Public Display of Aggression: Wisdom from Martin Buber

As “road rage” accelerates, “air rage” takes off , and the quality of social life declines, a response to these negative trends is in the teachings of Martin Buber. Writing in his landmark classic, I and Thou, “All actual life is encounter,” (Walter Kaufman, trans., Scribner, 1970, 62) Buber opened a conversation on how to improve the social climate.

Buber proposed two kinds of interactions in I and Thou:  I-It and I-Thou. In I-It, a gate clerk indifferently checks your Boarding Zone, or a distracted traffic cop waves you through. I-It is necessary for life but can get out of hand, say, when travelers near fisticuffs over a reclined seat. In I-Thou, a driver breaks for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, and the two exchange smiles, or a passenger and flight attendant enjoy a brief repartee. I-Thou can be that simple. Buber added that each I-Thou moment abides in perpetuity in a spiritual dimension he called Eternal Thou.

I-Thou is interpersonal. It is less concerned with the “I” or the “Thou,” that is, what occurs within people and more focused on the “- “, the dash, the quality of what happens between people. There is an aura in I-Thou, something in the air, in the words, gestures and glances passing person-to-person.

For examples of I-Thou in the daily routine, Buber pointed to his polite exchanges with a railway guard, newspaper vendor, or chimney sweep. (Maurice Friedman, Martin Buber’s Life and Work: The Middle Years, Dutton, 1983, 115) We cannot say how Buber would react to a cancelled flight or getting sideswiped on the Interstate, but we can imagine he would not lead with a threat of violence. While he saw nothing inherently wrong with expressing anger, he consistently promoted civil conversation, even in his moments of great distress.

Buber came to appreciate the value of the interhuman in a hard way. His mother abandoned him at age three, without warning, explanation, or word that he would see her again. His father sent him to live with grandparents where he received doting attention, yet the silence about his mother continued. Within the year, he was left babysitter who, when the topic of his mother came up in conversation, bluntly said, “No, she will never come back.” Martin was speechless and devastated. Over time, Martin’s grandparents and later, his wife of sixty years, Paula, soothed a great portion of the heartache. Yet he held on to the memory of that moment with the sitter and her words, “No, she will never come back,” as an example of the enduring spiritual impact of speech. (Meetings, Maurice Friedman, ed., Open Court, 1973, 17-19)

Now it would be a great leap to suggest that the casual back-and-forth between people who meet briefly at a busy city street intersection, never to see each other again, would stay with you or me for the rest of our lives, or positively transform our war-torn, economically, environmentally, politically and socially challenged world. Yet Buber advanced these ideas in an era as challenged as ours, having lived in Germany through the First World War until fleeing the Nazis in 1938, Through widespread turmoil, and amidst ongoing antisemitism, Buber maintained that communal stability starts with civil public and private behavior.