TREATING PEOPLE AND THE MORE THAN HUMAN WORLD AS ITS

The more we treat and regard our fellow human beings as “its” rather than potential “thous”,  the easier it is for us to treat the more than human world as an “it”.  To treat something as an “it” is to treat it in a purely utilitarian way.  Buber teaches that we always will treat our fellow humans and the more than human world as mere things some of the time.  We can’t live in the fever pitch of I-thou relationships all the time. 

But what we have lost is too much of the ability to ever have I-thou relationships with both our fellow humans and with the more than human world.  And I’m here to say that how we treat our fellow humans and how we treat the more than human world are related. So open yourself up to the possibility of treating the more than human world as a “thou”.  Open yourself up to the possibility of increasing the times that you treat fellow humans as “thous”  Watch both of them increase in a virtuous circle.  Or harden your heart to survive our transactional world, and watch your innately given ability to connect circle the drain, akin to the future of humanity on this beautiful green earth that is our great gift that we are squandering.