Chapter Learning Outcomes:

• To become more open during our interviews
• Become more self-authoring and assume more responsibility for how we address the world
• Consider ways to step into and deepen our relationships (and speak Thou)
• Understand how to deepen our spirituality by speaking Thou to others and God more frequently

Martin Buber's I and Thou can be a challenging and esoteric text.  Please remember that my job is to challenge you a bit.  I view the role of an educator a bit like Plato in his allegory of the cave. 

As the liberator unchains captives and forces them to leave the cave, they are dragged "by force up the ascent which is rough and steep, and not let go" in order to experience a blinding, new world.  Plato describes that it is "painful to be so haled along."  Yikes! Does this remind you about some of the courses you have taken over the years?  Fortunately, in this allegory, as one endures the new world and tries to look around, one can gradually experience a broader world. 

What do you do when you encounter challenging material that you don't understand?  If you are like me, then Google it, baby! Fortunately, YouTube "university" can help us get past Martin Buber's difficult writing style and also help me connect our new dishwasher.  Here is a nice video called “Buber in 10 minutes” by my friend and colleague Eric Dodson that should help.  We will watch and discuss this video in class: 

By the way, Eric Dodson has some interesting videos inspired by the ideas of existential philosophers.  Check out his videos like this one, that summarize the ideas of a great thinker in 10 minutes.  Here is his channel: https://books.byui.edu/-mpHg

Two Ways of Speaking

There are two-word pair modalities of addressing others: I-it and I-Thou (also translated as I-You)

Martin Buber’s I and Thou is considered dialogal or dialogical because it is about how we address and speak to the world. Although he speaks of addressing the world, it is easiest to think of this in terms of how we address one another. Buber is explicitly theistic and discusses how we speak to God; here his Hebrew/Judaic background offers an interesting and insightful perspective about addressing and relating with God.

The Eternal Thou

“…if you hallow this life, you meet the living God.”

“The Eternal Thou is where lines of relationship meet, The Center, The Countenance, The Face

Tetragrammaton YHWH, the four letters of God’s Name that are ineffable (“indescribable, inexpressible”) The tetragrammaton is a way of naming God by not naming God.

According to Buber, every time you say Thou you are indirectly addressing God, which is a provocative idea. If you think yourself Godly but don’t speak Thou, you are not Godly. If atheistic, doubting, or unsure but speaking Thou all the time, then you are more Godly than hollow theists. This importance of having a deeper spirituality is clear when we consider the scribes and Pharisees.¹ If we think we are special to God, we are tempted to believe that we are better than others.

We can address God as a Thou or objectify God, but an overly externalized “God is all” or overly internalized “God is within you” miss the mark. Buber writes how, “You need God in order to be, and God needs you- for that which is the meaning of your life.”

The customary Zulu greeting and reply begins with Sawubona, which means, “I see you my sister or brother.” The reply Ngikhona is translated as “I am here [because of you] my sister or brother." Consider moments when you have really seen another. Sometimes others are right in front of us, but they are hidden behind the conventions of norms, the structure of roles, and our own prior ideas and expectations about them. As a result, we often do not really see the individuals around us.

For Buber, the relationship is about the in-between, not something external or internal. Buber uses terms like “using” to refer to external manipulation of the other. Buber uses the counterintuitive term “experience” to refer to mere internal, subjective “ideas” and “contents” about the other. Both using and merely experiencing others are part of speaking it. Speaking Thou involves a genuine meeting, in which the two are wholly present in the exchange, which changes both. The I-Thou relationship/experience is not something that you “have”; “Whoever says Thou does not have something; he has nothing.” It is not something that you do and not entirely something that is done to you. The I-Thou involves will and grace, election and electing. It is both passive and active. There is an element of giveness that one must step into.

As you consider the question, “Does anyone ever truly “get” you?” you might sense how rare this experience is. Thus, most of our relationships with the world and others involve I-it and I-Thou is rare. Eric Dodson describes how “I-it is the common currency of human affairs... Most of our interactions involve judgments mistaken for understanding.”

I-it and I-Thou apply to others and the world.  All art and creativity are about speaking Thou. Consider a relationship with nature that involves speaking it and speaking Thou?

Thou speaking requires vulnerability. When you really see someone they can see you. Perceiving a real presence requires a real presence, vulnerability. Control projects to stay safe etc. prevents Thou

He speculates about the possibility of the return that involves calling the I-it what it is.

Developmental Considerations

We are born as children into a state of Thou. Our autochthony (from Greek for Self and Soil), meaning natural, original habitation is the Thou. Children are often in the I and Thou. They then develop appropriate distance and understandings about how to usefully interact with other things. Humans are destined to close their perceptions… become more competent, but become more blind.

In some ways, phenomenology aims at a return to such raw openness. Likewise, to increase Thou-saying involves recovering something that was lost.

Discussion Questions

1. Have you ever had an experience in which you perceived another person as if for the first time? Perhaps, this person was part of your life, but they were in some ways distant or foreign to you until this moment. What was this experience like for you?
2. So-called primitive cultures are more Thou-speaking than developed cultures. Buber argues that there has been a tremendous proliferation of the I-it relation through industrialization, materialism, technology, science, education, politics, work, music and even art. Where have you seen the proliferation of I-it relationships with the world and others?