Summary of Chapter 1
Buber begins I and Thou with a discussion of what he calls “modes of existence.” He says there are two ways of being oriented to the world, and therefore of existing: two different ways of being “I.” Each mode of existence is summed up in what he calls a “basic word,” which names a form of relation “I” can take with the world. The first basic word is “It,” and this creates an “I” that is in relation with objects or things in the world. “It” always creates an I-It pair, because there is always an “I” that is sensing the “It.” The second basic word is “You,” and this creates an “I” that is in direct relation with the world.
At any given time, Buber says, a human being exists in the world as either the “I” in the pair I-It or the “I” in the pair I-You. Our mode of existence at any given moment is determined by whether we address the world as It or You. The world addressed as “It,” Buber says, is the world of experience. We stand apart from the world and simply observe what happens. In contrast, the world of “You” is the world of relation. Now, we are active in the world and in dynamic “reciprocity” with it. That means we act on the world and the world acts on us.
To be clear, it is not that there are different parts of the world, broken up into objective “It” and relational “You” sets. Rather, these are two different ways of perceiving and interacting with the same world. Buber gives the example of a tree. When I study a tree and analyze its colors and movement and perhaps even interpret its meaning or try to represent it in an image, then the tree is an “It” and I am a human being who is standing outside of an experiencing the world. But when I enter into relation with the tree and am mesmerizes by its whole being, without trying to break it into parts or interpret its meaning, then the tree is a “You.” Rather than experiencing an object, I am present with it.
To relate to the world as “You” is to be more “present” and “unmediated.” The present means we are simultaneously alive with it, rather than recording it as an image to archive somewhere in our brains. The “unmediated” means there is nothing in the middle, nothing in between “I” and “You.” They are directly involved in the same relation. For Buber, the world perceived as “You” is the origin of art. It demands the soul’s creative and undivided attention in order to be “actualized,” or to become real, in a visible form. Buber also outlines that there are three spheres or domains in which we can relate with “You.” The first is the world of nature. The second is the world of man, in our relations with other humans. And the third is the spiritual world, in our relation within things not visible to us.
The “mode of existence” entailed by “You” is not a feeling. It is not like we simply sense thatwe are closer with the world or more open to it. Feelings reside within individuals, rather than existing in the relation between individuals. To be the “I” in an I-You relation is to exist fully within the space between I and You. Love, for example, “does not cling to an I, as if the You were merely its ‘content’ or object,” Buber explains. Rather than love being a feeling inside of man, man “dwells in love.” We are part of the relation, rather than having a feeling of the relation within our isolated hearts.
Buber thinks our relation with the world is first of all in this immersive experience of “You.” This is also the experience of human beings in their biological development and cultures in their historical developments. Biologically, as a fetus, we are first of all one with the world, in the form of the mother’s womb. It is only later that we become separate from and sense our difference from the mother. Culturally, Buber claims that “primitive” cultures first develop words to express the world as a whole, rather than break it into objects that can be perceived as “It.” This originally relational nature of “You” persists in the mystic traditions of cultures and returns to us as individuals in our dreams.
Thus, we begin in a state of what Buber calls “natural association,” where the world is You and we are unified in active relation. But eventually, every “You” becomes an “It,” and the wholeness of the world gives way to what Buber calls “natural discreteness,” where I stand apart from objects and relate to them as external things. For Buber, this is both inevitable and regrettable. It is regrettable for reasons Buber will get to later in the book, as he lays out his calls for developing more reciprocal relations and communities in which people are more alive. But it is necessary, Buber says, because only when we relate to the world as a thing can we also make it more comfortable. You have to analyze the material world in order to arrange it to meet material human needs. If you were constantly immersed in a pure, unmediated present, you could never think up a plan to build a house or sow a field. Although we must descend into thinking of the world as “It” in order to survive, Buber’s hope is we can also develop our capacity to relate to the world as “You.”
Analysis of Chapter 1
Buber’s prose is concise, and he quickly moves from one definition to another. Therefore, it can be useful to unpack all that is entailed in each definition. Most important for this Chapter is to untangle what it means that a “basic word” is a “word-pair” and that “You” contains “I-You.” When Buber says there are only two basic words, he is saying that everything else can be subsumed under one of those two words. Everything in the world is either “You” or “It.” This is a dramatic way to open a book: to say that the entire world can be divided in two. But it is even more complicated than this. For Buber is saying that there are not two parts to the world, but two different “attitudes” toward the world. Everything can be approached as either You or It.
These basic words are word pairs because if they designate different approaches to the world, they also imply that someone is doing the approach. Thus, implicit in any You or It is an I—the one who treats things as an It, or a You. This means that every You is really I-You and every It is really I-It. This is what it means for the words to designates “modes of existence.” For whether I orient to the world as a You or as an It determines the way in which I am existing right now, how I am interacting with my world. Thus, every basic word is a word pair and every word pair designates a mode of existence. Throughout I and Thou, Buber will thus move freely between these different senses. Whenever he says It or You, there is an implicit I. Similarly, when he says something like “I approach my It,” he is really saying “I am approaching this object in the mode of existence of I-It.”
The surprising consequence of this is that there is no “I” that precedes the It or You. We usually think about there being a human subject first, the I, that then goes out and orients to the world in a certain way—You or It. Buber says the opposite is true. Before there is an I, there is an object that brings the I into existence in one of two relations. There can be no human subject outside of a relation with the world. Thus, the human subject is always formed at a given moment by how he or she is relating to the world.
In addition to this Chapter introducing the major concepts of I and Thou, it also indicates the general form the book will take. Buber tends to write short sections, in which he lays out a concept and then explores its consequences. This has the effect of the book feeling like a series of observations. But in fact, the sections build on one another. Here, he is laying out general principles of his ontology, or his theory of “modes of existence.” Later, he will apply this ontology to social and political questions, as well as to history. Thus, the shortness of this book is deceptive. It is both a general theory of human existence—really, a history of mankind—and a political diagnosis of the present. It is because his sections are so dense and pithy that he is able to move through so much terrain so quickly.
When not writing in the form of short sections of analysis, Buber also writes in the form of dialogues, where he responds to and answers questions from some hypothetical first-time reader. This will be almost the entire form of the Afterword. In many ways, this models the kind of dialogue or reciprocity he is advocating with the I-You mode of existence. But it would be a mistake to think representations of dialogue are the same as dialogue. After all, Buber, as one individual, is writing this script. True dialogue is not possible in book form, because the reader and author cannot actually interact. But Buber tries to overcome, at least partially, the limits of the book form by experimenting with different styles of writing.
