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‘The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life. Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance. Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty. The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life. He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy. If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change. In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.
In our relationships to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship. The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. The greatest limitation for man is the "self"; it is manifested in the experience: “I am only that!” Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently as limited and eternal, as both the one and the other. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination – that is, ultimately limited – we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!’
Every genuine I-Thou relation – whether it be with a lover, a tree or a dog – has the Divine latent within it: ‘In every sphere, through everything that becomes present to us, we gaze toward the train of the eternal You; in each we perceive a breath of it; in every You we address the eternal You…'
To be objective is to turn all things into objects; to hold them at arm’s length; to turn them like a diamond and see every exterior facet, yet never know their inner worth; to treat others like an object to be used, like pounds of flesh to be sexualised, taken or devoured; to reduce your fellow human to atoms, marrow and bone then turn that scalpel back upon yourself; to dissect unto death the life you were meant to live. There is, indeed, an obvious link between objectifying and being objective, a perilous coupling to which Martin Buber, the renowned Jewish philosopher, objected.
Tired of seeing reality reduced to objects – ‘I-It’ relations – Martin Buber advocated a return to a mutual, intimate and relational way of seeing others and the world, which he termed ‘I-Thou’ relations. This notion exploded through his most famous work, I and Thou, published in 1923 and translated into English in 1937, just in time for arguably the greatest mass objectification of humans in history. After Hitler rose to power, Buber resigned from his Frankfurt professorship in protest, moved to Jerusalem in 1938 and became a professor at Hebrew University. Nominated for numerous Nobel Prizes, Buber became a prominent voice in contemporary thought, with his seminal book I and Thou still occupying the shelf of nearly every philosophy student today.
When I treat others as objects or things – as ‘Its’ – this is called an I-It relation. In so doing, I treat others as a means to an end, projecting my own needs and beliefs onto them, rather than seeing them as they are in and of themselves. Since they are a projection of myself, I only see what makes sense to me and fits into my preconceptions, reducing the mystery of personhood to what is ‘describable, analysable, [and] classifiable.’ We can also have I-It relations with nature when we abuse it for the sake of human progress or when we try to fit it into our conceptual box, imposing abstract and scientific categories onto utterly unique and mysterious creations (for example, no tree is exactly the same as any other and so the very category of ‘tree’, while useful, undermines our ability to see the individual tree before us in all its unique glory). We eventually fall prey to our own objectifying gaze, seeing even ourselves as material things instead of as personal and unique ‘I's: ‘He treats himself, too, as an It.’
In contrast, we occasionally have glimmers of an I-Thou relation breaking through ‘the crust of thinghood.’ This occurs when we stop thinking of others in terms of their use or value to us and enter into a mutual relation with them, where both sides are upheld in their separate identity and worth yet are also connected through the intimacy of relation. We stop analysing or predicting what others will do based upon their past actions (that is, as if they were an object or a billiard ball stuck on its trajectory), and instead live in the present, allowing the unexpected to surprise, delight and emerge. In ceasing to see others and the world as mere objects for our use or scrutiny, we thereby leave behind the realm of the strictly rational, entering into a mysterious relation that transcends the constraints of time, space and objects. Yet this is not a flight from reality but a different way of living and seeing reality, imbuing the everyday with relations instead of things, and intimacy instead of objects. Precisely because this way of living is beyond our control or analysis, most of us are uncomfortable living this way for long, quickly fleeing the ‘unreliable, unsolid, unlasting, unpredictable, dangerous world of relation [back] into the having of things.’ The ‘You-world radiated from the ground for the length of one glance, and now its light has died back into the It-world.’
For Buber, God can only be known through an I-Thou relationship. God is outside of time and space, so as soon as we attempt to treat him like an object within time and space, we immediately lose sight of him. The ‘eternal You cannot become an It… Woe unto the possessed who fancy that they possess God!’ God cannot be analysed, ‘asserted’, or rationally ‘inferred’ but can only be met and ‘addressed’ as a personal You. While we can treat others as things and others can treat us as things, God is the only You that never wavers nor drops his side of the I-Thou bargain: ‘Only one You never ceases, in accordance with its nature to be You for us… Only we are not always there.’ Even when we are not present to God, God is present to us.
While Buber did not invent the language of objectification, he certainly helped solidify its place in contemporary society, with everyday language now including such phrases as ‘using others’, ‘don’t objectify me’, and ‘I’m not just your toy or plaything.’ Many find that Buber provides them with a helpful vocabulary to articulate the value of personhood and relationship. Yet beyond the social sphere, Buber also crafted an alternate lens through which to view nature and God, providing a counternarrative to the objectifying scalpel of the sciences, as well as the attempt to prove or disprove God – as if he were an object that could be pointed to, replicated or tossed aside. Those looking for a philosophically rigorous yet unusually intimate way of seeing humanity, faith and the cosmos might find Buber a helpful guide.
Translation Copyright © 1970 Charles Scribner’s Sons. Introduction Copyright © 1970 Walter Kaufmann.
