There is no 'WE'

When I bluntly said that all the 550 or so people in the parliament are bastards, my friend asked, “and you know why?” “Its we who send them there” he said, with a confident look on his face, as if he had a great insight to pass on. 

Its we – the citizens, the country-men - who are responsible for the kind of people we elect, how can it be any other way. But that’s hardly an insight. Its like saying that plane crashes are due to gravity. Who can deny that gravity doesn’t have a role?

The mythical ‘we’ is put forward all the time, especially by overreaching public leaders who want to flare up passions for whatever their agenda is. But there is no ‘we’. That is, there is no unit of decision making called ‘we’.

Consider an instance of a small family – the smallest group in any society – which is vegetarian. On being asked by others about their food preferences, any one in the family might reply as, “We are vegetarians.” Being vegetarians is a collective decision. But its also an individual decision. The family chooses a vegetarian diet only because each individual in the family preferred a vegetarian diet to the alternative.

Also, saying “We are vegetarians” is more elegant and precise compared to saying “Each one of us is...”

This doesn’t imply that these are completely independent individuals unaffected by others. They are influenced by others all the time.

Now consider voting in elections. Even when people gang-up to vote in a particular way, they only do so because that is what they prefer and find it in their self-interest. Unless there is any threat, this must hold true.

Voting is specially open to ganging-up by small groups because its cheap to do so and the benefits perceived are far greater. Also even if one is wrong, the mistake is suffered by everyone. People are poorly informed too, so they might as well go with their fellows.  

Sometimes people gang-up to buy vegetables so that they can get a bulk discount. I hope you see the self-interest in there.