Thought Piece - Connecting Isaiah to Buber

The prologue to Martin Buber’s I and Thou, written by Walter Kaufman, provided a very unique background to understanding Buber. Kaufman includes a Biblical chapter from Isaiah: “When you come to appear before me, who requires of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no vain...defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (Buber, 1970, pp. 28-29). Considering Buber’s need of an omnipresent Being, this quote provided a great example of what Buber might deem too little in understanding how God is self-actualized in man. Specifically, the last few lines: “...cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow” (p. 29).

I love this thought. With Buber, my understanding with him is that God is in everything, therefore man has a unique relationship with Him. But how is this made present to us? By reading a chapter from the Christian Bible! Basically, God is only known to each of us through our unique relationship with Him. It very subtly eliminates organized religion, provides a self-aware sense of commitment to a higher being, and potentially gives man a cause to live. As a Catholic/Christian, I love the combination of philosophy with religious actualization.

That is my likeness to my life: the realization that I can understand Buber more fully by connecting it to my own knowledge of Christianity. While not written by Buber of course, I still think how Kaufman connects this passage from Isaiah to religious self-transcendentalism is fascinating.

Part of me wonders where Kaufman thought to use Isaiah from. Buber (1970) said: “But as surely as God embraces us and dwells in us, we never have him within. And we speak to him only when all speech has ceased within” (pp. 152-153). Perhaps as a way back to understanding an omnipresent God, man must (as Isaiah says) to cease evil, do good, seek justice, etc. My understanding of Buber is simple: we talk to God mostly when we fail to do as Isaiah says. When that point happens, man learns again to talk to God and see Him as an omnipresent being.

Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. Touchstone: New York, NY.

Martin Buber & Religion

For Martin Buber, God is the “Eternal Thou.” Hasidic Judaism teaches God as being omnipresent, with Friedman (1955) describing God as “Absolute Person, a Being which becomes Person in order to know and be known, to love and loved by man” (p. 267). “God creates people so that He could personally converse with them” (Buber, 1952). Buber’s use of religious references in his texts acknowledges his belief that God exists in everything according to how they can best use Him. Buber preferred the religious over philosophy, on the grounds that religion addresses the whole being, whereas philosophy fragments it.

The fragmentation of a man’s soul cannot be done by self-transcendence: to understand the I of the I-Thou relationship, man understands that God is known only by His relation to man. How else better to accomplish this than to follow the words found within the Christian faith? In Two Types of Faith (1955), Buber explains the messianism of Jesus, who he greatly respected but yet did not consider divine. To Buber, Jesus’s faith is similar to the Hebrew term emunah, which advocates a faith in God’s continual presence in the life of each person. Also, Buber’s interpretation of the Bible (for example) postulates that the book is a history of God’s relation to man, from the perspective of man. The use of religious terms in Buber’s writings reflect his advocacy for Zionism in everyday life. Man creates his self by understanding the I-Thou relationship between himself and God.

"You are not an object for men like this, not a thing to be used or experienced, not an object of interest or fascination. The point is not at all that you are found interesting or fascinating instead of being seen as a fellow I." (Martin Buber, I AND THOU 1970 p.g 11) A quote that stuck out to me, I haven't gotten to read the full book on Martin Buber, but a interesting person. He provided a literal perspective on direct relationships with God. Now we can say that God carries his absoluteness into his relationship with man kind.  Many believers altogether have a understanding that the conversation with God should flow as any with a friend. Buber "God address to man the events in all our lives and all the events in th world arond us, everything biographical and everything historical, and turns it into instruction,* into demands for you and me." (Martin Buber)

Integrating identity and respect into the classroom: Llardo, Buber, and Me

As a relatively new teacher, I am still trying to balance the relatively complex aspects of this new job, making Lladro’s (1972) statement that “it is that teachers of interpersonal communication are engaged in the conduct of a sort of therapy which has arisen in response to the needs resulting from the fact that we are living in an age of transition, an age of anxiety” (p. 5) all the more poignant. I have already, in my first semester, found myself acting as a mentor to my students – having to offer life advice and support. It is a role that many teachers never choose to take (and one that I myself never had with a professor). Buber (2000) stated that “as experience, the world belongs to the primary word I-It. The primary word I-Thou establishes the world of relation” (p. 5), explaining my problems with the traditional educational system – it is primarily one described as one that used the “banking method” – where the teachers view the students as accounts waiting to be filled with knowledge. I try to teach using an I-Thou relationship with my students, one where I have a relationship with my students where we see and regard each other as individuals, as people with personalities and with needs. This means that I spent extra time planning for lessons, emailing students, and assuaging people’s fears. However, I’ve found this to be an infinitely more rewarding relationship. I received two separate thank you notes last semester from students. Apparently, treating my students as actual people not only ensures that I receive good teaching evaluations and that they have higher learning motivation, but I believe that it is what helped to keep disrespectful talking/texting behaviors out of the classroom. By respecting my students and by treating them as people with significant problems, issues and identities, I think that they in turn recognized that I was a person as well. Instead of being a faceless educator at the front of the room of faceless students, we saw each other as worthwhile people.

Buber and Bailey...Will we ever learn our lesson?

"...love does not cling to an I, as if You were merely its "content" or object; it is between I and You" (Buber, 1970, p. 66)

Bailey (2003) describes in his novel "Slowing down to the speed of love: How to create a deeper, more fulfilling relationship in a hurried world" that love cannot truly exist without first existing within ones self. The author argues it is only, essentially, upon accepting ones self that one can begin to be loved by others.

Both Buber and Bailey focus on the interaction between two. Though they each take a distinct approach to the conversation of love and others, both advocate strongly that it is a difficult process to achieve a true connection. Furthermore, each places extensive emphasis on the need to maintain focus on creating relationships. It is only upon making a relationship a priority can that relationship, whether with a lover, a friend, a tree, or a stranger, thrive.

Even in slower times, Buber found himself often reflecting on his need to slow down and actively engage in pursuing the I-Thou. I find it interesting that such a seemingly simple task, focus on, and actively engage in relationships, has yet to be fully understood. This is perhaps where I fall short with both Bailey and Buber. How can it be that we have failed to make forward strives in achieving the I-Thou? How can it be that between Buber forever advocating, and Bailey reiterating, not to mention those hundreds of scholars in-between, humans have yet to master the art of the highest level of relationships? Perhaps it is my own hurried pace, and my hurried attempts to understand each man, but I find myself both congratulating myself on achieving the I-Thou, and simultaneously feeling haggard and run down because I continuously fail to achieve functional relationships.

Zion: Existing Outside the Soul

Buber believed the I-Thou relationship is consistently affecting and connecting in some way to God. This concept of I-Thou was affected deeply by Buber's beliefs regarding Zionism.  Zionism, at its core, is a Jewish political movement which focuses on the self-determination of the Jewish People.  For Buber, Zion was considered to be a Hebrew renaissance of sorts, an internal liberation and purification of the soul. While many philosophized that Zionism was inextricably tied to Judaism and the need for a Jewish nation-state, Buber argued Zionism was/and ought to be, more focused on spiritual and social enrichment.  Buber believed strongly that Zionism, as well as the I-Thou, should be actualized in everyday life and culture.

Interpersonal as Therapeutic

“Due to the fact that the normal, day-to-day cultural environment fails to provide ways to cope with the anxiety, there is a widespread need for therapy”(Illardo, 1972,p.4)

In the movie Stranger than Fiction, Harold and Ana, after a bumpy start to their friendship finally fall in love with each other. After falling in love with each other, Harold became aware that he is a character in a novel in which he is a tragic hero and has to die. Harold decided to share most of his intimate times with his newfound love, Ana till he death came for him.

I picked this quotation from Illardo because as I learned more about interpersonal communication it helped reduce my anxiety as I struggled to make new friends and maintain relationships in a new country.

The characters, Harold and Ana, in the movie Stranger than Fiction represented a moment when interpersonal communication was used as a therapy to ease the pain of incoming death. This movie perpetuated the evolution of dire hate for another to extreme affection between Harold and Ana. The development of a meaningful relationship connects to the quote above that interpersonal relationship can be therapeutic as Harold used his relationship with Ana to escape his dislike for his job and to cope with the distress of incoming death.

I think that interpersonal communication can be used a therapy to reduce the amount of stress and anxiety in an uncertain world as depicted by Harold and Ana. According to Berger and Calabrese (1975), Uncertainty reduction theory refers to what strangers go through upon meeting each other and form an idea about what one likes or dislikes. Overtime, the strangers are able to self disclose to reduce the amount of uncertainty around them and get comfortable among themselves. I believe that due to the uncertainty in meeting new people in a diverse world, anxiety has also increased hence people might interpret interpersonal communication as therapeutic to manage anxiety. In the case of Harold and Ana, as their relationship spiked, Harold found out that, he was a character in a novel and had to die. After knowing this, Harold became less aware of his own life and focused on having an interpersonal relationship with Ana. I argue that, his intimate relationship with Ana helped him to cope with the stress of incoming death. Just as families go through therapy sessions when they are about to or loose a family member, I believe Harold used his relationship with Ana as a therapy to cope with his unprecedented death.

Reference

Berger, C. R., Calabrese, R. J. (1975). Some Exploration in Initial Interaction and Beyond: Toward a Developmental Theory of Communication. Human Communication Research, 1, 99–112.

Illardo, J. A. (1972). Why Interpersonal Communication? The Speech Teacher, 66,373-382. #2

Stranger Than Fiction

Thought Piece - Oh, Oh: It's Magic.

Buber, in discussion of the primitive world as “magic,” stated, “The boundaries of his world are drawn by his [the primitive man’s] bodily experiences to which the visits of the dead belong quite ‘naturally.’ Any assumption that the non-sensible exists must strike him [the primitive man] as nonsense” (1970). I believe this is immediately apparent if you consider the perception of “magic” in popular Western culture. For example, consider the ways in which a child’s view of a magician and an adult’s view of the same magician may differ wildly. As an adult, we often attempt to discover the “tricks” of the magician or “illusionist”; we look for flaws in their acts and attempt to force reality back into their unreal illusions. Children, on the other hand, often meet these acts with awe and wonder. The difference between these perceptions of magic, then, is that while adults search for how this is unreal (based on his/her own experiences and knowledge of the world), the child searches for how the magician was able to do it. Over Christmas break this year, I showed some of my family, including members older and younger, a simple card trick. My sister, who is three years older than I am, met my “magic” with obvious skepticism, countering each of my facetious explanations of “It’s magic” with “No it’s not; How’d you do it?” Meanwhile, my young cousin could only respond with, “That’s awesome! Do it again!” This transformation, from believing in the possibility of the unreal to attempting to disprove anything seen as nonsensical, is indicative of the same sort of “otherness” principle that Buber suggested is the difference between the I-It relationship and the I-Thou relationship. Similarly, individuals engaged in actual dialogue must embrace the otherness in order to embrace the I-Thou relationship.

Buber's Contributions to Communication Studies

Communication as a field of studies has historically “borrowed” from many other disciplines; this interdisciplinary sharing has led to many important developments in various fields of study, from sociology to psychology, philosophy to what is now known as communication studies. A prime example of this interdisciplinary information-sharing is the work of Martin Buber. Primarily known for his philosophical contributions, particularly his existential-phenomenological works, Buber also provided groundbreaking contributions to the field of communication studies. These contributions are numerous and profound, the notions he explored in I and Thou provided interesting implications for the field of communication studies, and more specifically interpersonal communication.

Interpersonal Communication
Just as the prefix “inter-” in interpersonal suggests, it is communication between people. This notion is clearly visible in Martin Buber’s distinction between the “I-Thou” relationship and the “I-It” relationship. The “I-Thou” relationship is direct, mutual, open, and present, and suggests that what is essential is not what happens in the minds of each individual , but what happens between them. Buber argued that, amid a culture that focuses primarily on seeing all other beings as an It, one must be willing encounter rather than merely experience. Not only do these ideas directly impact the way we communicate with other individuals, they have the power to change the way in which we approach the understanding of others’ experiences. As Friedman suggested, “This experiencing of the other side is essential to the distinction which Buber makes between ‘dialogue’ . . . and ‘monologue,’” where dialogue requires one to open oneself to the “otherness” of the other person; conversely, monologue requires one to see another existing “only as a content of my experience” (Friedman, 2005). As such, monologue, in this sense, does not necessarily imply the communication of only one person, but can also refer to the dyadic communication of one individual engaging in an I-It experience.

Engaged Pedagogy

Buber also contributed a great deal to the field of communication studies not only through content, but through his influence on pedagogical instruction. While this focus on engaged pedagogy clearly applies to multifarious disciplines, there has been distinct focus by many communication scholars who strive to move away from the banking method of instruction and pedagogy. Buber would likely approve of this break from traditional teaching methods, as he often referred to his own style as a more communicative, involved style: “I have no teaching, but I carry on a conversation” (Buber, 1967, p. 693). This emphasis places conversation as important and necessary, unlike traditional banking methods of instruction where teachers supply the knowledge or information and students merely memorize, store, and recall the information. Buber’s sentiment, perhaps somewhat ahead of his time, appears to mirror what more recent critical communication scholars such as Friere (2006) and Fassett and Warren (2006) refer to as engaged critical pedagogy.

The Timeline of the world and Martin Buber

Timeline for Martin Buber

1867:             As a result of the Austro-Hungarian compromise, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was created as a Constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was one of the greatest powers at the time. The empire included modern day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, large parts of Serbia and Romania, and smaller parts of Italy, Montenegro, Poland and Ukraine.

1878: On February 8^th, Martin Buber was born in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Jewish parents Carl and Elise.

1882: Buber’s parents separated, Buber went to spend the next 10 years living with paternal grandparents, Solomon and Adele, in Lemberg, where he was homeschooled. Solomon’s involvement with the production of the first          modern editions of Rabbinic Midrash literature helped to eventually open doors to Buber when he showed interest in Zionism and Hasidic literature.

1892: Buber returned to live with his father.

1896: Buber moved to Vienna to study Philosophy, Art history, German studies and Philology.

1898: He joined the Zionist movement.

1899: While studying in Zurich Buber met his future wife, Paula Winkler, a non-Jewish Zionist writer who later converted to Judaism.

1900: Buber moved to Berlin with Paula, meeting and befriending the           anarchist Gustavo Landauer (1879-1919), who was incredibly influential.

1902: Buber became the editor of the weekly publication Die Welt, an important instrument of the Zionist movement.

1904: Buber became employed in Frankfurt as an editor.

1910-1914: Buber studied myths and published editions of mythic texts.

1914: July 28^th, World War I starts between two opposing groups, the Allies (the United Kingdom France and Russia) and the Central Powers (Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Italy).  These alliances both re-organized as more nations entered the war

1914-1918: Buber established the Jewish National Commission to improve the condition of eastern European Jews. He also became the editor of the Jewish monthly Der Jude (until 1924).

1916: Landauer critiqued Buber for his public enthusiasm for the German war effort. Because this criticism was from a close and trusted friend, it caused Buber to turn from social mysticism to the philosophy of Dialogue.

1916: Martin, Paula and their two children moved to the small town of Heppenheim,          near Frankfort.

1918: October 31^st The Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungary Empire was dissolved before a military defeat in world war.

1918: November 11^th, World War I ends.

1921: Buber became friends Franz Rosenzwieg (1886-1929), an influential Jewish theologian and philosopher. Rosenzwieg recruited Buber as a lecturer for a Jewish adult education center. During that, he also persuaded Buber to lecture on Jewish religious studies and ethics at Frankfurt University.

1923: Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du. This was later translated into English as I and Thou

1925: Buber and Rosenwick collaborated to translate the Hebrew Bible into German.

1926-1930: Buber became the editor of the quarterly Die Kreatur (“the Creature”).

1930: Buber became an honorary professor at the University of Frankfurt.

1933: Buber resigned from his professorship in protest immediately after Hitler came to power.

1933: October 4^th, Nazi authorities forbade him from lecturing.

1935: Buber was expelled from the National Socialist Authors Association.

1935: Buber founded the central office for Jewish Adult Education.

1938: Buber left Frankfurt and settled in Jerusalem in the British mandate for Palestine.

1938-1951: Buber received a Professorship and taught in Hebrew University of Jerusalem lecturing in Anthropology and sociology.

1939: September 1^st, World War 2 begins.

1945: September 2^nd, World War 2 ends.

1946: He published his paths in Utopia in which he described communitarian socialist views and his theory of the “dialogic community” founded upon interpersonal “dialogic relationships”.

1951: Buber received the Goethe award of the University of Hamburg.

1953: Buber received the peace price of German book trade.

1958: Buber was awarded the Israel prize in the humanities.

1958: Buber’s wife, Paula, died.

1961: Buber was awarded the Bialik prize for Jewish thought.

1963: Buber won the Erasmus Prize in Amsterdam.

1965:  On June 13^th, Buber died in Jerusalem.

2005: Buber was voted the 126^th greatest Israeli of all time.