I-It

The I-It, I-thou discussion is one which I have some trouble with, but I believe there is a way to communicate some of the ideas presented in class more effectively and that is by dropping the pretense of English.

English is a terrible language quite frankly, the structure is poor, the writing is poor, the rules are inconsistent and overall, the language is very limiting when trying to express ideas like this. It is fine for the basic ideas of Buber, I-it and the I sense, I feel, I want, I imagine, I see, I think, I experience wording all work fine, but when trying to discuss the I-you, it starts to waver, You is the only version of you that we possess in this language to refer to you. In the discussing of this topic we talked about the formality and informality of the referential, where you is a word which is very personal, it directly speaks to the addressee. But that alone does not provide a context for how personal or informal the word means to be, how it addresses someone is left up to interpretation and it loses its strength. But, if we change from English to Spanish, it all changes. in Spanish there are five entirely different versions of the word you, in order of formality they are: vos, tu, and usted, with ustedes, and vosotros as the informal and formal plural versions of "you", and while they are used grammatically when referencing the plurality of a situation, they also reference the connection of the speaker and listener. If I was talking to a teacher and wanted to say you while providing full deference to how they are someone outside of me and superior, I would ay usted, a word that means "you" but in a removed manner, so far removed from being informal 'you' that it forces other words around it to re-conjugate into their gendered he//she forms. Instead of addressing 'you' I would be addressing the He/She that is you, considering you in all of your multitudes. On the other side of the spectrum, vos is a very, very personal 'you'. Instead of the deep removal of usted, it considers them close to you, almost a part of you. It implies a familiarity, friendship, or connection between the speaker and listener, and is a kindness to speak as such. Instead of the He/She that is you, it speaks of the y'all and we that make up You. Still addressing you in multitudes but also recognizing a closeness between the boundless You and the way the I mimics that.

I-it relationships are bordered, defined, an it is an it because it is contained, forced into a manner, a box, a definition. Martin Buber's work I-Thou focuses of the ay society is impacted by these relationships. The it mainly contains just objects, but the you becomes an object when definition is forced upon you. The you becomes he or she or they and in that change the you is objectified, it is classified, and as an object, you are bound. The you that is multitudes is reduced, chained, and prevented from being as it truly is. "You, is unbordered, without definition, undefined and fathomless, definition eludes you/thou" but when you become it, then Buber's thoughts on the alienation of people from one another are verified. Humans exist in grand scale within themselves, they are not one trait, thought or action, but when they are defined as that and become no longer a you and are forced to be an it, they lose their humanity to the definer, and that loss of humanity separates people. This it, the forcible subjecting of the first-person, face-to-face you to become a third person it forces a formality between speakers and listeners, it forces you out of conversation and mediates the conversation through the lens, like the contrapositive of how usted works in Spanish, it separates you, not from I as an observer in the presence of the multitude, but in separating you from You and taking that it as you.

In the song "I've Seen All Good People" in the Yes album, the opening line is "I've seen all good people turn their heads each day, so satisfied I'm on my way". This relates interestingly into this idea of the I-It separating people, they lose connection to the speaker, their heads downcast and "satisfied", the song notes particularly that these are good people. Noting it is not a thing of evil or stemming from some malevolence of these people, but rather it is an unconscious or merely unintentional separation which removes empathy preventing connection. And it afflicts these people and their lives as they experience what is going on to them and turn away from encounters with others through which they can understand the experience. They impose the I-it relationship without thinking about it, and in the ways that some seek to be and understand through experience alone, it cuts them off from true being. As brought up in class, there are some ways to have experience with an it, thinking that one encounters a You. The primary examples I think would be pertinent to talk about a psychedelics and prostitutes, merely for the shock factor of reading those words and the general knowledge the population has of them due to media. Psychedelics are used in many cultures are important for having an experience, peyote, mushrooms, ayahuasca, are all used ritually for the experience of something. In many sects they are used for the contacting of spirits or the searching for god. But just these experiences alone do not constitute an encounter, they may provide a window, a brief experience through which an encounter might be mediated, but they are an it which pretends to be a you. This pretending and mediation lead falsely to conclusions about the nature of divinity or imagined contacts with the spiritual/religious, but in reality it is the I or the ego projecting upon an it to receive false platitudes. This applies too to the employment of prostitutes, where the ego interacts with someone bought, in the pursuit of "romance" or physical comfort, in reality just sex, the ego satisfies itself on an experience in the pretending it has something real and true.