‘‘It’’ or ‘‘Thou’’
The venerable talent of Zadie Smith has taught me many things.
This isn’t the last time I’ll speak about Zadie or her work. If you asked my girlfriend, she’d say there’s never a time I’m not speaking about Zadie (or her work). But such is the breadth of her ability that I’m constantly learning and improving by engaging with her art. One of the best things about Zadie is she is big on explaining complex ideas in simple terms. This takes hold especially in ‘’Feel Free’’ a collection of essays and deconstructed thoughts about life, society, pop culture etc. In an essay titled ‘’Meet Justin Bieber!’’ she introduced me to a philosophical theory that I’d never heard of before, by a philosopher that I’d never heard of before (this is why you read Zadie books.)
Enter: Martin Buber. Buber was an Austrian-Jewish philosopher who in 1923 published a work titled Ich und Du, which translates to ‘’I and Thou’’. His big idea was there are two ways for humans to experience the world:
I-Thou (me and you, basically) - a person-to-person relation.
I-It (me and it) - a person-to-object relation.
We experience both of these realities daily. They are entirely intertwined in everything we do. In a way that Buber could’ve never predicted. The idea of FaceTime, for example, would’ve spun him like Peak Ronaldinho. However, Buber had a maxim that ‘’all real living is meeting.’’ Which counters much of how we’re living and experiencing life since the advent of social media especially. But even more so since the pandemic and Zoom fatigue became a thing.
The more I read on Buber’s idea, the more questions began popping into my head. He could’ve never predicted the interconnectivity of the modern world and likely would’ve died on the spot at the idea of the Metaverse. But focusing on the core of his theory, something very simple and evergreen emerges: Buber is questioning what humans value.
Do we appreciate our possessions more than our people?
Do we have relationships solely to improve the material value of what we have?
Do we have I-Thou relationships to get more I-It’s?
The smart money is yes: we’re always looking for ways to get more of what we like. But the idea of capital is much more complex than it was in 1923 (cash, clout, crypto, identity (?) it’s impossible for there to be one right answer.
The mandem want Patek’s (I-It) the gyaldem want Birkin’s (another I-It). But there’s also another reality. How about when I-It is used to categorise people as objects? Like the classic tale of people who didn’t regard your ability, and consequently discarded your I-Thou potential, see you doing great things. They’ll come scrambling under the guise of I-Thou, when really, they’re trying to leverage your I-It potential for themselves.
Buber’s theory has a simple truth. But when you break it down, it’s quite complex. It queries what we value as people but more importantly in people - but then further questions why we value them at all? And if that value is even genuine? It’s a subtle way to apply scrutiny to our value systems and our day-to-day beliefs.