“We” is one of the most problematical of terms in modern English. In ordinary usage, it can mean a wide variety of things, denoting relational participation and putative membership in a group.

But there are many varieties of this, and they are easily confused by the emotional mind, so that we end up feeling participation in collectives we have no actual association with at all, those that either do not or cannot exist, and those we imagine to exist.

Older languages had ways of distinguishing the usage of we and them in fascinating and important ways. I will suggest that we begin to realize how important this is for our minds, thinking, emotions and intelligence. As I often write in text, a simple device occurred to me just now, while reading about other methods of indicating not only relation, but spatial or social association. It is really just a toy, but it can be useful as a learning asset.

We+: A we that is only partly formed or extended (i.e: we who use facebook) yet actually exists in some form.

We-: A fictional we such as that of a »possible group that has no actual connectivity beyond belonging to a category or distinguishable division of human beings. This is a commonly used ‘we’ to indicate a nation or a humanity itself.

We°(x): A given we of actually associated relations. The (x) can be filled in with a list, a name, or a number denoting the number of participants.

There are many other distinctions we can make, for example, ‘this we is with me now and visible’, ‘this is an ostensible we that is not presently in union’, and so on.”

— an a i