Articles Comments

ParentingPanicButton » Entries tagged with "Martin Buber"

Two ways of looking at the world—as inspired by philosopher Martin Buber

We can look at the world as if it is there to serve and benefit us.  Be assertive; be aggressive, dominant and controlling.   We can determine the value of a relationship by how much we get from it.  How much money, professional advancement or prestige can we get from an association with a particular person?  How much attention, adoration, support, and emotional help can we get from someone?  Whether we are dealing in business, personal relationship, service relationship, customer relationship, client relationship or colleague relationship, the person can become a “commodity” or a “consumable” if we are not careful. I have just described what 19th/20th century philosopher Martin Buber characterized as the “I”/“It” relationship. The other is called “I/thou”.  In this kind of relationship, ideally, we can expect that in every person we … Read entire article »

Filed under: Relationships