I and Thou

In the Spring of 1959, I faced a dilemma.

I was in my senior year at Jonathan Dayton Regional High School in Springfield, New Jersey.  The previous two years I had been a member of the school’s track team.  I ran the sprints—fifty-yard and one-hundred-yard dashes—and occasionally had come in third place. This was now my last year and my last chance to earn a coveted letter in track. 

That Spring I was also taking an elective course called the Religions of the Far East. I quite enjoyed it. This course required that I read a book related to our subject and to write a paper on the book. I had no idea what book to read. The teacher of the course could not recommend a book either.

I turned to Fred Paddock, the youth minister for our church. Fred was working on a PhD. in Philosophy at Drew University in Chatham, New Jersey. Fred always talked about the most fascinating things and he helped me realize that there was a world of ideas out there for me to discover. I told him about my assignment and asked if he could recommend a book. He said he would think about it.

The next week Fred handed me a thin book and said, “Here, read this.” The book in my hand was Martin Buber’s I and Thou. As I glanced through the pages I had a quick sense of a whole new world I would be entering. This was unlike any book I had read before.  It pulled me in and demanded that I take it seriously.  I would not have time to both go out for track and to write a thoughtful paper on I and Thou. I had to choose:  Track or Martin Buber.

Buber won.

And I immersed myself in my first “spiritual” book.

That was 64 years ago. I have not revisited my work since I wrote it and, foolishly, I discarded my paper some 20 years ago. In looking back over Buber’s book, I am astonished now to realize the parallels between this website and what Buber’s had written. It is almost as if Buber had given me a roadmap for my own journey.

Introducing Martin Buber

The attitude of man is twofold
in accordance with (his) twofold nature.
This is reflected in the primary words he uses.

The one primary word is the combination “I — Thou”.
The other is the combination “I — It”

The “I” of the primary word “I — Thou” is different
than the “I” of the primary word “I — It”

To man the world is twofold
in accordance with his two-fold nature.
The attitude of man is (also) twofold
in accordance with (his) twofold nature.

(This is reflected in the primary words he uses.)
The one primary word is the combination “I — Thou”.
The other is the combination “I — It”
The “I” of the primary word “I — Thou” is different
than the “I” of the primary word “I — It.”

—Martin Buber “I and Thou,” (1927) p3

In doing some research online, I found a website called SparkNotes that provides us with a handy overview of Buber’s I and Thou.

“The first part of the book examines the human condition by exploring the psychology of individual man. Here Buber establishes his crucial first premise: that man has two distinct ways of engaging the world, one of which (I and Thou) the modern age entirely ignores.”

In the second part of the book, Buber examines human life on the societal level. He investigates both society itself and man as he exists within society. In this section, Buber claims that modern society leaves man unfulfilled and alienated because it acknowledges only one of our modes for engaging the world (“I–It”). 

The third part of the book deals with the subject of religion. Building on the conclusions of the first two sections—that man has two ways of engaging the world, and that modern society leaves man alienated by valuing only the first of these—Buber tells us how to go about building a fulfilling, meaningful society (a true community) by making proper use of the neglected second mode of engaging the world, and by using this mode to relate to God.

Let us now integrate Buber’s earlier work into what we have been talking about:

What Buber called “I — It” relationships we are calling The Way of the Head

and

I — Thou” relationships we are calling The Way of the Heart.

Two Types of Relationships

I — It

The Way of the Head

In these relationships we focus on the external characteristics of the other.

What Is this? What does it look like? What does it sound like? How does this fit into logical or scientific categories? Where does this fit in to the social and cultural systems that I belong to? The focus is not to understand the thing itself but simply to establish how the thing—or person—fits into my world.

I — Thou

The Way of the Heart

The Way of the Heart opens us to I — Thou Relationships. These relationships open up space between me and Thee where we can explore avenues of reality that lie outside of our sensate world.

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