“Why do you use the “royal ‘we’” when you write?” asked a reader recently. “Isn’t it a little pretentious?”
The answer: yes. But it is a fairly innocent pretension. Actually, we don’t really know why we use ‘we.’ But we can make a guess. Ours is a lonely métier. We never met a politician we wanted to vote for – except for lost causes like our friend Ron Paul. We never saw a line of people that we wanted to join or a club we wanted to be part of. And, often, it seems as though we are the only one getting on the train – whether we are describing the end of the empire...the war on terror...or the decline of U.S. economy. Using the ‘I” just makes us feel lonely.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by christina on 3 September 2008:
Dear Mr Editor, that little sad face in the picture in the home page next to this article is so cute! Anyway, don't feel lonely, you have all your readers to support you. Plus, it's a fact that all throughout human history, 5% of people have had 95% of the welath. So it is only natural that those 5% of people will think differently to the broke masses who are the other 95%. The broke masses have always throught history teased the 5%, as for all intents and purposes, they think that the 5% are the odd ones out because are "differnt" to everyone else who they think is "normal" I have asked lots of multimillionaires over the years and they all feel lonely quite a bit, and they all got "teased" by the masses. They feel lonely because often they are a lonely voice calling out the truth to a bunch of masses. Of course, later on when everything does go bad, the masses will cry out "But why didn't somebody tell us sooner?"
Comment by Grant on 4 September 2008:
Eagles soar alone, sheep huddle together.