Personal Dialogue and Reality: I and Thou by Martin Buber Essay

Chapter One of Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication is largely an introductory section, acquainting readers with some of the foundations of communication – our needs, models and characteristics of communication, and the world’s newest form of communication: social media. One of the needs detailed during this chapter was titled “Identity Needs,” and this is the particular section to which I wish to respond through this “Biblical Response” paper.

It has been many years since the sacred word has been discovered. Since then a lot has changed. I have faced many difficulties trying to create a society that no one else save for Gaea can see. The others, my friends, have trouble comprehending the word ‘I’. This is of no surprise to me but it does complicate things. How can they convince the rest of what they themselves are unsure of? All the same we do have people in our side; it is not as much as we want but it is more than we could have hoped for.

Compare the views of relationships in ‘The Unequal Fetters’ with those in ‘To his Coy Mistress’. What is suggested about the different ways in which men and women view love?

According to Nozick when two individuals join and form a “we” this new identity completely takes over and creates a new shared identity. To Nozick, it would be completely irrational to even think of the person of an individual and to ask what the value of love is to them. It is something that is just not possible when a person has formed a “we” with another.

Interpersonal communication is described as two or more people exchanging information through verbal and non-verbal messages. “God gave us the gift of communication so we could get close to others” (Griffin, 1987, p. 10). There are various theories on interpersonal communication two of which will be discussed in this paper, Symbolic Interactionism and Social Penetration. One theory is based on verbal and non-verbal communication and the other is based on how communication can help each of us develop deeper relationships. We practice both theories on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. This paper will look how each theory is used in our daily lives, how each theory helps us to gain better understanding of our relationships, and how each theory ties into our biblical worldview.

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

“I” symbolizes individuality. One reason why I believe “I” symbolizes individuality is that “I” was banned and renamed the “Unspeakable Word” after collectivists laws were put in place (Rand, 1938, p. 23). These shows me that “I” stands for individuality because the leaders wanted to eliminate “I” in order to make everyone the same. This is because if you say “We” instead of “I” you begin to forget who you really are and this leads to a loss of individuality. Furthermore, Equality unlock individuality when he discovers the word “I”. Before he knew of “I” Equality had lived in a society where there was no man, only men, however when he discovers “I”, he reveals a much different thought process than the other citizens. “And man will go on. Man, not men,” (Rand, 1938, p. 101) is just one of the quotes that expresses Equality’s new thinking of the world once he escapes from society and learns about the “Unmentionable Times”, the times before laws of collectivism was in place. Soon after he learns about the “Unmentionable Times” he states, “It is my mind which thinks, and the judgement of my mind is the only searchlight that can find my truth,” (Rand, 1938, p. 102) This quotes show just how much Equality’s thoughts have changed from collectivism to individualism. This is important to notice because this means Equality is finally

In this essay, I shall examine the differences between the relationships that are based around romance, mutual respect and power and discuss what

m. Rastas feel that Jah, in the form of the Holy Spiri, lives within the human soul, and for that reason they often refer to themselves as “I and I”.

The feeling of love, throughout the novel, is seen as an direct emotion of the relationship of two single beings. The Golden One tried to express the feeling of love she has for Equality 7-2521, but both cannot grasp the one Unspeakable Word "I," which makes them feel like they are instinctively lacking a fundamental notion in their comprehension view of this twisted world. Without the wholly articulated emotion one can experience, both are not able to verbally achieve a higher level of true love. There's just one thing missing in order for them to find a balance within themselves. As it all soon starts to fit in place, Equality 7-2521 is able to comprehend the Unspeakable Word on his books, and as he does the Golden One's first sentence to him are "I love you". Indicating the fulfillment of what he has been looking for all his life. “We looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us, and had fled, and left us groping

It’s funny how most of the book's profound words about love don't include the word "love" at all.

love doesn’t exist. This quote also helps to show how the speaker’s grief over his beloved’s

‘In a very large and interesting class of cases the social reference takes the form of a somewhat definite imagination of how one's self--that is any idea he appropriates--appears in a particular mind, and the kind of self-feeling one has is determined by the attitude toward this attributed to that other mind. A social self of this sort might be called the reflected or looking glass self: " Each to each a

By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which one expresses an eternal and infinite essence (1def6)

Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” delivers a philosophy of private dialogue as it describes how personal dialogue can outline the character of reality. The book’s main theme is that life could also be outlined by the manner in which people tend to interact in dialogue with one another, with nature, and with God. According to Buber, a person might have two attitudes: I-Thou or I-It. I-Thou is a subject-to-subject relationship, whereas I-It is a subject-to-object relationship.