NEW VIDEO
It, You, and What Else?
As we have seen in the first two videos on Martin Buber, Buber envisions a transformation of our relationships to others: from I-It relations toI-You relations. In other words, instead of relating to others as objects, as things that are external to me, I now relate to them through a full togetherness. This new relationshipis authentic, and it gives authenticity and meaning to my life. But an important issue arises here: Buber insists, in his book I-Thou, that such a transformation is always temporary. |
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NEW TEXT
Martin Buber (1878—1965) Towards Fuller Relationships – Part 1 By Ran Lahav |
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NEW ANIMATION VIDEO
Seeking Wisdom: Listening to the Other
In his search for wisdom the elephant meets the giraffe, the tallest and wisest of animals. |
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I remember that when I was a teenager, I went for the first time to the downtown public library on my own. I asked the librarian to give me a book on politics (there was no direct access to the books) and he suggested to me Plato’s "The Republic." That book was in no way what I had expected, but it influenced me deeply and opened for me a whole new world, which previously I had no contact with at school or anywhere else. I discovered a world of people who loved to inquire about justice and truth, who believed in the power of thought, who enjoyed good arguments, who lived above everyday banalities. I then understood that there must be in the world more people like Plato, who loved this (philosophical) way of living, and I decided to try to notice such people when I encountered them and to join or befriend them. In this way that book dramatically changed my interest from politics to philosophy.
Bergson’s answer is that our mental life is not chaotic – rather, it has a different sort of organization. Its organization is like that of a musical piece. Consider a symphony—it cannot be analyzed into a schema, since it is a holistic, creative flow. But this doesn’t mean that it is chaos. A symphony has its own organization, its own integrity, its own inner logic, which cannot be translated into strict schemas or formulas. You cannot analyze the whole into its parts. It has “organic” organization rather than “geometrical” organization.
In short, the holistic flow of our inner life (which Bergson calls “duration”) is like a symphony. It is not irrational, but rather non-rational. It has a wisdom and understanding of its own, which is not analytic wisdom.
By the way, Bergson thinks that analytic thinking is very important, but mainly in the domains of scientific, technical, and practical activities. Without analytic thinking there is no technology, and not even communication (since it requires categorizing things to groups that fall under the same name.)
In short, for Bergson there are two different modes of understanding: analytic thinking, and a holistic “intuition.” Analysis is important for many things, but not for everything. In order to understand ourselves we also need intuition, not just analysis.
In the quoted passage Bergson is not talking about self-examination, but about moments of freedom. In these moments we act from the wholeness of our being, not just from a fragmentary thought. In other words, we act on the basis of our entire conception of life, not just from this or that idea.
I think we all know such moments – when we feel that we are fully present, that our entire being is here, that we flow. I would call it a sense of plenitude.
Bergson manages to express the tragedy of an unexamined life in a beautiful way – and the way an idea is transmitted is almost as important as the content of that idea, if we want the idea to be grasped by others (in this case: the idea that it is pathetic to live an unexamined life).
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