“We” is Other People

There’s a pattern I’ve seen more and more in political commentary, especially the Australian sources I pay attention to, where someone will make a sweeping diagnosis of a social problem in the language of things that we do wrong.

• We are trapped in social media echo chambers.
• We are obsessed with the culture wars.
• We are becoming more and more polarised.
• We are distrustful of experts.
• We are motivated by grievance.
• We are looking for easy solutions.
• We are falling for foreign propaganda.
• We are censorious of ideas we don’t like.
• We are always looking for a scapegoat.
• We are too focused on the short term.
• …

But when it comes time for the speaker to supply examples, every single one has the same political valence; the opposite of the one held by the speaker.

The statements themselves often have a kernel of truth, and would be worth properly analysing and discussing. Taken earnestly, each could be a little piece of self-criticism, and you could imagine the speaker giving an example of a time they realised they were stuck in an echo chamber, baited by the culture wars … Of course this doesn’t ever happen. The purpose of making the claim is not analysis or discussion, but point-scoring: using these claims as a stick to beat the people you were planning to beat anyway.

If the claims are being used as partisan attacks, why do they get framed in this universal way? I think for a couple of reasons. One is to give an air of distance and neutrality, disarming listeners who would be repelled by a nakedly one-sided argument. Similarly, presenting the argument in the form of dispassionate, academic language trades on the authority that kind of language usually gives. This all flows into a kind of consensus-building. Now that you agree that X is a problem we all face, surely you also agree that it’s in everyone’s interest to do something about those examples I gave…

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was an episode of the Democracy Sausage podcast, where between them the guest and hosts managed to hit almost everything on the list above. It’s not that this podcast is the worst offender; it’s just that once you are primed for it, you see the pattern everywhere.

I could continue to name and shame, but here’s something more constructiveThough I’m about to use the law of excluded middle, har har.. Keep an ear out for this pattern, and when you come across it, try hard to think of additional examples that go the other way. One of two things can happen. If you come up with some, great; but this means the speaker has missed an opportunity to properly come to terms with this real issue they have identified. If you can’t, also great; but this means you (and likely the speaker) don’t believe we are all guilty of the fault. Talking heads should just be honest when they feel the same way, and interviewers should stop letting their guests get away with it.