We will hold a lecture on interpreting Buber's "I and Thou." Why Buber now? Why this book? Please join us to find out how to interpret this timeless classic.

Buber's famous interwar work I and Thou was the first to define the "intimate sphere" by contrasting replaceable it with irreplaceable you. Along with Fromm's The Art of Loving, written after the war, there was once a tradition in Japan where a father would send this book to his daughter's potential husband on the occasion of her wedding. As such, it is often understood in the context of what it means to cherish the person you love, but this underestimates its scope.

There is a line of thought that fears the changes in human relationships brought about by urbanization due to the Industrial Revolution, namely the expansion of anonymity and impersonal spheres. If you line up Kant, Weber, Husserl, Heidegger, Buber, McKeever, Fromm, and Habermas, there will surely be many who say "Ah, I see." Of these, Buber's "I and Thou" is the most straightforward, so much so that it is often given as a wedding gift, and is therefore suitable as material for analyzing "the semantics brought about by urbanization."

Ritter, a contemporary of Fromm, has a compensation theory that states, "When something that was self-evident is lost, the lost thing is conceptualized, but it changes into something that bears no resemblance to what was once self-evident," and he cites the concept of "nature" as a typical example. Nature was "invented." Luhmann, a contemporary of Habermas, applied the same scheme to the concept of the "irreplaceable thou." It was not that the anonymous sphere diminished the intimate sphere, but rather that the disappearance of self-evident commonality "invented" the intimate sphere.

This is a criticism of Habermas, who, based on Weber's theory of impersonality, was concerned about the erosion of the lifeworld (personal sphere = mutual aid) by the system world (impersonal sphere = market and administration). There is certainly a mythical glorification of the lifeworld. However, this is only natural, since the automatism of the middle voice has become an active, subjective choice. Thus, after his defeat in the debate with Luhmann, Habermas turned to defending the concept of the lifeworld, which is not pure, but has been tainted by the system world.

The complicated history above made Buber difficult to discuss, but Habermas's turn of events made the obstacle harmless. Today, with the development of molecular genetics and evolutionary biology, it has become clear that those who are aware of themselves as a "replaceable it" 24 hours a day are 1) tormented by loneliness, 2) loneliness weakens the body's immune system, and 3) loneliness leads to depression and paranoia (external attribution). Today, these are breeding grounds for random murders and democratic crises.

In fact, Buber, which was recommended to me by a teacher at Rinsha University when I was in the second year of junior high school, shaped my future. Rereading Buber also made me reflect on my experience of "pick-up hell" for 11 years from 1985. Nowadays, not only in the pick-up world but the majority of young people are treated as "interchangeable that" in character-based, stereotypical sexual relationships, and suffer from loneliness due to the disappearance of the intimate sphere. In addition, the premonition of being treated as "interchangeable that" throughout society is giving birth to a large number of "hikikomori."

According to Buber, those who have been treated as "interchangeable it" will treat others as "interchangeable it" in return. This is why xenophobia, which is not the same as right-wingers who say "Chinese people are the enemy" or "Japan is amazing," and discriminatory people, which are not the same as feminists who say "men's sexual desire is the enemy" or "AV girls are victims," are spreading the practice of combining stereotypes with categories. Now is the time to use Buber as a starting point to thoroughly discuss the "universal inevitability of emotional deterioration."

(Text: Shinji Miyadai)

This event is co-planned by Docomo gacco.

https://gacco.org/
 

Customers who register for this online event will be able to watch an archived version of the event for a certain period of time after the event ends.
Please use this service if the date and time is not convenient for you or if you would like to see it again.
Please note that after the event ends, the archived distribution will no longer be available for purchase.
Regarding how to watch the archived stream, Peatix will send a message to customers who have purchased the applicable product once the stream is ready.