The presence of we
Many texts employ an undefined “we” that claims to speak for everyone. This posture denies otherness and creates antagonisms. Preferring “I” allows respect for differences and opens a truly democratic space.
Should we think for others?
In advocacy texts, in ecological, feminist, and even sociological texts, in activist writings for various causes, whether they be left-wing, right-wing, concerning political, artistic, symbolic, or ethical subjects, the authors of these texts, whether individual or collective, often use “we.”
For example, in the book A Desirable Society: How to Take Care of the World by Dominique Méda (2025), we can read: “To engage our societies in ecological conversion, we will absolutely need political men and women with radically renewed visions and practices.” Who is this “we”? Who does it include? A priori, all of humanity. Dominique Méda a priori proposes “solutions” that she formulates as being able to benefit all of humanity. It’s formulated as an obvious truth: if we all thought, as human beings, even a little bit, we should think like her and adopt the solutions she proposes, which she formulates, because of the “we,” as being good for this “we,” that is, all of humanity. Why all of humanity? Because, in the lines that precede and follow this sentence, at no point have the people or environments covered by this “we” been defined. Therefore, in fact, this “we” concerns, by default, all of humanity.
And if someone else had, for the benefit of all humanity, a different vision, a different proposal, and formulated in another book, with the same use of “we,” another solution proposal for the future of all humanity, with the postulate that this solution would be the best for the entire world? What would happen? Who would be right?
We immediately perceive how the undefined use of “we,” which initially presents itself as a form of generous, ecological project for the good of the Earth, etc., is in reality an intrinsically disrespectful posture toward otherness, which, from its starting point, and even with all the good conscience it claims to have, cannot produce anything other than antagonisms between these different “we”s. This blur between the “we”s is rather dangerous, in my opinion.
There is in the use of this “we,” and it’s very common - I took this example from Dominique Méda because it came before my eyes, but we can find this type of posture in many other texts - (and this doesn’t disqualify for me the arguments and proposals she will develop in her work), a kind of path of certainty: “what I think is necessarily good for the other.” It’s thinking in place of the other. And it’s a real problem. This doesn’t mean that everything the person thinks is a problem, but the fact of thinking in place of the other creates violence, opposition, misunderstanding, obscurantism, even as it presents itself as universalism.
Cultural rights as a tool for democratic reinvestment
In the methodology of cultural rights, and particularly in the case study exercise, we will invite people to tell the project they’re presenting for study to a group of people, to never use “we” or “one,” but always “I.” It’s about constantly situating oneself, and this requires real effort, as an agent-actor in what one is recounting. This completely changes the posture, brings us back to reality, into respect for the dignity of the other and one’s own dignity, into a field of vision in which our agency is possible. We risk ourselves, we respect ourselves, we look at ourselves and in doing so we truly envision otherness. We define ourselves, and we offer others the space to define themselves too, because there is room for respect for the respective dignities of each other, for their identities. It’s no longer an abstract “we,” it’s no longer, as they say, “We just have to, we need to,” it’s “I.” From this “I,” therefore, we can meet, we can enrich ourselves with our differences.
Deconstructing an oriented polysemy
One might object that in many texts, “we” is used in its first-person sense. Indeed, there is a kind of literary tradition, so as not to put oneself forward, to envision oneself as part of a greater whole, which invites the use of “we” to say “I.” Personally, I think this shouldn’t be cultivated, because it sows precisely the doubt I’m mentioning here, and it creates domination. Who is this “we”? Is it “I” or is it a group that is represented by this “we,” a group from which I potentially feel excluded and in opposition? And rightly so, because when someone includes us in their “we,” they reduce our freedom to choose the communities we belong to, they impose on us membership in their community without our consent, they essentialize us.
Even if this polysemy of “we” between “I” and “we” exists in the French language, I invite being attentive, using it as little as possible, because its genealogy comes from a less democratic time than ours, and in my opinion this polysemy is really double-edged: for oneself, in the kind of belief that one knows for others, and for others, in the implied non-recognition of their competencies, their identity, their thoughts different from mine and yet perhaps just as enriching for the collective as mine.
The other as mirror and mystery
The other emerges as an enigma that disturbs our certainties, an opening that provokes resistance and violence as we so fear what comes to trouble our mental universe. This fear of alterity transforms the other into a threatening specter, into a fantasized figure onto which we project our anxieties. Yet true presence to the other requires going beyond our preconceptions, these projections that seem to define our identity but lock us in the repetition of the same. Authentic tolerance consists not in putting up with the other despite their differences, but in building a space of trust where each can dare to transform themselves. Between the totalizing “we” that denies singularities and the solipsistic “I” that refuses the collective, there exists a path: that of the symbolic common place that favors diversity of viewpoints without imposing consensus. The little green men we sought in the stars now emerge from our technological creations, redefining the boundaries of humanity and confronting us with a radically new alterity. Faced with this multiplication of figures of the other - the foreigner, the machine, the dissident - our challenge consists in keeping open the possibility of encounter without reducing the other to our categories, without confusing identity and social function. The absence of privileges can paradoxically make us more present to the real needs of others, thus escaping the trap of altruistic action that starts from its own projections rather than from genuine listening.
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