Can everyone please stop finding Martin Buber interesting? Benjamin Balint, this means you :
. . . Chief among these [misconceptions about Buber] is the common misjudgment that what is original about I and Thou , Buber’s classic statement of a philosophy of dialogue, is its teaching about human relationships, not its theology. Yet that theology, Putnam explains, lies closest to Buber’s heart—most of all its twin teaching that we cannot talk about God, we can only talk to God, and that to question God’s existence is already to stand outside of a relation to Him."We cannot talk about god, we can only talk to God?" Charlie Brown has a catchphrase for dealing with such nonsense. Allow me to present, for your convenience, a list of awful postmodern ideas for which Buber bears partial blame. My hope is to render you, the reader, incapable of hearing or speaking the name Martin Buber with a straight face ever again.
1. Show us on this doll where he other-ed you. I-Thou, You-Thou, we all scream for I and Thou ! The thesis of Buber’s most celebrated book is that men should deal with each other as whole persons; to do otherwise is to be dehumanizing, instrumentalizing, and solipsistic. To which I say Like Hell It Is . Sure, I "use" the man at the corner deli for cigarettes and sandwiches; I treat the clerk at Adam’s like a book-dispensing machine; when I listen to a beloved professor give a lecture, I’m using him like a brain-whore and leaving the money on the admissions office nightstand. Is that so wrong? There is such a thing as treating a person like a person, of course, but developing that kind of three-dimensional relationship with someone (through friendship, romance, brotherhood, etc.) should be regarded as an achievement . Civility takes the remainder; that’s what civilization means.
2. God is that special feeling you get . . . "We must not proclaim that God can be served by only one, and by no other, act, but we must make it clear that every deed is hallowed if it radiates the spirit of unity. Every deed, even one numbered among the most profane, is holy when it is performed in holiness, in unconditionality." This is worse than "Follow Your Bliss"; at least bliss needs some kind of limitation in order to exist. (There’s freedom and then there’s being in a vacuum with nothing to push against.) Buber’s breaking all the hedges; bring your snake-bite kit .
3. Religion and certitude go together. Partisans of the Dawkins-Hitchens axis accuse religion of breeding an unhelpful absolutism that always ends in tears. They’re worried that religion makes men hack heads without remorse; after all, God’s word is absolute, and God’s rewards motivate absolutely. Buber plays into their hands ("If a man lacks certitude, his sacrificial spirit, whether a result of piety or habit, loses its religious import and hence its special sanctity") where he should put up a fight. After all, there’s always the humility card to play; doesn’t religion create as much self-doubt as it destroys?
4. Ritual is unhelpful and hollow. Again with the Like Hell. Buber says that the man who possesses that special feeling of religiosity is more praiseworthy than the man who goes through the motions of religion (i.e. religiosity is authentic, religion is mere performance), but how do we achieve that feeling of religiosity if not through ritual? A recipe book is not the same thing as a meal, but no beginner can produce the latter without the aid of the former.
And not to twist the knife or anything, but Balint’s opening line ("A funny thing happened to Hilary Putnam on the way to joining the front ranks of American philosophers") isn’t even the best "A funny thing happened" joke in twentieth century theology; that would be Sammy Hall’s gospel foot-stomper "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Hell (I Got Saved, Saved, Saved)." Poor fellow just can’t win.
