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There's first person, and second person, and third person, but why haven't I heard about Collective person? Linguists! Can I know the history of the style of speaking and writing?
I am prone to using We, to refer to Us as a species. I find myself often thinking at this level. I also think it's important to be able to conceptualize this level. It's important to examine We, as a species, and the outcomes of our collective actions. They may not be coherent, but they are intentional (But does that change anything?)
%date Unknown, sometime in 2021?
I think most people's conception of 'We' and 'Us' is rather limited in it's 'expansiveness' and it's effectiveness. Our ability to conceive of people / things as Us (such that this group becomes We) is a very powerful tool of categorization and motivation. I think we should capitalize on this power by including more people in this group. Most people's experience of Us happens contextually. Most people and / or languages don't refer to themselves as multiple entities even though our body only functions through the cooperation of multiple difference species (The Myth of Me and the bacteria that keeps you alive). In a familial context, we could be on the sibling / parent axis, when non-familial contexts are involved that Experience of Us may take place along the familial axis, and so on until the context of the Nation or Religion (and now arguably the Consumer), which I believe is the largest scale on which people tend to contextualize We. There are liberal hippies those that go slightly further with People or the Earth as Us, though most tend to Conceptualize it as Mother -- othering in doing so. A vegan anarchist may be contextualizing Animals in their Experience of Us when re-wilding factory farmed cows. Prison abolitionists are channelling convicts. The panpsychist's psychonaut may, during intense DMT high be blessed with brief moments of the Experience of Us in the context of their worldview -- Consciousness is a fundamental part of the Universe that We, all matter, experience (down to the electron).
Understanding when to utilize this grouping is also important. Some tasks are not designed for Us, as a collective. They must be individual, and are perhaps why we experience Individuality so strongly. Choosing the kind of person you want to be, figuring out how you react in certain situations. These feel exploratory, and though may be assisted by others, are not affected by the Experience of Us. Some are the opposite, they can only be taken collectively. Organization is fundamentally collaborative, which is why this experience must underly belief in a Nation or Religion for it to be coherent in it's actions. In expanding your We, you're able to organize and take on actions that cannot be tackled by Individuals. Climate change is a notoriously difficult problem to solve, because we have no framework for Us on the scale of the Earth. Even Individual Nations (The largest axis along which we commonly contextualize) fails to account for the new kinds of problems we must tackle. Perhaps in Expanding our We, We will get a better grasp of how to coordinate through existential problems that are solvable.
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