The Plural “You” in the Individualistic Society

At what point to they stop being individuals, and become a swarm?

Eight months ago today, we witnessed civilian attackers swarm the U.S. Capitol with singular determination, smashing windows and climbing walls. Their eagerness to invade America’s bastion of federal authority, and thereby seize decision-making power over our government, has remained part of our political discussion ever since. Many of us watching had flashbacks to common 10th Grade American Civics fears, of some charismatic firebrand overturning the Constitution.

But it also channeled deeper fears. Watching insurgents scale the walls, I had flashbacks to a recurring childhood nightmare, of vermin invading my house. Some breach usually opened behind my bed or in the back of my closet, and creatures, usually shiny beetles, swarmed out, overtaking everything I treasured and turning my home disgusting and uninhabitable. The insurgents literally looked, to my eyes, like the stuff of juvenile nightmares.

We who traffic in words often lament a gap in English grammar: the second-person pronoun, “you,” is both singular and plural. This means that, without contextual clues, it’s difficult to discern whether a speaker or writer saying “you” means one individual being addressed, a group of persons, or an entire class being addressed collectively. Some informal words, like the Southern “y’all,” offset this, but not completely, and not in ways portable to common English.

The former president’s long, rambling January 6th speech, urging his adherents to “stop the steal,” included the word “you” several times. “We will not let them silence your voices,” he said near the beginning. “Many of you have traveled from all across the nation to be here…. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” In context, these “you” uses clearly mean the plural, the crowd gathered to express loyalty to the outgoing president’s mission.

But then his tone turned. “You're stronger, you're smarter, you've got more going than anybody,” he told the crowd, and later: “You have to show strength and you have to be strong.” These references clearly still signal everyone gathered, but the tone doesn’t seem plural. He’s started speaking to a collective “you,” a “you” not comprised of separate individuals gathered together, but of a collectivized mass acting unilaterally. A singular plural.

Groups and populations are, of course, comprised of individuals. Religious congregations or labor unions are made of people, with names, personal histories, and individual aspirations. But there comes a point where preachers or trade unionists stop speaking to the individuals assembled before them, and start speaking to the collective group. The individuals encompassed in the plural “you” stop being individuals, and become part of something larger.

A battle between two Greek hoplite phalanxes, the ultimate collective unit,
depicted on an ancient Greek krater vase.

That arguably happened on January 6th. The crowd, assembled to support the outgoing president, certainly had memorable individual members, like low-rent cosplayer Jake Angeli, or the camera-friendly weeper, Elizabeth from Knoxville. But, motivated by fervorous belief and their leader’s encouragement, they voluntarily relinquished their individuality. Like my hypothetical religious congregation or trade union, they willingly became a collective unit.

This experience was hardly unique. All last summer, we witnessed protestors, unified by belief that George Floyd’s death exposed widespread injustice, voluntarily paused their individual identities and became part of a collectivized call for reform. The police who met these protestors frequently linked their riot shields and marched against the crowds like a Greek hoplite phalanx, maybe the ultimate expression of individuals who voluntarily become a unit.

Political journalist Adam Serwer wrote yesterday that the Fraternal Order of Police, America’s largest police trade union, has offered only salutary, mumbling condemnations of the insurgents who attacked the Capitol. This is remarkable. The FOP represents two of the most effective “collective you” groups, the police and trade unionists. As Serwer notes, their inability to condemn the Capitol attackers reveals which collective they’re most loyal to.

But recognizing this “collective you” phenomenon creates a problem. When individuals relinquish their unique identities, to become the singular mass, can we hold individuals accountable? The FBI and DOJ currently have manhunts on for individual insurgents. But like my nightmare beetles, chasing individual vermin with cans of Raid does little good. They’re still procreating in the walls; this infestation isn’t a matter of discrete individuals.

Not that stopping individuals doesn’t matter. If a beetle crawls across my sandwich, I’ll definitely squish it. But that one isn’t the problem; the breeding grounds, and the structural cracks that let them enter the house and return food to their nest, matter more. Likewise, pursuing every member of the “collective you” wastes time and energy. We need to find where they propagate, where they feed, and then fumigate.