Group Reading: Buber: I & Thou (Part 2)

Notes/Remarks on I and Thou     (Part 2: pp. 37-72)

I and Thou is divided into 3 parts, each of which addresses a different aspect of the I-YOU and I-IT modes of relationship. Part 1 (which we discussed last week) is mainly concerned with establishing and expounding the I-YOU/I-IT distinction in terms of human relationships. Since Buber also wants to lay out the scope of the overall book there, he briefly discusses differences between an I-YOU and I-It relationship with a tree. So we know already that Buber is interested in the natural world in which the primary relations unfold. This natural world, its history, and the successive civilizations that have appeared and disappeared within it are the subject of Part 2 of the book. What is it to be in the world? What is the difference between being in the world when relations are predominantly of an I-IT kind as opposed to an I-YOU kind?  Buber speaks of "the world of It" in stark contrast to "the world of YOU/Thou." I will simply refer to "The It-World" vs. "The YOU-World."

Characteristics of the It-World:

When one lives predominantly in an I-It mode of being, s/he will often feel safe, largely in control of objects and events which are familiar, rationally understood and thus reliable. Towards the end of Pt. I Buber begins to set up this "It-World." A human being in this world:

"[P]erceives an ordered and detached world. It is to some extent a reliable world,...its
organization can be surveyed and brought out again and again; gone over with closed eyes, and verified with open eyes...It is your object...[b]ut you cannot meet others in it. You cannot hold on to life [survive] without it, its reliability sustains you; but should you die in it, your grave would be in nothingness." (p. 31)

Because the contours of this It-World will become much darker, even nightmarish in part 2, it's worth pointing out that when he first describes it, there seems to be much of value in it, even if it is devoid of ultimate meaning (you die there in vain; "in nothingness"). I want to emphasize these values because later it's easy to think "You world = Good/ It-World = Evil" as he will liken the latter to an 'incubus,' a 'nightmare,' a 'fever,' and make its spokesman Napoleon in Part 2. Some reasons to value the It-World include:

>>>Survival value: Buber states "you cannot hold on to life without it" for good reason. Without analyzing, comparing and identifying events and objects and classifying them under general terms we cannot do so much as effectively hunt and gather, much less create complex civilizations with economies, written language, religions, philosophy, art, politics or much of anything else that is presupposed for any relationship to occur in the first place. No survival, no relationship.

>>>It provides a shared or common context for interaction, however superficial Buber takes it to be. One must start somewhere, and as he himself states on p. 32, the It-World is "ready... to be an object common to you all."[emph. added] I find interesting, maybe even telling his choice of the words "you all" rather than "all of us" or "all beings." Is he (un)consciously excluding himself from what already is said to be necessary for survival?

Buber now begins to move from an IT-World/YOU-World distinction to an IT-World/YOU-World dichotomy. In the mystical YOU-World:

"Measurement and comparison have disappeared...It cannot be surveyed, and if you attempt to make it capable of survey, you lose it....It does not help to sustain you in life, it only helps you to glimpse eternity." (pp. 32-3)" 

So, while the It-world, he continues, is set in space and time, the YOU-world is not.  The It-World is the one within which we have to live. We mark time, categorize things and events, deploy human skills to alter conditions based on knowledge through which we objectify the world-- thus seeing it as a "graph of place [and] events in time" (p. 31), i.e. as an object of rational and useful knowledge. In making it an object of this kind, we drain it of rich interpersonal meaning  (which can only emerge in I-You relations) and of intrinsic value. It is only when the unfamiliar YOU (that which we can't make fully familiar because it is spontaneous and not predictable just as all deep relationships are) appears that our deepest need for value and meaning can be fulfilled. THOU enters the it world in the form of "strange, lyric and dramatic episodes, seductive and magical, yet tearing us away to dangerous extremes, loosening the well-tried context [and]...shattering security. p. 34) Life in the YOU-world is ever-new, always present-- the "eternal now" as some have put it. This is not the eternity of the everlasting in time, but that which however fleeting has a "timeless" quality, as when rapt in ecstasy one may "lose track of time."

Buber knows we can't live in a world like this for long. It's not "secure" or predictable, but it replenishes the being who would greet YOU with open arms during "strange, lyric...episodes." The familiar It-World cannot be "Present," meaning fully present with you as in I-You relations, but also meaning in the "here-and-now" of the present moment, which is not predictable or familiar but always poised at the threshold of something new, of the not-yet.  It is the ability to be-with-others in the world in the Present that sets us apart as being human. So, the IT-world is necessary to live, but "he who lives with IT alone is not a man."


History of the It-World:


Much of Part 2 is taken up by positing a historical process in which the IT-World becomes ever more prevalent and the YOU-world diminishes to the point of leaving modern people in a confused, nihilistic situation. Much of this tracks the thought of Nietzsche, Weber, and Buber's former teacher Georg Simmel -- all of whom discussed modernization, urbanization and secularization as the stripping away of ultimate values, and  loss a sense of being part of a vast, meaningful and spiritually vibrant cosmos.  Max Weber famously calls this the "disenchantment" of society that goes along with increased utilitarian rationality and secularization.  Buber's nightmarish description of the modern world as one too firmly in the tyrannical grip of the IT-World carries with it much of the German pessimism of post WW1  art and philosophy. If the growth of IT-World is described somewhat melodramatically in this book, he was more nuanced in later essays. That said, we should try to understand Buber on his own terms in I and Thou.  Buber writes:


"The sickness of our age is like that of no other." (p.55)

"AS POWER OVER THE INCUBUS [sic] is obtained by addressing it with its real name, so the world of It... is bound to [reveal itself to] the man who knows it for what it really is -- severance and alienation...But how can the man in whose being lurks a ghost, the I emptied of all reality, muster the strength to address the incubus by name?(p. 58)

While the YOU-world is spontaneous, open and thus free from the chain of relentless cause-effect sequences, the modern mechanistic vision is deterministic. All talk of individuality and freedom fails to make sense in terms of a rational vision of a completely ordered universe in which fixed laws govern all that occurs. Perhaps soon we'll all believe that the behavior of neurons in the brain "determines" what we do, who we love and what meaning (if any) we may find in the eyes of our neighbors and the swaying of trees against the skyline.  Many believe this already. If "freedom" is reduced to "getting my way" (even when 'my' desires are fated by nature and nurture); if it's reduced to fulfilling arbitrary desires, then we are not "free" but determined. Buber says we (modern western civilization which he calls "sick")  are more fatalistic than any other culture that has existed. In the past, there was "destiny" which was unknown to us, but in which we felt ourselves to be active participants. Now the cosmos and society are reduced to meaningless "things" and forces" obeying "laws." We seek to eliminate the mystery of the Present (the here-now which brings us into potentially new and unknown territory) by mapping and engineering all outcomes with our day-planners, technological instruments, social/political policies, and abstract explanations for every concrete event. We're not open and vulnerable before the mystery of being, but arrogantly deluded into thinking that we can master all beings as though they were just so much putty; as if nature and persons would readily conform  to the arbitrary will of the engineer or tinkerer without protest. (Note: if viewed this way, anthropogenic global climate change is an example of the delusion that we can "master" nature to fit our wants -- even more telling is the failure to take the scientifically established threat seriously enough to actually respond to it. How can we "control nature" when we can't even control our own behavior?)

"[In the YOU-World] freedom and destiny are solemnly promised to one another and linked together in meaning; [while in the It-world] arbitrary self-will and fate, soul's spectre and world's nightmare, endure one another living side by side and avoiding one anoher without connection or conflict, in meaninglessness--till in an instant there is confused shock of glance on glance and confession of their non-redemption breaks from them."(p. 59

Only when, in crisis, we "confess" or admit our confusion and failure to redeem our humanness (i.e. find "redemption,")-- only then is there a possibility for modern society to take a turn toward "health" from "sickness." Only then will the scales of the It and You worlds cease to be so "nightmarishly" weighted to the side of "IT," in which what is most human and intimate is experienced as  some-THING to be enjoyed, enhanced, altered, controlled, improved ad inifinitum. A world of things and not PERSONS.   A world in which it is seldom possible to enjoy the unknown and spontaneous, and to listen to the other from one's innermost depths.


The It-World is populated by "individuals" who compare themselves to one another to feel unique, special, "distinct." Nietzsche had  spoken of this modern "striving for distinction" and principle of individuality, as did Buber's teacher Georg Simmel.  Individuals of this kind do not really connect with one another or enter into authentic relationships because they are too busy engaging in comparisons, noticing differences to boost self-esteem, and manipulating others.

"The I of the primary word I-It makes its appearance as individuality and becomes conscious of itself as subject (of experiencing and using)....The aim of [this] self-differentiation is to experience and to use, and the aim of these is "life" that is [really] dying that lasts the span of a man's life. (62-3)

Life, under the tyranny of the Modern It-World, requires to be put in scare quotes! "Life" is really just a long dying relieved only by actual death.  In stark contrast we have the YOU-World which only scattered human beings in modern Western civilization know well. The YOU-World is the world of the Person, not the "subject of experiencing and using." The I-YOU mode is one of sharing, not labeling, analyzing and manipulating persons as though they were things.

"Where there is no sharing there is no reality." (63)

Yet the detached, alienated and lonely self of modernity still contains the "inner seed" which can be realized only through relationships untainted by capricious desires, self-interests and utility maximization. We must learn to see each other as "whole beings" as persons, not just objects of experience and use value. We're a society of users and consumers. Experience has become consumption, interaction mutual exercises in "influencing one another." It isn't every age that produces perennial best-selling books called "How To Win Friends and Influence People," but Buber would not be surprised that such a book is cited by our current president as a great influence on his life and character.  Sociologist and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm distinguished "having" from "being." It's much the same as Buber's You and It-worlds. Most of us relate to the world on the basis of a possessive attitude. I "have" friends; I "have" a house; I "have" good qualities; I "have" a beautiful spouse; I "have" lots of fun, etc. etc.  But few know how to BE where that means existing openly, without defining everything, especially myself and my well-counted assets and liabilities. I think George Harrison had something like this distinction in mind when he railed against the common fixation on "I, Me, Mine" in the song bearing that title. Those pronouns are pulling away from others and deep connections in which life is shared. We become fragments in the void.

The person looks on his Self, individuality is concerned with its 'My'-- my kind of race, my creation, my genius....Individuality niether shares in nor obtains any reality. It differentiates istself from the other, and seeks through experiencing and using to appropriate as much of it [i.e. the other] as it can.  This is its dynamic..."(64)

Following this passage, there is a rare moment of nuance in this otherwise Manichean chapter. Refreshingly, Buber states that if the YOU-World is the necessary context for the emergence of whole and authentic PERSONS, and the It-World for fragmented and alienated Individualists, then no actual human being is exclusively one or the other. In a short passage he seems to walk back the strict dichotomy, the either/or tone of the chapter describing IT and YOU as opposed and mutually exclusive modes of being. On page 65 he admits that:

"No [actual] man is pure person and no man is pure individuality. None is wholly real, and none wholly unreal. Every man lives in the twofold I. But there are men so defined by person ( You-world] that they may be called persons, and men so defined by individuality [It-world] that they may be called individuals. True history is decided in the field between these two poles."(65)

Though Buber appears to recognize the reality of many intermediate modes of relating between the "Pure Types" of I-It and I-You, he does little to describe any of these mixtures and variations between the extremes. Having written most of the book in terms of an either-or dichotomy of IT- and Thou, Buber reveals, however fleetingly, an awareness of ambiguity and nuance in real life. However, in this book he does little to develop this awareness as a theme. Indeed he reverts almost immediately to the language of dichotomies, even allowing the It-World to become "demonic" (perhaps Evil?) and the You-world divine and uniquely good. I started by noting some of the good or value that I believe Buber has already established (e.g. survival value, reliability, provision of a world of common objects and words to describe them, etc.) Now, I am suggesting that in his-- perhaps legitimate-- worries about the direction of history, he falls into a Manichean, either/or dichotomy, despite briefly acknowledging the subtler realities and mixed attributes of real human beings. This is worth considering so that we don't simply ignore Buber's warnings about the direction of history  just because he exaggerates and creates stiff dichotomies where there may be more fluidity. He may be generally correct despite the melodramatic wrappings of his style, and the lapse into seemingly absolutizing "It and You-worlds" even after admitting nobody is a pure example of either, but always a mixture of the "twofold." The distance between YOU and IT is described in a way, often, that makes them appear unbridgeable. But this one paragraph betrays an awareness of much that lies "between these two poles." (65).

Almost as if he never wrote that paragraph, Buber resumes the dichotomous descriptions of It and You worlds, and he  tries to bring the dichotomy of the YOU and IT worlds to a level of concreteness that can't be missed even by the casual reader. He does this by giving historical examples par excellence.

The YOU-World,  with its 3 facets (people, the natural world, the divine) is exemplified by Socrates (realm of people), Goethe (realm of nature) and Jesus (realm of the spiritual). What exemplifies the It-World? Only one historical person is named and discussed-- Napoleon!  "Indeed the lord of the age [Napoleon] manifestly did not know the dimension of the Thou. [sic](67) Rather, "he was for millions the demonic Thou; the Thou that does not respond..." (ibid)



It is only the realization that we are alone, cut off, frightened and not whole that prepares us as a society to build a culture that prioritizes genuine relationship and not just use-value, consumption and mastery over others and nature.

"At times the man shuddering at the alienation between the I and the world comes to reflect that something is to be done. As when in the grave night hour you lie, racked by waking dream--bulwarks have fallen away and the abyss is screaming-- and note amid your torment; there is still life, if only I get through to it-- but how, how?" (70)

Are we really in such a situation? And is it only dread and angst that can wake us up as a society and culture? Sure, says Buber, some individuals are fully alive to the world, but no thanks to the mass-culture that has swallowed millions in its heartless machinery.

Is this dichotomy between the authentic/YOU-world and the inauthentic, even demonic It-world overplayed? Melodramatic? Filled with post WW1 period angst (written both during and after that war which in the beginning Buber thought might produce solidarity and  unity), it is easy to dismiss as the mystic poet's hyperbole. But though I think (as I'll discuss at the end of the reading) the dichotomy is too strict, and allows little ambiguity, the subsequent history is not reassuring. There followed the rise of Fascism, World War, the  Holocaust, the advent of a maddening Nuclear Arms race (which continues with the doomsday clock still set at 2 minutes before midnight https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/  ) and the grim possibility, indeed likelihood, of global catastrophes following an an I-It way of relating to nature. Buber began by conceding that the I-It mode is indispensable for survival and civilization. But in section 2 he describes a pathological process in which "IT" has captured culture itself, and made of the multitudes something less than fully living and responsive human beings. Can we afford to dismiss all of  Buber's grave concerns? What do you think?

 

Group Reading of Martin Buber's I and Thou

This page is for anybody who is interested in reading and discussing I and Thou by Martin Buber.  Welcome!

First things first. Here's a link to the book.   https://ia800206.us.archive.org/16/items/IAndThou_572/BuberMartin-i-and-thou.pdf

I've written an intro to clarify--- as best I can-- some of Buber's obscure concepts and terms to make the book a bit more accessible. I've also included philosopher, Ran Lahev's very short video clip introducing the book and its meaning. But first, a few words on the the group reading.
 

I thought about how to coordinate this, and here's the tentative plan (if anybody has alternative suggestions I'm open to hearing them). The book is 120 pp. and divided into 3 sections.

I propose that we leave comments pertaining to passages from Section 1 (p. 3-34) for the first week (i.e. from today til Tuesday, 10/1/19. Hopefully these comments will get each of us to think of things from different angles, and enter into discussions about section 1. (Note: I'm not suggesting that you read only section 1. How much or little you read, and at what pace is entirely up to you. However, the writing is difficult, and I think it's best to break the discussions up just as Buber broke the book up into the 3 parts.)

If week one goes well and all or some of you want to continue, then we would leave comments pertaining to passages from section 2  (pp.37-72) for the second week (i.e. from Tuesday 10/1 to 10/8).

If all goes well again, we would do the same for the 3rd part of the book during week 3.  (Section 3: pp. 75-120)

After that comments would be open for discussing the book as a whole in any way you wish to do so.

In general, I don't like to structure things too much as far as discussions go.. So write about the sections and then the entire book in whatever way you see fit.  Comments might include, for example,  thoughts about quoted passages, questions about the meanings of certain words/terms and phrases, examples of how Buber's writing does or does not jibe with  your own life experience, thoughts on how it might apply to daily living in various settings (home, work, school, leisure activities, etc.) and just about anything else that the book brings to mind. If you have comments or questions about this post, that's fine. But remember, this post is only an attempt to help you understand Buber. It's not about what I think or believe.  It is my hope that your  comments and questions  will elicit replies/responses from other readers. Hopefully my own input by way of comments will have some value as well. 

I know that 3 weeks for a little book seems like a long time. But I think  it's just about right for a book that so many readers have called "cryptic" and "obscure." It is philosophy, but it is not written as discursive philosophy but in a style that one philosopher has called "descriptive evocation." Through poetic aphorisms, Buber tries to evoke experiences and insights that are almost ineffable. Nietzsche had a profound influence on him in that regard, but since Buber's work has a mystical dimension, it is often difficult to understand.  It has perplexed many readers to the point that Buber felt compelled to write a postscript in 1957, 35 years after its publication to help clarify some of the issues that had caused confusion. (The postscript is not in the free online version that I have provided a link to) In that postscript of 1957 he writes:

     "Again and again readers have turned to me to ask about the meaning of this and that. For a long  time I answered each individually, but I gradually realized that I was not able to do justice to the demand laid upon me...So I have had to set about giving a public answer, first of all to some essential questions which are bound together by their meaning." (Buber: p. 124)

Having read it, I'm not convinced the postscript clarifies the meaning of the text as much as Buber had hoped.  In the rest of this post, I'll do my best to shed some light on the unusual terms and concepts employed in the book. I'll also leave links to reliable secondary sources available for free online, such as the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry for Buber, which has a pretty clear summary of the book, as well as some of his other work and his biography. So with that, I'll jump right into the main theme/s and concepts you will come across in section one.

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Introduction to I and Thou (concepts, terms and themes)


Following many interpreters in philosophy,  I will use the word YOU in place of THOU, primarily because the latter is archaic and is not used in real encounters in our society. Because Thou is used in religious contexts ( e.g. religious services, readings of the Bible) it was used in the translation we're using. Later translations (e.g. that of Walter Kaufmann) have dropped it. What's important is to understand what Buber means by "You" or "Thou" which is very different from most traditional understandings of either word. For example, on page 9, Buber begins describing an "I-You" relation between a human being and a tree. Most of us don't routinely address trees with the pronoun, YOU, which means that this ordinary word YOU (Thou in the 1937 translation) is being used in a very unusual way.

Buber starts the book with a compact aphoristic passage that turns out to state some of the major premises of the book. The opening lines  must be at least somewhat  clear in order to understand what follows.  He writes:

     "To man [i.e. all people] the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude. The attitude of man is twofold in accordance with the primary words he speaks. The primary words are not isolated words. The one primary word is the combination I-Thou. The other...is the combination I-It; wherein without a change in the primary word, one of the words, He and She can replace It. Hence the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the primary word I-Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I-It." (Buber: p. 3)

Also on the first page we find 2 very important statements:

>>"The primary word I-YOU can  only be spoken with the whole being." and


>> "The primary word I-IT can never be spoken with the whole being" (ibid)

I'll try to convey a sense of what he means when he speaks of "the whole being" by way of examples. But for now I just wanted to flag the term "Whole Being" or "Whole Person." These terms and the  ways of living and being that they stand for are central. Put in abstract, intellectual terms, we are made "whole" only in relationships with other people, nature or God. Hopefully that will become more clear below.

Another thing to notice is that when Buber uses the term "primary word" he isn't talking specifically about language in the usual sense of words and symbols. Rather, he means by primary, that which is most basic metaphysically. It's common to believe that the most basic reality in the human realm is individual consciousness, the self or the "I." But according to Buber, the "I" doesn't really exist without relationships.  While many philosophers and psychologists start out from the principle of the individual ego or self, Buber says you only become an individual through relationships with others.

"In the beginning is relation." (Buber: p. 18)


"There is no I TAKEN IN ITSELF [sic]..." (Buber: p. 4)
     


We can't take these statements at face value or we'd be lost in a forest of pronouns. Yet they are stated as axioms. That is, he does not present arguments to prove their truth, but simply states them as though they are obvious facts that must be presupposed to make sense of life.  So, how should we interpret these words, and what is their status? I interpret them statements of what Buber thinks are profound metaphysical truths. Metaphysical truths are those alleged truths that  claim to go beyond our personal perspectives and ordinary experiences (the way things appear to us)
in order to reveal the truth of the way things really are (which usually differs from ordinary or everyday understanding). Just as optical illusions can lead us to "see" things in a distorted way (e.g. 2 lines of equal length can appear to have very different lengths), ordinary understanding of the world and the place of human beings in it can be distorted by  concepts and  attitudes we adopt towards other beings (both humans and beings  in nature including animals, trees, etc. ).

For most of us, and for most modern philosophers, "I"  experience myself as the locus of consciousness. Experience is, we tend to feel, happening "in here/ in my head."  Each of us appears to be independent or separate from all others mentally and emotionally.  Each of us would probably consider it to be trivially true that we can describe our experience accurately by saying things like: I interact with others; I bond with them , I break relations off from them, I think about them, love, hate, like, dislike, or respond neutrally to them, I make plans with them, I work with or for some of them, and so on.

We say such things without any sense of mystery, feeling it to be obvious. After all, it was hundreds of years ago that the early modern philosopher, Renee Descartes provided a solid foundation for the existence of the independent subject or self.

 I think therefore I am/ Cogito ergo sum.

So this self-evident assertion of the individual as a thinking subject is the basis of most modern Western philosophy and predominates culture, as I stated above.  But despite our experience of ourselves as separate beings, Buber says this understanding is something like the philosophical equivalent of that optical illusion I mentioned. It appears to be true, but in Reality the individualistic outlook is not the most basic one, but a warped version of the metaphysical truth as he understands it. Buber holds that the most basic  reality is  the way we relate to others (be it You, He, She, or It). My sense of being a self only arises after I've been in relationships with others.  From a theoretical standpoint we can understand this outlook when we consider the fact that babies don't have language, concepts of "self" or "identities." Those things come with socialization.

Buber say that ultimately there are  two basic ways of relating, and each is governed by a basic underlying attitude toward that to which we are relating at any given time.



"To Man the world is twofold in accordance with his twofold attitude." (p.1)

This duality of human nature in terms of basic attitudes is broken down into the two most basic poles of experience.

A) The I-YOU mode of relating
and
B) The I-IT mode of relating. 


Because we are almost always living in the I-IT mode of relating, I will start there. When I relate to others (be it people or other beings in nature) I experience them in terms of an attitude that emphasizes "my" thoughts, impressions, feelings, desires, interests, curiosities, etc.( p. 4) where Buber writes:

" I perceive something. I am sensible of [i.e. I sense] something. I imagine something. I will something. I  feel something.  I think something....This and the like establish the realm of IT." (Buber: p. 4)

All of these examples have in common the fact that I am concerned with various objects of my selective attention.

The world  of  I-IT relations is divided into the thinking subject ("I') and all those "somethings" (thoughts, experiences, , memories, plans)  which become intentional objects of "my"  thoughts, desires, sensations plans and the like.  This is not to say the I-IT mode is "bad." It is actually necessary for everyday life, and within it there are various gradations of  relating some of which approximate the I-YOU more than others (Buber discussed this aspect of his thought in later works, see Sarah Scott link below). 

In the I-YOU mode of relating I experience others (in society, nature or the realm of spiritual , life) as undivided, whole beings that can't be dissected or  broken into parts without losing the connection with the fullness of the Other person.  Usually 'I' relate to others in terms of partial or selective aspects in which I am interested. When riding the bus I experience the person at the wheel only-- or at least mainly-- as a "bus driver" ( an occupational role) which is only one role s/he plays in life. I don't ENCOUNTER  THE OTHER AS A WHOLE BEING  but as an assemblage of parts to which I selectively attend, focusing on some particular aspect/s of the being    (such as personality, looks, intelligence, career, hobbies, fashion sense et. al) and ignoring others according to my partial interests and goals. The person who lectures in the classroom is the "teacher" to me. Only rarely do I meet that person and encounter them as a full human being with an irreducible uniqueness and wholeness. Much, perhaps most of life is lived in the context of selective attention governed by our conscious and unconscious desires, beliefs,  biases, memories and plans

Examples of I-It relations:

>>>I walk onto a bus and barely notice the bus driver. I notice her quickly and perhaps don't exchange any words. Nevertheless I rely on bus-drivers routinely to get around. Here the encounter between me and other is almost entirely absent. The other is experienced mainly as a means to an end; a tool to get a job done.  A thing to transport me from A to B. He or she is thus objectified.

>>> I notice an acquaintance from work on the same bus and strike up a conversation. We make "small talk" recognizing each other by means of talk about work, what other people we know are like, movies and TV shows we might like or dislike, sports events, music, etc. We might also try to get a bit friendlier by asking questions about the other (curiosity) or wondering what they might be thinking about us, or asking them if they care to go out to a movie sometime, etc.  All of this is totally normal, and we take all of this for granted. It's how we are even as we get to know people really well.

>>> I see a stray cat and feel a strong desire to get it to a shelter for strays or a vet. I care about the cat. The attitude is still dominated by the attitude of me being a separate being who might "do something about" a situation that disturbs me. It's a kind of emotionally laden trouble-shooting. It's a very good thing we can notice the misfortunes of others, reflect on it and be motivated to intervene, but it's still an experience not of the cat as a whole being, but as a "cat-in-trouble." We're still feeling separate from the being and slapping labels on it to figure out how to control the situation-- indeed for the better in this example. But the focus here is not ethics. It's basic attitude toward that to which I'm relating. And at the moment I'm only noticing things about the cat that require intervention.

The key insight is that all of these examples reveal a sort of practical attitude in which I'm not really with the other person or being as a "Whole Person" (Buber) but rather my way of relating is "partial." The root word of partial is part, and we break ourselves and others into parts all the time to communicate and function. In the first case it's most obvious. Here is a human being capable of being with others in a rich variety of ways. But for the moment I notice them (if at all) merely as a fraction of their wholeness. I abstract everything from the human being except for one little role called "bus driver." That's it.

In the the second example, it may seem that I am relating to the whole person, but as is normal most of the time, I'm categorizing them and myself thus breaking them down into parts. I take the attitude of co-worker, acquaintance and prospective friend. I try to figure out what to say next that might make the conversation go smoother. To do that, I categorize more (e.g. I think s/he's a movie buff, or so I heard, so I'll ask them if they'd like to hang out and see a movie some time. Maybe that'll break the ice." ) all of this has to do with what philosophers call instrumental reason. We see others as means to ends. This can be either morally good or bad, enriching or debasing, fun or tedious. The point isn't to judge but to see  beneath the illusion that we're usually encountering others as Whole Beings.  The cat, based on anything I wrote, is experienced as a perhaps lovely, but endangered animal that needs to be moved to another situation for help. This again is instrumental thinking. It's about means and ends. "How can I get this cat to a shelter for strays? Let's see, do I have enough for a cab? Let me dial 911." etc.  This is all great, but it's not a spiritual encounter with what Buber calls the Being of the other, that is I am not "fully present" with the cat, but experiencing him/her through a filter of selective attention governed by the attitude of means-to-ends thinking. We spend most of our lives -- even with lovers and spouses-- in such a mode of being, according to Buber.


Examples of I-YOU relations:

Now lets take very similar situations but emphasize what Buber sometimes has called a "gestalt-shift" during which my attitude changes from that of the I-IT mode to that of the I-YOU mode of being.  Maybe then the concept of "encountering the other as a whole being" will begin to make sense.

>>I notice the same friend I ran into on the bus; this time in the a park where we walk and talk together.  Though at first things are pretty much the same as last time (chatting and becoming friendly) something happens unexpectedly. Two dogs start barking at each other aggressively, and the owners are pulling them back to keep them from fighting. But suddenly, out of the blue, one of the dogs for no clear reason turns around noticing me and my friend. He lets out the weirdest sound, not a bark, but some kind of unique yelp that I've never hear but it sounds absurd and funny in the situation. The dog is also making the most uncanny face, an expression that immediately, along with the yelping sound, makes both me and the friend break out into hilarious laughter at the same time.We are laughing without any cares, without self-consciousness of any kind, we aren't judging or categorizing one another. I'm not wondering whether my friend likes dogs generally or not. I might ask that later on. For now we are, and I can't stress this word enough, together. The thing about togetherness is it can't be broken down into "parts."  Laughing-with-YOU  is a spontaneous, here-and-now unfolding which is unencumbered by plans, memories, wishes, regrets. The absurd  sometimes can jerk us out of auto-pilot and transport us into a mode where I am simply "receiving" a person and/or dog or both in a totally open way that has nothing to do with changing them or changing my self, or achieving any goals (means-ends instrumentality).  Hilarity of the absurd is one way of inadvertently undergoing a gestalt-shift from the usual mundane attitude of relating to an I-THOU. My friend and I experienced each other outside of any social roles, norms or judgments for a minute or so. Being transported outside of myself, or being literally "beside myself" as in stepping outside my usual identity or ego, is called ekstasis in Greek  , which is where we get the mystical-sounding word "Ecstasy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_(philosophy)   An I-YOU experience has an ecstatic quality in the sense that while I'm right in the midst of others in this world (nothing other-worldly going on here)  yet I'm transported by way of a transient but vital connection with beings that I exist together with in a situation.

The laughter may have been side-splitting, but it subsides. Yet now my friend and I have (without planning or seeking anything) bonded in a truly authentic way. Nothing about either of our responses was a put-on. Nothing was done for the sake of "making the right impression." What happened unfolded with a Zen-like simplicity and ease. And when it was over we returned, perhaps, to our conversation, but we were not the same. We had looked into each other's eyes during the shared hilarity, seen each other's expressions and that of the dog, taking all of it in without thinking about any of it,  but just enjoying this being-together in the moment that was so absurd to  both of us. This I-THOU encounter, this irreducible togetherness can occur uninvitedly or during a dance, or while making love (though self-consciousness can hinder the openness in those circumstances) or just holding hands quietly on a bench with one's spouse of 40 years, feeling that bond and togetherness with nothing awkward in the silences. All these and others (Buber talks about a Tree on p. 9 ff) may not last, but they sustain us in an afterglow of truly feeling that life is not alone; that I am not cut off or apart; that the game is worth the candle because I can become fully present with other people and nature, and thus find a kind of wholeness that allows me to feel at one with others (which is togetherness). This isn't done in the "astral realm" or "heaven" or anything like that, rather the spiritual mystery that Buber calls God is found here and now in the middle of our everyday lives. In philosophical terms, God is immanent or present in all beings if we would open our eyes  and hearts.

Buber knows that atheists and agnostics read, and often got something out of the book. Because Buber has a pantheistic tendency, or at least a view that God is immanent in all personal,  social and natural beings*, it's possible to say without a belief in any particular theology, that there is a spiritual wholeness that can be felt at times. That the world seems more vivid at those times, as if it were aware along with us.

Anyway, this is an attempt using anecdotes, analogies, metaphors and examples to communicate the differences between I-IT living and I-THOU living; and to attempt a description of how we can and do transition from one to the other and back in ordinary situations. Most of all, this is not a mysticism of retreat from this world to another "higher" or "purer" one. Buber's mysticism can appeal to the nonreligious person  who can open up and simply appreciate being-with-others.**

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Notes:

*Buber describes his pantheism in the postscript of 1957,  which isn't contained in the free online pdf. He compares his views to Spinoza.  Spinoza said that we can find God in 2 different realms: that of "spiritual being" and "natural being." Buber emphasizes a third realm which he calls  *personal being.* It is there that we may find God or spiritual "presence"  not only through our I-YOU relations with   people, but in relation with God understood as, in his own words, "The Eternal You" ("The Eternal Thou" in our translation). Philosopher Sarah Scott claims that Buber stated that he found God, The Eternal You, in his wife. God is not "up there" or only approachable through esoteric yoga exercises and such. Those are fine too. But Buber wants to stress that we are already intimately involved with all kinds of beings that-- given a fundamental change of attitude-- might become for us The Eternal You. (Buber: p.135)


**Being-with-others is Heidegger's phrase, but it seems apt here, and I suspect he was influenced to some extent  by  Buber's I and Thou, as was his one-time student, Emmanuel Levinas).

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Here's an excellent  7 minute intro to I and Thou by philosopher, Ran Lahev.  If you find it helpful, there are 2 others by him that follow this one. If you go the Lahev's channel you can find them there.

Links and Online Resources:

>>This online encycolpedia of philosophy entry on Buber is quite informative and contains a summary of I and Thou.  
https://www.iep.utm.edu/buber/

>> Interesting article about  Philosopher and ethicist, Sarah Scott [who wrote the IEP article referenced above] playing Martin Buber at the Jewish Museum,  in a theatrical reading Buber's writings, as well as mock interviews and spontaneous conversations with audience members after the show. Interesting article about what must have been an interesting event:

https://stories.thejewishmuseum.org/why-do-we-hold-these-talks-if-we-dont-expect-that-in-some-way-they-will-change-us-wish-you-were-here-39a3158642ff
 

The Necessary Qualities of a Good Political Leader: Weber's Politics as a Vocation

In January of 1919, Max Weber gave a now-famous lecture on the nature of politics in the modern Western administrative state called Politics as a Vocation. It was particularly focused on the qualities that leaders (such as PMs or Presidents) must have if stable and reasonable conditions would prevail. When he wrote the lecture, Germany had lost WW1, and Weber had attended the Peace Conference in Versailles where a damning"guilt clause" with impossibly large fines was imposed on Germany. Like Keynes, Weber warned that it was an unwise and vindictive settlement that might cause a backlash. Meanwhile, within Germany, radical leftists, various reformers, liberals and conservatives were descending in a vortex of intellectual and physical violence against one another. In that climate, Max Weber-- then the most prominent public intellectual in Germany-- was much sought after in the role of an advisor during the chaos. What should we do? Which party should we support? Students, intellectuals,  journalists and politicians wanted to know.

At first Weber turned the invitation down. He believed strongly in the ideal of keeping one's personal views out of respectable Political Sociology, the field he did much to invent. But for whatever reason, he ultimately accepted the invitation by the liberal Student's Union that invited him to give the lecture. Weber warned that it would probably disappoint those who had come for practical advise regarding the "issues of the day." But though Weber did an end run around mere political advocacy of this or that party or ideology, he spoke to more enduring themes he clearly thought were the source of the political divisions and chaos in 1919 Germany (and elsewhere in that era). The lecture, and the essay it became, is broad ranging but famously centers on the question, "What makes a political leader a good political leader?" The main question is thus one of ethics and character vis a vis powerful political leaders in modern nation-states.

After a fairly in-depth summary of his pioneering work in comparative political and historical studies (some of which is discussed in a short supplementary video below), Weber focuses on modern administrative states of a kind we might loosely call 'democratic' or 'parliamentary' systems with  powerful leaders at the top (PM or President for example). Such states (like our own) are based on legal-bureaucratic authority  (the rule of law) which, however, can get stuck in a mechanical mode when changes are required to meet the problems that arise contingently (e.g. when challenges to the Law of the Land were made by civil rights activists in the 60s). At such times, and other critical ones, such as Germany's post WW1 crisis, Weber thinks we are likely to see the emergence of  charismatic leaders (e.g. Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler) who rise up from within the system yet initiate actions that challenge or deviate from some of the existing legal and bureaucratic procedures-- particularly during times of trouble. While Weber thinks strong charismatic leaders are necessary to counterbalance the largely mechanical behavior of career politicians in parties and organizations, he is aware that this can result in demagogues, would-be tyrants, and dictators if those with charismatic appeal turn out to be unable to live up to certain ethical criteria that should be carefully evaluated during the selection or election of political leaders.  How can we separate out merely charismatic leaders from good charismatic leaders?

He notes that politics in the West has increasingly become a profession but not necessarily a vocation. A vocation is a job, of course, but also retains the sense of "a calling." A good politician can only be such if s/he is not simply"living OFF their job but FOR it." to paraphrase Weber's distinction of "living FROM vs. living FOR politics." (Weber: p. 318) So, according to Weber,  politicians must be passionately committed to their ultimate convictions, and not just employees of the State. This "passion" must be in play for serious and plausible leaders in an age of relatively petty partisans and bureaucrats fighting each other for their own limited interests. There must be someone who feels called upon to mediate all of that; someone-- yes-- with vision but with a cool detachment enabling reasonable compromise as necessary. This balance of passionate commitment to an ultimate vision (i.e. Weber's "ethic of ultimate ends/convictions") and sense of responsibility for the grave impacts of all decisions for society and history ("ethic of responsibility") is ultimately something that involves a sober-headed ability to reason --i.e. to engage in mature rational assessment even of one's own strongest convictions,  desires and one's vision if necessary in order to stay in touch with the obligations of having the awesome powers conferred on leaders of nation-states (PM's, Presidents and the like).

What he's really worried about is the intoxicating effect of political power on anything less than a disciplined, judicious and appropriately detached individual. He's trying to describe what might be called political integrity, though he didn't put it in those exact words. The "2 fatal flaws" of political leadership, he says, are "a lack of objectivity" [rd. detached perspective, ability to rise above the passions of the moment] and  "vanity, the need to thrust oneself as far as possible into the foreground" [perfectly embodied in politicians like Trump and many demagogues]. Weber argues that it is the ethical makeup of a leader that is decisive over and above the exact ideology or party that happens to rule. He was lecturing as a venerated public intellectual to an audience that expected him to endorse the socialists or the conservatives or liberals, all of whom were fighting  each other for power (literally, assassinations--such as that of Rosa Luxenburg-- were occurring throughout Germany as he lectured). Instead of concentrating on party and ideology,  he said that the real need was for someone who can rise above the fray.  Someone who is spirited, yes, but can reign in the passions of the heart when necessary, and certainly restrain the lower instincts for petty gains and the lust for grandeur.This entails applying a cool, measured reasoning that never loses track of the fact that leaders of nation-states have the ability (for better and worse) to change the course of history. This awful responsibility must always be a decisive and humbling factor in keeping the leader well above rash and emotionalistic indulgences which we see in so many leaders-- especially demagogues.

So this is nothing less than an ethical evaluation on Weber's part, after years of study in comparative politics and history, of what the ideal traits, or character structure of a good political leader in the modern nation-state might look like. Though I hope this short summary of W's thought on political leadership is reasonably good,  I am posting an excerpt from the lecture/essay. The following is taken from what I believe to be one of the most important sections of Politics as a Vocation, and it is deservedly famous.

As we contemplate the question of just who should take the political position of perhaps the most powerful person on the planet, the president of the US, we could do worse than to consult Weber's answer to the question of just what kind of human being has what it takes to wield such power in a passionate yet responsible manner-- ever balancing core convictions and clear-headed responsibility to the citizens.

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Excerpt From Politics as a Vocation

by Max Weber

What kinds of inner joy does politics have to offer, and what kinds of personal qualifications does it presuppose in anyone turning to this career?

Well, first of all, it confers a feeling of power. The professional politician can have a sense of rising above everyday existence, even in what is formally a modest position, through knowing the he exercises influence on people, shares power over them, but above all from the knowledge that he holds in his hands some vital strand of historically important events [emph. added] But the question facing such a person is which qualities will enable him to do justice to this power...and thus to the responsibility it imposes on him. This takes us into the area of ethical questions, for to ask what kind of human being one must be in order to have the right to seize the spokes of the wheel of history, is to pose an ethical question.

One can say that three qualities are preeminently decisive for a politician: passion, a sense of responsibility, and judgment. Passion [is] the sense of concern for the thing itself  [i.e. the issue or matter at hand]  or the passionate commitment to a 'cause.'[This is not to be confused with]... what my late friend Georg Simmel called 'sterile excitement' [such as that we see]... amongst our own intellectuals at this carnival being graced with the proud name 'revolution; it is the 'romanticism of the intellectually interesting' directed into the void, and lacking all objective [sachlich] sense of responsibility. [This refers to the intellectual and quasi-military violence between socialists, liberals and conservatives fighting for control of the state in 1919 Germany. Many intellectuals, for example on the left, called themselves "revolutionaries" while Weber saw mainly a tragic loss of the ethic of responsibility for the fate of the country on all sides. He also mentions "many though by no means all Russian intellectuals" of the late 19th and early 20th century, and, of course, during the revolution and subsequent civil war that was raging in Russia as he lectured - ed.]. Simply to feel passion, however genuinely, is not sufficient to make a politician, unless in service to a 'cause,' responsibility  for that cause becomes the lode-star of all action. This requires (and this is the decisive psychological quality of a politician)  judgment, the ability to maintain one's composure and calm while being receptive to realities, in other words distance from people and things. A lack of distance [i.e. critical distance, capacity for cool, detached reasoning when everyone around you is inflamed or carried away by emotion- ed.] is one of the 'deadly sins' of the politician, and...will condemn our future intellectuals to political incompetence if they cultivate it. For the problem is precisely this, how are hot passion and cool judgment to be fused together in one soul? Politics is an activity conducted with the head, not with other body parts or the soul. Yet if politics is to be meaningful action rather than some frivolous intellectual game, dedication to it can only be sustained by passion.   Only if one accustoms oneself to distance...can one achieve that powerful control over the soul [i.e. self-restraint in the heat of the moment] which distinguishes the passionate politician from the mere 'sterile excitement' of the political amateur. The strength of a political personality means first and foremost the possession of these qualities

Every day and every hour, therefore the politician has to overcome a quite trivial, all-too-human enemy which threatens him from within: common vanity, the mortal enemy of all dedication to a cause and of all distance-- in this case, of distance to oneself

Vanity is a very widespread quality, and perhaps no one is completely free of it. In academic and scholarly circles it is a kind of occupational disease. In the case of the scholar, however, unattractive as this quality may be, it is relatively harmless in the sense that it does not, as a rule, interfere with the pursuit of knowledge. Things are quite different for the politician. The ambition for power  is an inevitable means with which he works. 'The instinct for power,' as it is commonly called, is thus indeed one of his normal qualities. The sin against the [metaphorically] holy spirit of his profession begins where this striving for power becomes detached from the task in hand and becomes a matter of purely personal self-intoxication instead of being placed entirely at the service of the 'cause.' For there are ultimately just 2 deadly sins in the area of politics: a lack of objectivity...and a lack of responsibility. Vanity, the need to thrust one's person as far as possible into the foreground, is what leads the politician most strongly into the temptation of committing one or other (or both) of these sins, particularly as the demagogue is forced to count on making an 'impact', and for this reason is always in danger both of becoming a play-actor and of taking the responsibility for his actions too lightly, and being concerned only with the 'impression' he is making... For although, or rather precisely because power is the inevitable means of all politics, and the ambition of power therefore one of its driving forces, there is no more pernicious distortion of political energy than when the parvenu boasts of his power and vainly mirrors himself in the feeling of power-- or indeed any and every worship of power for its own sake. The mere "power politician" , a type whom an energetically promoted cult is seeking to glorify here in Germany as elsewhere, may give the impression of strength, but in fact his actions merely lead into emptiness and absurdity. On this point the critics of 'power politics' are quite correct. The sudden inner collapse of typical representatives of this outlook has shown us just how much inner weakness and ineffectuality are concealed behind this grandiose but empty pose. It stems from a most wretched and superficial lack of concern for the meaning of human action, a blase attitude that knows nothing of the tragedy in which all action, but quite particularly political action is, in truth, enmeshed (Weber: 1994,  pp. 352-5)

Source:
Max Weber: Political Writings, ed. Peter Lassman and Ronald Speirs
Cambridge U. Press, New York; 1994, pp. 318-20 and 352-355

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The following 6 min. video focuses on Weber's conception of power (macht) and the manner in which it becomes legitimate authority (herrschaft). In the modern era the focus, thinks Weber, will be on the need to balance charismatic leaders with the impersonal rule of law or "legal-rational authority." This may help to situate the above passage from Weber. In the long lecture, Weber discussed many other things including types of power and authority. Since there isn't room for everything in the post, this video may be useful, particularly the closing comments on the "comeback" of Charismatic Leaders in times of crisis and social disunity in modern law based states. ( see 4:59 ff).

Possible Questions/Topics: 

-Does Weber's assessment of leadership in the modern state seem relevant to the current situation in the US (or for that matter the UK and other nation-states currently characterized by disunity bordering on crisis)? If so, discuss. If not, then why not?

-Sometimes pundits in the media talk about the "character" of political candidates and/or leaders. Weber's emphasis is largely on the moral character of the politician and the virtues which constitute it. How important to you are the characteristics he describes in candidates and/or leaders for whom you might (or did) vote?

-Weber (himself known as a liberal at the time of the lecture) chose not to "take sides" or support any of the parties that were engaged in sometimes-violent fighting. He refers to the struggle for power around him as a "carnival"(see above) and discusses the qualities of leadership he thinks none of those around him possess but need to understand. Was this a "cop-out" or do you think Weber goes beneath the self-proclaimed ideologies to address a deeper crisis of ethics? How important are ideology and party? How important are ethics?

(Note: These are merely a suggestions. Please write whatever seems important to you in relation to the post.)