Reflections on I-Thou, -You & -It

About 75 years ago a Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, wrote a book whose title has been translated into English as, "I and Thou." In it (which I would only recommend if you like dense, scholarly books) Dr. Buber wrote about human relationships. In fact, Scott Peck ( who "turned me on" to Martin!) believed that this work by Buber was "...one of the most important books ever written on the subject of human relationships - organizational behavior - in general and on the subject of human narcissism in particular." He even went on the record in one of his books to state that belief.

Well, Scotty was sometimes known to speak in hyperbole but, in this case, I don't think that was the case. I knew Scotty for about twenty years and was president of his nonprofit organization for a portion of that time. When he was writing "A World Waiting To Be Born" in the early 1990s, he suggested I read Buber for a deeper perspective on how community building and civility are interwoven.

It was a further "opening" on my personal journey of wholeness. Let's see, how many years did it take me to read that Buber book...?! Thank God, Scotty gave the crib notes in Chapter Five of the book mentioned above.

The reason I am mentioning ANY of this right now is that I've been reflecting on whether what Buber had to say about relationships actually provides some insight into what we are seeing in Washington, D.C. and, I guess, across the country right now - including prisons? Remember, this blog is about the P,Q,Rs.

Let me start with the people housed in prisons - a population of whom I have had the opportunity to rub shoulders over the last almost ten years. The current thinking on the personality traits of criminals describes them has having a criminogenic mindset. One aspect of that mental condition connects to an emotion - empathy. See, it's better for someone that commits a crime that they not really "see" their victim as a person at all. It's extremely difficult to care about one's victim and still commit a crime against them. So, what does this have to do with Buber, Bill? Good question.

Buber writes about different ways to relate to another person. The closest of those types of relationships would be that of a beloved - a mother, father, spouse, son, daughter,etc - a thou in Buber's parlance. Most of us have few of these types of relationships, rightly so. They take a good deal of time and intention. Most of our relationships tend to be more I-You. That is, I see you as different - distinct - from me.

But, should I lose sight of the humanity of another just because I view them as apart - other -from me, they can become an It to me. They move from simply being distinct from me to being something of lesser value; an It is something I might choose to use (my car, for example, since I do not, as I have known some to do, name it!) but it is not on an equal footing with my existence. A person with a criminogenic personality would very likely have many more people within their world who were seen in an I-It relationship.

In my lifetime I have noted how people-groups will sometimes establish I-It relationships with other groups of people, usually with serious outcomes (think Hutu and Tutsi). I'm not a sociologist, nor the son of one, but I did study propoganda as part of my communications degree and know how labeling can be used to dehumanize others. It's only a short step from there to seeing monsters where once there were people.

So, I'm wondering if what I observe happening in our public political discourse isn't something different from what some have labeled partisanship? Could it be something more destructive? And is what I'm seeing just a natural progression coming from the "collateral damage" vocabulary of the military or the "faceless numbers" losing their jobs today in the U.S. economy? Are we losing our civility toward one another? Why does this matter? Because civility and civilization come from the same Latin root. We can't lose the one without having it deeply affect the other.