Martin Buber
I-Thou
Traditional Western philosophy concerns itself with
overcoming the subject-object dichotomy. According to this Western tradition
there are two primary focuses. There is the subject, the “I” which perceives,
and there is everything else, objects “out there in the world” which are
perceived. Western philosophy as a whole is a centuries long attempt to answer
the epistemological question, “How do we really know about things out there?”
There have been many different answers attempted, but the basic conclusion of
philosophers like Locke, Descartes & Kant is that we cannot really ever
know “things in themselves.”
As in all cases, there have been exceptions to the rule.
There have been undercurrents in the Western philosophical tradition that don’t
attempt to primarily answer the epistemological questions. This lineage of
philosophers have been called existentialists, but a better and more defining
term would be to call the ‘philosophers of being.’ Rather than the concern
about how we know things, these philosophers are primarily concerned with our
being-in-the-world. The way in which we live our lives and what gives our lives
meaning. This tradition includes Kierkegaard, Nietzche, Dostoevsky, Heidegger, and Jaspers among others. These philosophers questioned what we are rather than merely what we
know. Buber in particular stressed the “what we are” position via relationships
in his concept of I-Thou.
"The primary words are not isolated words, but combined
words.
The one primary word is the combination I-Thou
The other primary word is the combination I-It."
If that sounds poetic, it is, but here's a brief idea of what he means by the I-It. The primary word I-It orients the
relationship of the speaker to the world in particular ways. The world is
perceives as the object in the standard subject-object mode as it has
throughout most of Western philosophy. I-It orients the world as something to
be experienced. I perceive some thing, sense some thing, feel some thing. The
world is seen as experience. The I in I-it sees the world full of utility,
useful to me.
Remember we relate to people in I-it relations most of the time.
The check-out guy at the grocery store, the Honda mechanic, the fellow who
fixes your computer. We live in I-it most of the time. Buber calls this the
social realm of human relationship. He appreciates that we must live in the
social realm to accomplish our day to day activities. He also stresses however,
that there is a second orientation of the I, the I of the I-Thou. Pure objectivity is
the most perfectly developed I-It relation.
Compared to the I-It relationship, the I-Thou has no object, but is relationship. It is spoken
only with one’s full being. I-Thou is not subject-object oriented, but is
experiential. It is characterized by a turning toward the other in mutuality,
directness, being fully present to one another, partner to partner. Dialogue is
both the creation and the manifestation of the I-Thou. Dialogue emerges between
individuals when they are simultaneously and mutually willing to be oriented
toward each other in fullness and openness. There is therefore a direct
correlation between the quality of human communication and the quality of human
life. How we communicate affects who we are and who we are to become.
Meeting one another in openness does not mean being a
wimp or losing one’s sense of self. While collaboration and co-construction are
certainly a priori parts of the I-Thou relation, mutuality not only allows, but
respects and accepts difference. Notice that Buber’s concept here is not about
psychological traits or states, but is about relationship. Meaning is found in
the relationship in what Buber called the ‘in-between,’ and the interhuman as
we live together. The between is more than each of us individually, but it is
also more than two of us put together. This is Buber’s ‘narrow ridge,’ which is
based on the dual concern for the self and the other, which rejects either-or,
all or nothing positions. A ‘narrow ridge’ philosophy assumes a genuine
responsibility for not only me, but you as well, despite our differences.
One of the reasons that I personally like I and Thou is because it says a lot about communication. In that there are a a number of communicative distinctions of in I-Thou relationships. For one, communication is ‘existential.’
Communication happens in the here and now, and the communicative partners speak
and listen from a common space, the ‘in between,’ the ‘narrow ridge.’ The first
task of communication is to create this space for the relationship. (There are connections here, to Walter Ong's theory of orality.) Dialogic communication is
emergent, spontaneous and improvisational. It is not seeming, nor strategic.
Dialogic partners are open to surprise, with each other and in themselves.
Discovery. Self-realization is a by-product of dialogue, not the object of it.
Dialogic communication recognizes
strangeness. Partners recognize each other as different and unfamiliar, and
that others act in unpredictable ways. Dialogic communication is oriented
toward collaboration, including embracing differences and conflict. Yet is
still confirms the other and the other’s point of view.
Dialogic communication partners
are vulnerable. Partners are open to being changed, an open to being persuaded. Dialogic communication is based
completely on mutuality. Speaker and listener are interdependent. They call
both the self and the other into being through their talk. Communicative
partners change their existence via the existence of the relationship itself. Dialogic communication understands
both the past from which it comes and the future which it is creating. Dialogic communication assumes
that partners are acting authentically, mutually and in genuine ways toward
each other, and presupposes trust in the communicative relationship.
While
I have issues about the way Buber read and interpreted Kierkegaard - which I wrote about in my piece Kierkegaard and Dialogue: The Communication of Capability - I
still find I-Thou one of the most poetic uplifting texts I’ve ever read.
Third, Taylor notes that organizations – particularly
for-profit corporations – have embraced utilitarianism as their prime
philosophy. Through communicative and rhetorical practices they are creating a
highly functional and well-financed power-base that stands in the way of
reform and the advancement of society as a whole.
