Thread by @ZoharAtkins

Time for a @threadapalooza on Martin Buber (1878-1965), philosopher, theologian, sociologist, translator, novelist, mystic, and romantic. Buber would not be on Twitter, seeing it as a degraded form of relationship and emblematic of what he called "the Eclipse of God."

An existential and spiritual crisis in his youth led him to break from his family's rabbinic lineage (which, according to lore, traces back to King David) to become an "enlightened" scholar. 2

But Buber, over his life, cannot be easily placed in either the religious or secular camp, and is a useful thinker, even when he is wrong (or over-zealous), for causing us to rethink the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. 3

Unlike many who left religious tradition for European culture, Buber maintained a committed fascination with his own tradition, and not just as a disinterested anthropologist. His translations of Hasidic tales and of the Hebrew Bible reflect an attempt at renewal. 4

As with any great thinker, Buber's work embodies paradoxes. In his case, he leans more towards the universal than the particular, and yet, and yet, Buber reveled in folklore, especially that of Judaism. (Though he also translated selections of Taoist Classics.) 5

Buber is most famous, and rightfully so, for his concept of "I and Thou," published nearly 100 years ago. 6

Buber's view is extreme: so long as we relate to people as concepts in our head, so long as we relate to them in terms of their physicality, or in terms of the information they give us, we aren't "encountering them." 7

So much of our interactions fail to be "encounters." What we might call "soul-to-soul" interactions. Instead it's my ego connecting to you as an object for my ego to judge and evaluate. 8

Buber goes further: as long as I'm perceiving you on the axis of time and space, you're just cognitive information for me to take in. (He develops this idea out of Kant). 9

For Kant, the problem is human freedom in a seemingly mechanistic world; the world is just matter, how can it have meaning, agency, morality, purpose? 10

For Kant, the answer is that the phenomenal world is only the world as it appears, but within or 'behind' this apparent world is another world, the noumenal world. The noumenal realm is not necessarily other than the phenomenal one, but it's not reducible to it, either. 11

Likewise, for Buber, our relationships take place within the confines of mental models, power dynamics, psychology, all kinds of motivations and ideologies, explicit and implicit, but genuine relationship is not reducible to these. 12

The I-Thou relation is an instantiation of the noumenal world, or else, a portal to it. Transcendence is be found encounter with another person. 13

Buber did not limit the I-Thou to relationships with other people. Presumably, I can have an I Thou relationship with God, with myself, with horses, and perhaps even with plants, stones, buildings, my cup of tea. 14

Though if you spread it out, you potentially empty the concept of its power. Either human relationships are special or they are not. Humanism risks arrogance; anti-humanism risks dehumanization. 15

Walter Kaufmann had generally critical things to say about Buber: "Buber mistook emotional stirrings for revelation.” 16

One problem that arises from Buber's assertion of the I-Thou is epistemological. How do I know that I'm having an I-Thou relation? Does the other person need to know, confirm, consent? If the I-Thou relation precedes language and knowledge, consent is irrelevant, post-hoc. 17

Practically, this certainly lends itself to abuse, to a lack of accountability. Yet once we are in the world of data, measurement, accountability, fact checking, we're in I-It world. The radicalism of Buber's I-Thou is that it is not subject to analysis. Ok, then. 18

And, we should never reduce a thinker's thought to her life, but anecdotally, Buber was not considered an easy person to work or interact with. The oracle of dialogue was not necessarily a master of reciprocity. So it goes. 19

If I recall correctly, I believe he and Hermann Cohen even got in a spat over who originated (and therefore deserved credit) for certain concepts related to I-Thou. Sigh. 20

But here's the charitable read: the philosopher is a "wounded healer" (Jung); she argues for that which she herself needs to learn most. Buber knew the importance of dialogue precisely because he was so prone to bombastic monologue. 21

Another criticism of I and Thou is that it's too absolutist in its distinction between the world of objectification and the world of pure encounter. Buber's friend and co-translator launched this criticism at him. 22

In contemporary speak, the Buberian ideal diminishes and ignores the stuff we bring to relationships, telling us to set them aside. 23

One of the great questions in contemporary culture, especially at universities, is the value of "civil discourse." 24

One common criticism of civil discourse is that its veneer of neutrality benefits the powerful (unfairly). You could make the same critique of Buber. I-Thou is easy or easier for those with power, "privilege." 25

The downtrodden who seek recognition and who are often objectified have no choice but to objectify themselves and others, in turn. 26

Another, related critique, has little to do with the issue of power, but is the one Michael Sandel makes of Rawls. Call this a communitarian critique. 27

For Sandel, we can't and shouldn't stand behind a veil of ignorance, because we'd have no ability to judge anything if we gave up all our priors. "There is no unencumbered self." We need our baggage, our culture, our psyche, to judge in the first place. 28

So, what is the content of I-Thou? It seems so empty as to be meaningless, useless. If there is content, then it's I-It, but without content what makes the relationship unique or special? 29

As far as application goes, it's unclear what a method of I-Thou involves. It's one of those things that sounds amazing, but that, like "revolution" doesn't usually turn out so great. 30

This said, I love I-Thou for many reasons. And we owe Buber a major debt of gratitude for it even if his sketch is crude. 31

First, Buber puts on the table the ideal of relating to others in ways that are maximally charitable. He does this neither because of self-interest nor altruism, but because of "authenticity." 32

What I mean is Buber grasps that selfhood is neither individual to the point of anti-social, yet nor is it but a flash in the pan of the collective. 33

The problem of how to be a healthy self, and especially one in modernity, is one of THE questions. 34

The Cartesian-Lockeian subject leaves society to stay in the forty acres of its own mind, taking refuge in the certainty that it can't doubt itself. 35

The Communist and Nationalist Socialist movements of 20th century went in the opposite direction, making the subject a mere ingredient in the whole (the classless society or the nation-state). 36

Buber sought a middle-way. And politically, he came to support bi-nationalist Zionism (now, basically, a lost, if not massively unpopular cause). 37

But another way to say it is that Buber was against political or state solutions to the human condition, understanding politics mostly to be an emergent property of relationships. 38

Said in its best light, society is going to suck, no matter who rules and no matter what form of government, so long as our relationships suck. 39

Buber's I-Thou project is "utopian." And perhaps the problems we have with it are no different than we would have with any project that seeks to be comprehensive. 40

But Buber was aware of the problem of utopianism, and there's another reading of him that sees him as humble or skeptical. I-Thou isn't a method, because methodology can always go awry, too, can became too stultified. He wanted to leave things maximally open. 41

Buber does not have a progressive or regressive view of history, but a cyclical one. Things degrade over time, but can also be renewed. The messianic future is not guaranteed by any march of progress, but is a constant possibility that can arrive suddenly. 42

He believed there was a living truth to Judaism, but he also believed it had decayed. His own work is an attempt (yes, a grandiose one, indeed) to bring it back to life. 43

So Buber is anti-traditional in that precedent is not itself authoritative. But he is traditional in his respect for the ancients as torch bearers of a fragile flame. 44

To the extent that he doesn't think he is doing anything new, but rather reinvigorating that which is dormant, I-Thou is not a modern idea, for Buber; rather, it's a way of relating to the inner truth of Judaism, the essence of which is "dialogue." 45

Is Judaism unique in its discovery of I-Thou? No, I don't think so. Many ancients knew it, including the philosophers, or at least, the pre-Socratics. 46

For the original wise ones, metaphysics, ethics, and politics were one, but not in a top-down systematic way, rather they emerged organically within the life of people in community with one another. 47

Just as Buber distinguishes between I-It and I-Thou he distinguishes between society which is mechanical and anonymous and community which is organic and (inter)personal. 48

We find a similar distinction in Merleau-Ponty, between corpse and flesh. Körper is the body qua material thing; fleisch is the body qua lived and feeling thing. 49

Put monistically: it's one body, but has two modes of being. Likewise, it's one society, but two modes of being. One relationship, but two ways of being. 50

Put dualistically, we have to choose: community as against society, authentic relationships over fake ones. 51

Buber's rhetoric lends itself to either interpretation. 52

Fwiw, I think the dualistic view of Buber is bad, "idealistic" in its inability to realize its goals in life as lived. I prefer the compromise between I-It and I-Thou to the assertion of an either-or. 53

But when viewed as a spectrum, there is no doubt that our world could use less objectification of self and other. 54

If you apply Buber's logic dualistically you come to a stance that is hostile to the world, and to the world of science, tech, and epistemology. 55

If you apply it monistically, he's offering a welcome correction to an over-emphasis on the valid, the reasonable, the useful, the repeatable, the scaleable, the empirical. 56

I like the Jewish-Biblical idea that six days away we work, and on the seventh day we rest. So, for me, if we can get to a proportion of I-Thou to I-It of 1/7, I think that's wonderful. 67

To rif on the Talmud, if everyone kept I-Thou relations 1/7th of the time, we'd see a dramatic increase in our collective wellbeing. 58

But decidedly this should not require us to go to new age workshops and practice gazing meditation. I-Thou relations are not some and should not be seen as some weird form of forced intimacy. 59

Buber himself acknowledges that the Other can be a You only by virtue of maintaining a kind of distance. So we shouldn't prescribe I-Thou relations to look a certain way, nor should we eroticize them. I mention this because there is a tendency to do this. 60

Buber shares a lot in common with Heidegger, despite an understandably ambivalent relationship to him. 61

Both think modernity has overstepped; both think the way forward is a recuperation but not a repetition of a tradition that has been lost. Both take fallenness and alienation to be impossible to overcome. 62

Both try to find a way around the problem of subject-object dualism and "representational thinking" without becoming anti-rationalist. Both reject religious fundamentalism but are unhappy with secular fundamentalism. 63

Both are accused of relativism, mysticism and obscurantism. 64

Both left religion, but remained connected to the reading of religious texts. 65

You could argue that Buber's fondness for Hasidic stories is volkisch in the same way that Heidegger takes an interest in writers like Hebel and Eckhart. 66

Both sought dialogue with "the East" and maintained an interest in Taoism. 67

But the core difference comes down to the value that Buber places on dialogue. (Heidegger, btw, wrote philosophical dialogues.) For Buber, dialogue is THE authentic mode of being. For Heidegger, dialogue is important, but not fundamental. 68

It's true that for Heidegger, being-with-others is part of the structure of existing, but encountering others in the way Buber describes is not the goal of being here, nor is it the best way to be. 69

Both Buber and Heidegger reject Cartesian "subjectivism," but their emphasis is different. Authentic relationships are good, for Heidegger, but I can't have them unless I am first of all authentic to myself. 70

For Buber, I am either in authentic relationship with the other, or I am not. This is the primary axis on which everything turns. 71

In his critique of Kierkegaard, who nevertheless influenced him greatly, Buber suggests SK was too solipsistic, too committed to individualism and conscience at the expense of everything else. We could just as well substitute in Heidegger for Kierkegaard. 72

For Buber, the wheel is relationship and the self is a spoke. For Heidegger the wheel is Dasein and relationship is a spoke. While I don't think they are quite opposite, they go in different directions. 73

At its worst, Heidegger's existentialism lends itself to cold self-reliance; at its worst Buber's lends itself to boundary less mush in which I eat the other or am eaten by the other all in the name of "I-Thou." 74

Levinas, it seems to me, is an attempt to find a middle ground between Buber and Heidegger; like Buber, the other is primary, but like Heidegger, he doubts Buber's single-pointed romanticism. 75

For Levinas, the goal is not mutuality or reciprocity but service; I am beneath the Other, whereas for Buber I am his or her equal or counterpart. For Buber, dialogue is equalizing; for Levinas ethics is humbling. 76

Oddly, Levinas's Other is much closer to Heidegger's Being than it is to Buber's "Thou." 77

Though he won't say it, for Levinas, Buber's ethics are worse than Heidegger's apparent indifference to ethics. For at least in Heidegger there's a humility about the self whereas Buber thinks the self can instantiate a redemptive relationship. 78

This makes sense: Buber is a Hasid who thinks God is immanent. Levinas is a Litvak for whom God is distant. While Buber bemoans the eclipse of God, for Levinas, God was always eclipsed. That is the nature of alterity. The problem is in thinking God is close when God isn't. 79

Buber is also fruitfully compared to Leo Strauss. 80

Strauss thought there was a fundamental conflict between reason and revelation, but Buber seems to dodge the question. I-Thou was meant to overcome the divide between philosophy and theology, but most don't think it did. 81

Buber is a kind of patron saint to liberal religionists and to "The spiritual but not religious" crowd. Why? 82

Because he gutted the law from his view of Judaism and maintained the Christian prejudice that Judaism had largely become the observance of a "dead letter."83

His use of Hasidism helps underwrite his own sense that the authentic Judaism is one devoted to God, but not to law (antinomianism). Strauss would reject this view of Judaism. 84

Much like Buber romanticizes I-Thou, stripping it of content, he romanticizes both Judaism and Hasidism, making them in the image of his Protestant (liberal), Kierkegaardian ideal. Buber makes the law a footnote. In so doing he erases the conflict between Athens & Jerusalem. 85

Yet Buber and Strauss share a belief in a cultural vanguard; for Strauss the philosophers keep the truth alive; for Buber, the spiritual masters do. Both think tradition needs to be saved from calcification, even if the tools they use diverge. 86

Heidegger, Buber, and Levinas all think philosophy goes astray when it becomes too attached to its own system, its answers, its representations. All also wrote systematically, yet employed strategies to undermine themselves. 87

Strauss, likewise distinguishes the philosopher from the sectarian; the philosopher is a seeker, not a problem solver. 88

But for Strauss, philosophy concerns itself with problems of thought, while for Buber, the task is not how to think, but how to be. His position is, at least rhetorically, anti-philosophical. 89

We find flirtation with anti-philosophy in Heidegger and Levinas, but they still thought that thought was important. Thoughtlessness was not just a professional fault, but a human one. 90

I agree with Buber that we need more dialogue, more good, authentic, meaningful, dialogue. 91

But I am skeptical that dialogue should be privileged as the highest form of being. I am skeptical that dialogue, conceived as an end in itself, is going to bring the end of history. I believe Buber was naive in describing dialogue in abstraction. 92

I do not share Buber's perennialism, his belief in one truth underlying all systems of thought and religion. 93

I believe Buber's ommissions are interrelated and that his view of Judaism is uncharitable to the spirituality, wisdom, and ethics that can be found within a law-based culture. That his view of Hasidism and Taosim likely flattens both. But! T94

Buber is right that information is not enough; that encounter is at the heart of both religious experience and human experience; that rule based ethics without encounter can be dystopian in their own way. 95

I believe our world would be better if we did not let our principles completely obstruct our capacity to encounter people who are different than us, including in the way they think, see and judge. 96

I believe Buber makes a compelling case for the basic importance of diversity as a way of life; not diversity in the casual, superficial sense, but in the ontological sense: only the other as other can stupefy us, can correct our narcissism. 97

For those of us who can not go back to before the Enlightenment, but who are not happy to accept the Enlightenment as the be all and end all, Buber is a hero, if a tragic one. 98

Buber teaches us to find the living spirit in what we've been given, not to rest on our conclusions. The good life isn't good if it's not surprised, open to disruption and revision. 99

While Socrates saw dialogue as the best technology for gaining knowledge, Buber saw it as the best medium for "revelation." Buber expands our reasons for welcoming the voice of the other. The other is not just an instrument for self-betterment, but a divine site.

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