Seeing the title “Me and You”, the reader’s first reaction may be the melody of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The title of that song is “Me and You”. The song sings: “You and me / heart to heart / live in the global village… you and me / heart to heart / forever family.” (you and me, from one world / we are family…)
This is one A warm and kind song, full of love and tenderness. A common destiny, with the singing, straight into the hearts of the people. You and I, we, a family, live together, heart to heart… The lyrics are simple, but contagious, why? Why is it “you” and not “he”? Is it us, not them? Here are the most natural, direct and simple emotions of human beings, as well as the deepest thinking of philosophers. The short but immortal booklet of Martin Buber (1878 to 1960) is titled “You and Me”.
Buber wrote at the beginning:
Man holds a dual attitude, so the world appears to him as a dual world.
People speak dual original words, so he must have a dual attitude.
The original words are double characters instead of single characters.
One is “I—you”.
The second is “I-it”.
In the latter, without changing the original word itself, you can replace “it” with one of “he” and “she”.
Therefore, the human “I” is also dual.
Because the “I” in the original word “I-you” is very different from the “I” in the original word “I-it”.
There are three main points in this passage: first, the “world” presented to mankind depends on the “attitude” of human beings; second, the “attitude” of mankind is related to the “primitive word” it speaks; and third, the “primitive word” as the original word. I-you” is very different from “I-it”, and the “I” in it is also different because of it. The conclusion is that the human “I” has duality. So, what is the difference between the original words “I-you” and “I-it”?
According to Buber, “I-you” refers to the world of relations, while “I-it” points to the world of experience. The empirical world is the object of “I” feeling, perception, imagination, desire, taste, and thought. In short, “I experience something”, this is “it”. The relational world is not, it exists between “me” and “you”. There are three realms: life associated with nature; life associated with people; life associated with spiritual entities. They point to nature, man and art respectively. Among the three, the easiest to understand is probably the life associated with people, and the most difficult to understand is the life associated with nature, because the former has a relationship in the form of language, while the latter is not. All things in nature are silent but silent, how do we call it “you”? How to realize the “me-you” relationship? The example given by Buber is a scene that we are all familiar with: “I stare at a tree.” When I stare at a tree, the tree as an object of experience can show me different appearances according to its attributes, so, I decompose the tree into different functions and use them. However, when I gaze at a tree, I can also enter another state. In this state, I don’t need to abandon all kinds of knowledge about trees, but let them merge into the wholeness and uniqueness of the tree. At this time, the tree is no longer an experiential, analytical, computational, instrumental, and object-oriented foreign object, but a real existence outside of me. It is closely related to me, just as I am closely connected to it. The difference lies only in the way.” In addition to plants, Buber also mentioned animals: “What a rich and profound language can be expressed by the eyes of animals!” This recognition comes from his many experiences: the mutual gaze between “I” and the house cat, When the eyes of the person and the cat intersect, they break free from the burden of the “it” world. He also considers animals and children at the same time, because animals, like children, “have extremely high insights to break through false feelings” (Bo, page 152). “What a profound education children and animals bestow on us!” (Bao, page 31)
About forty years after “Me and You” was written, Buber responded to several questions about his views from the world in a short way, the first of which is about “life associated with nature”. As mentioned earlier, how do we imagine all the natural things in the “me-you” relationship, and how do we extend the mutuality contained in this relationship to nature? Buber believes that there is no unified answer to this question, because we have to examine different areas of nature separately. First of all, there is always a positive and direct “dialogue” between humans and animals that have been “domesticated”. This relationship also exists between humans and undomesticated animals. For those who have a natural tendency to be close to animals in their nature This is especially true for people. And this is not because this kind of person is more animalistic, on the contrary, Buber believes: “This kind of person happens to be the least’animal’ in his body, and he is full of energy in his heart.” Secondly, between people and plants, although There is no such response as between individual humans and animals, but there is also the “interactivity of beings”. “The vitality and unity of the trees conceal themselves under the sharp eyes of the researchers, but they are pouring out. The people of’you’ opened the door”, “projected strange brilliance to us”. Finally, when we get rid of the old habits of thinking and “go beyond all fetters to freely face this open reality”, then “the vast realm from rocks to stars” can be included in the “I-you” relationship.
The above-mentioned, sincerely the personal experience and mysticism of philosophers, can also be shared by ordinary people. However, they are indeed not easy to obtain and even difficult to understand. The reason for this is that we have lived in the “I-it” world since history. A history of civilization can be said to be the history of human beings dominated by the original word “I-it”. We have long been accustomed to using the “I-it” self, that is, the “subject of experience and utilization”, to face the entire world as an object. Here, “man is content to regard the world of’it’ as an object of experience and use an object. He does not liberate those who are imprisoned in’it’, but suppresses it and suffocates it; instead of watching it with passion, he Observe it calmly and analyze it; instead of accepting it piously, he tries his best to use it.” In a word, “Take it as’it’ and experience and use it in order to’understand’ the world and then’conquer’ the world”. This object regarded as the object to be experienced, recognized, used, and conquered is of course not only natural things, but also other people other than “I”, including everything created by man. However, it is clear that in all the activities of experience, understanding and use of “it”, “I”‘s use and conquest of all things in nature is always the most natural, the most legitimate, and the least questioned and opposed. Therefore, the capture, possession, dominance, and utilization of nature today is not only the most solid barrier in the “I-it” world, but also the realization of the “I-You” relationship, that is, to make people a real and complete person. The biggest obstacle.
For modern people as individuals or as a whole, the issues discussed in “You and Me” are fundamental. What’s amazing is that these words were written almost a hundred years ago. At that time, although the mighty power of mankind had appeared, it had not yet reached the level it is today. Similarly, the “I-it” world hidden under the prosperous civilization. The inner tension of the mankind has not pushed human beings to the crossroads where life is at stake.
Contemporary discourses on the ecological crisis of civilization, from in-depth investigations by journalists, to special discourses by researchers; from special studies organized by non-governmental organizations, to global environmental outlook and ecological assessment reports issued by the United Nations, can be described as numerous. Correspondingly, today’s thinking about the tension between man and nature has spawned a series of new concepts, theories, disciplines, trends of thought and movements. The geography jurisprudence mentioned below is an expression of this kind of thinking in jurisprudence.
