Balancing We and Me

Two readers were concerned that in emphasizing the importance of the “we” in our national and civilizational identity I may have left out the “I.”

First reader:

You are quite right, of course, but I couldn’t help remembering Ayn Rand’s “Anthem,” which also poignantly illustrates the dangers of the “we” when it dismembers the concept of “I”. “We” was a vulgarity in her story. “We” Americans, generally speaking in terms of “we”, oftentimes tend to hide behind or among, a group of people, which seems to lend credibility to our statements of personal belief. I, therefore, stand independently in my beliefs, as do you yourself, ultimately, I believe, that the cause of maintaining Western identity is paramount to our survival.

How rather ironic that our Constitution begins with the word “We”….

Second reader:

You would have to point out for slow libertarians that the fact of a collective identity of shared history and values doesn’t preclude individualism. In fact, our individualism is part of our collective identity. Libertarians, after all, are often vulgar individualists.

My reply to both:

It’s a legitimate point that the collective can be overdone. After all, that’s what socialism and totalitarianism are about. But in most ways, we’ve had an excess of the “I’ in recent decades (and not of the good “I” but of a decadent “I can have whatever I want” I); and that is a big part of the problem. The key thing we’ve lost is the collective aspect of our identity that we USED to have, that was NORMAL through all American history, that gave as the ability to defend ourselves and not be pushed around, that said, “we occupy this continent, we’re not going to let any great power or any foreign people gain power here and so create unending problems for us.”

Not only the Constitution starts with “We,” but the Declaration of Independence starts with, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for ONE PEOPLE to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another… “ The second sentence of the Declaration begins: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” The last paragraph begins: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America … solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be Free and Independent States…” And it concludes: “…we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The members of the Continental Congress are speaking as a collectivity, but as a collectivity of individuals. Central to Western identity, from the Greeks forward, is the independent, rational self, seeking truth, capable of knowing and experiencing truth. It is the belief in the individual as a potential knower of truth that makes democracy possible. Which, by the way, is a primary reason why no Islamic society can ever have true democracy.

First reader:

One of the things that I admire about your writing is your sense of the “I”—in the pure sense, and not the decadent one—as you say what YOU believe, and not as part of a collective necessarily. “We” may identify ourselves as conservatives, for instance, but it doesn’t mean that we embrace neoconservative aspects of the Republican party. “We” have found ourselves as “I’s”.

Wonderful statement!
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 24, 2005 11:52 PM | Send