It’s an amusing, and depressing, thought-game to view an issue through using the ‘wrong’ lens – for a naturally We person to think the way the other side might.
Of course, none of us is consistent – we can be resolutely We in our approach one day, or with regard to a particular issue, and then flip over into I thinkers with another issue at another time. We often waver between the two – whether from thoughtlessness, lack of information, misinformation, or a sense of futility when others ignore what’s right.
The approach you take is yours to choose – but too often, it’s a reflex rather than a conscious decision, more the result of ingrained bias than by accumulated insight. Politics – and much of life – isn’t meant to be like that. It’s no more than coincidence that ‘jerk’ appears in ‘knee-jerk’, but it’s a rather apt one.
Why our current politics don’t work
It is sometimes difficult to discern the core beliefs of our political parties. Shouldn’t today’s decisions be based on a more coherent set of principles? We’re living in challenging times. It’s doubtful that political creeds established years ago, and constantly subject to the whims of the voting public and powerful media, can provide all of the answers that we need in today’s world, with its many additional crises that affect, or will affect us all.
The old ways of finding answers no longer work – to be honest, they rarely did. Look where they have brought us. We need a fresh approach that doesn’t start off by being shackled by a series of random, self-serving beliefs – a politics that thinks deeply and widely as part of its core approach.
I believe that We thinking can provide a reliable way to navigate through the decisions that we need to make.
With thanks to the Mekons for the lyrics from their song Orpheus (used in the headline!)
Next time … Words, the history of We and I, and why we need a step change now (bookmark this article and the next one will be added soon). In the meantime, here’s the list of words that help to define We and I thinking. Which do you regard as an admirable or undesirable approach to life for you, personally? Does one list help to define We for you – and the other I?
| Admirable | Undesirable | |
| Blinkered | ||
| Broad-minded | ||
| Caring | ||
| Charitable | ||
| Clear-sighted | ||
| Common (ownership) | ||
| Competitive | ||
| Conceited | ||
| Cooperative | ||
| Disinterested | ||
| Disrespectful | ||
| Empathic | ||
| Exclusive | ||
| Farsighted | ||
| Flexible | ||
| Humble | ||
| Ignores | ||
| Inclusive | ||
| Interested | ||
| Listens | ||
| Mean | ||
| Modest | ||
| Narrow-minded | ||
| Oblivious | ||
| Opinionated | ||
| Private (ownership) | ||
| Psychopathic (or Sociopathic) | ||
| Respectful | ||
| Rigid | ||
| Self-aware | ||
| Selfish | ||
| Selfless | ||
| Shortsighted | ||
| Uncaring |
