Some ideas are difficult to express with only one word. For
example, some clocks merely tick
while others tick-tock. Even as you
read this, you can hear the different sounds in your head. Take a second:
Tick, tick, tick, tick
(Pause. Clear your head. Ready?)
Tick-tock, tick-tock,
tick-tock, tick-tock
There’s a difference and I am compelled to make the
distinction by using a single word for the first sound while using a hyphenated
word for the other. I suppose I could use a string of words to describe the
latter idea, but it conveys a denser meaning to use the shorter hyphenated form.
I say tick-tock and you instantly know
what I mean.
Martin Buber, Jewish philosopher, has written a short but
brilliant treatise that asserts the world in which we live is an entirely
hyphenated world. Existence is intrinsically relational—whether that relation
is with nature, other people or God.
The title of the book is I
and Thou but it could have also been titled I-Thou or I-It.
To say the word “I” presupposes an “other” to whom (or
which) we relate. We cannot say “I” without having some other thing or person form
the context that gives meaning to that “I”. Here, I’ll try it.
“I ran.”
At first, it seems the sentence is devoid of any referent. Beside
the “I” there is no other object or person directly mentioned.
But try to imagine “running” without the ground. Or try to
imagine “running” without an origin or destination. We do not run to nowhere.
Even nowhere is somewhere. And we cannot run on or in nothing. If you imagine
running in the sky, you are still running in something. Even nothing is
something. The statement “I ran” begs the question:
“to whom?” Or
“where?”
“on what?” Or
“in what?”
Even the sentence “I am” is unimaginable without referent.
We know no “I” without another thing or person. I can never escape the fact that
I am conditioned by other people or things. The world in which we live is a
world of relation. It is quite literally defined
by relation. Even the concept of non-being
can only be construed in juxtaposition to the idea of being. Ironically, nothing needs something.
To express this metaphysic of relation, Martin Buber says we
may describe how we live in this world with two “primary words.” As one would
expect in a world of relation, the words in question can only be expressed as hyphenated words (like the word tick-tock). Buber says the “primary
words” to describe this world of relation are twofold:
I-Thou
I-It
Don’t let your eyes deceive you. You are not looking at
three separate words here. Buber is not saying the world is composed of…
I
and
Thou
and
It.
No, we live according to one of two paradigms: an I-Thou paradigm or an I-It paradigm.
Either way, there is relation signified in each “primary
word.” The two primary words are used to express distinctions in the characteristics of each respective relation.
In I-It the
relation can be described as a Subject-Object relation. In I-Thou we have two Subjects in relation. Think of Buber’s ideas as “a
grammar of existence.”
The word “I-It” denotes a way of living that treats other
things or people as Objects. The word “I-Thou” expresses a way of living that
regards everything and everyone as holy, mysterious, and uncontrollable. That
person in front of me in the checkout line at the supermarket is a person: I can encounter them but I can never fully understand them. They are not an Object to be controlled; they are
a Person to be loved. My response to this mystery evokes awe and reverence for
the other. I can only describe them as a “Thou” because of this—and their “Thou-ness”
makes me keenly aware of my own mystery. This way of relating to others
manifests a reality that is hard to describe because of its immense beauty. If we
were to describe it with a single word, we’d have to resort to Buber’s “primary
word”: I-Thou.
Here’s how Buber puts it: “All real living is meeting.” (26)
“Individuality makes its appearance by being differentiated
from other individualities. A person makes his appearance by entering into
relation with other persons.” (67)
From this simple grammar Buber draws profound, far-reaching
conclusions. Even our relation to so-called objects (such as a tree, a
mountain, the ocean, or a pebble) is affected. If we regard each “object”
reverently we can establish an “I-Thou” relation even with a small daffodil.
The pursuit of scientific progress is affected by this posture; gaining
knowledge in order to control changes an I-Thou
posture to an I-It posture.
Our pursuit of profit-making is changed; our relation to
money can no longer be colored by greed when we respect both the constructive
and destructive potential of amassing wealth.
Buber saw first-hand what happens when political
philosophies are colored by an I-It
relation: he was one of the German-Jewish academics persecuted by Hitler’s Nazi
regime. He personally witnessed an imposition of the rule of law for the sake
of controlling others and extinguishing divergent ideas. Whole systems of
government flow from either I-It or I-Thou relations. Often, entire nations
experience periods when they fluctuate between the two realities. We catch
glimpses of I-Thou relations only to
have hope diminished when I-It takes
over.
These two primary words have implications for interpersonal
relationships as well. Parental and spousal relations come to mind immediately.
Having been married for 22 years, I’ve seen first-hand that I can never fully
understand my wife, nor control her. She is holy and mysterious. I encounter
her but I can never master her. When I try to control her, I treat her as an
object, a thing, an It. But she is a Thou. She herself is her own I and the only way to revere her “Thou-ness”
is to let her be an I.
In this relation, I discover another mystery: When I move
from I-Thou to I-It in relating to another person I see that my “I-ness” is also
changed. Buber puts it this way: “The I
of the primary word I-Thou is a
different I from that of the primary
word I-It.” (67)
In the case of the former, the I is expansive, gracious, joyful, free and freeing. In the case of the
latter, the I is small, petty,
controlling, lustful and untrusting.
The difference is made when we live in grace. Buber again: “Grace
concerns us in so far as we go out to it and persist in its presence; but it is
not our object.” (78) Even grace cannot be controlled. In fact, when we try to
control grace, grace ceases to be grace for us.
We try to control grace, however, because we fear the hurt
that may come with living in free grace. When we encounter the other just as
they are, we must admit, it will sometimes hurt. Living by the I-Thou
relation always carries two uncontrollable sides to it: “The Thou confronts me. But I step into
direct relation with it. Hence the relation means being chosen and choosing,
suffering and action in one…” (78)
So, there are implications for the world of people and
things. We discover that even “things” are not just “things” when we see them
through I-Thou eyes.
This is even true of that Person or Thing which our eyes
cannot see. So, Buber speaks of God: “Many men wish to reject the word God as a
legitimate usage, because it is so misused. It is indeed the most heavily laden
of all the words used by men. For that very reason it is the most imperishable
and most indispensable. What does all mistaken talk about God’s being and works…matter
in comparison with the one truth that all men who have addressed God had God
Himself in mind?” (77)
Even atheists believe in God, Buber states: “But when he,
too, who abhors the name, and believes himself to be godless, gives his whole
being to addressing the Thou of his
life, as a Thou that cannot be
limited by another, he addresses God.” (78)
“Believers”, on the other hand, have a different set of
misconceptions to overcome in order to embrace the “Thou-ness” of God. On the
one hand, believers often seek to divide God from the world (dualism). On the other hand, some believers speak
of “seeking God in (or by) the world”
(pantheism). Both, in fact, establish an I-It
relation with God, Buber says. God (the only I whose I-Thou way of
being never fluctuates) is the One who is ever-near but who cannot be caught or
controlled. We encounter God but we can
never fully understand God. For this reason, Buber asserts that it is more
accurate to say that “the world is in God” than to say that “God is in the
world.” This means that wherever we go we encounter God, but God is not someone
we can put in a box. Buber describes this phenomenon eloquently:
“He who enters on the absolute relation is concerned with
nothing isolated any more, neither things nor beings, neither earth nor heaven;
but everything is gathered up in the relation. For to step into pure relation
is not to disregard everything but to see everything in the Thou, not to renounce the world but to
establish it on its true basis. To look away from the world, or to stare at it,
does not help a man to reach God; but he who sees the world in Him stands in His
presence. ‘Here world, there God’ is the language of It; ‘God in the world’ is another language of It;…but to…include the whole world in the Thou…this is full and complete relation….
“Of course God is the ‘wholly Other’; but He is also the
wholly Same, the wholly Present. Of course He is the Mysterium Tremendum that appears and overthrows; but He is also the
mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.
“If you explore the life of things and of conditioned being
you come to the unfathomable, if you deny the life of things and of conditioned
being you stand before nothingness, if you hallow this life you meet the living
God.” (80-81)
Because of this, Buber describes the practice of the I-Thou
relation as prayer. “Two great servants pace through the ages, prayer and
sacrifice. The man who prays pours himself out in unrestrained dependence, and knows
that he has—in an incomprehensible way—an effect upon God, even though he
obtains nothing from God…” (83)
Notice that the I-Thou
relation is distinct from the idea of absorption. There is a sense of Otherness
to the giving-and-receiving unity. Buber cites Jesus’ words in the Gospel of
John when Jesus refers to Himself as the “Son of the Father” while also saying “I
am Thou and Thou art I.” “The Father and the Son, like in being…are the
indissolubly real pair, the bearers of the primal relation, which from God to
man is termed mission and command, from man to God looking and hearing, and
between both is termed knowledge and love. In this relation the Son, though the
Father dwells and works in him, bows down before the ‘greater’ and prays to
him.” (85)
The two are distinct, yet one in relation. The Father and
Son form a single word; in Buber’s grammar that word is I-Thou.
It is what we long for: a world in which people and things
can be distinct and free but one in love. PlayFull describes this metaphysical
aspiration as play. It is why we do what we do, to help people relinquish the
desire to make Its of Thous, to play together. It is why our
mission states we want to help others “play from the inside-out”—for play is
ultimately a process of the heart.
……………………………………
Quotations above are from:
Buber, Martin. I and Thou
(New York, Scribner: 1986)
