Approximately sixty years ago, the great Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote a dense, scholarly, almost unreadable book whose title has been translated into English as I and Thou? By virtue of its profundity, which inspired many others to build upon it, the work is one of the most important books ever written on the subject of human relationships-organizational behavior-in general and on the subject of human narcissism in particular. It is the place to start our ethical analysis.
As its title indicates, Buber labeled the most healthy or mature relationship possible between two human beings as the 'I-Thou' relationship. In such an instance, I recognize you to be different from me, but even though you are different-a ‘You’ or other you can still be beloved to me; namely, a 'Thou.' Such relationships are relatively rare. Indeed, one should not even aspire to too many of them since they require a lot of work. For instance, I do not have an I-Thou relationship with my tax lawyer. I do recognize him to be different from me: a You. Indeed, it is precisely because he is different from me-because he has gifts different from mine-that he is so valuable to me, but I have not yet taken the energy (nor am I likely to do so) to make him particularly beloved to me. Most of the time we go around having I-You relationships. There is nothing unethical about this as long as we recognize and respect the essential humanity of each other.
But the problem comes, as Buber indelibly pointed out, when we lose sight of the humanity of the other simply because he or she is other. Consequently, Buber contrasted the I-Thou relationship with what he called the I-It relationship. This occurs when I see you as a subhuman, even inanimate, object-an ‘It’- simply to be used, as we might use a chair or shovel. What was so seriously wrong with that advertisement was its implication that I-It relationships are perfectly acceptable, if not downright virtuous, forms of organizational behavior. The depicted businessman was pretending that his seatmate was a Thou or his 'new best friend' when, in fact, he was an object, an account to be checked out, and if the results warranted it, to be buttered up with a pretense of civility.
So what? Why is it necessarily wrong to treat our fellow people like objects? Granted, we don't have outright slavery anymore, but this is certainly a common practice in our military and business affairs, where workers become mere numbers to be moved around. There are, in fact, rare times when top executives may have little other choice, and the ambiguities involved will be addressed in some depth much later in a chapter on business and ethics. For the moment, however, let me simply state that it is wrong to regard any other human being, a priori, as an object, or an ‘It.’ This is so because each and every human being you, every friend, every stranger, every foreigner-is precious.
The attitude that all human beings are precious is referred to as humanism. By itself, however, it is merely an attitude. It doesn't say anything about why humans are precious. This is the reason conservative Christians in recent years have been decrying ‘secular humanism.’ Many such conservative Christians behave with far less civility than the secular humanists they criticize. With this caveat, however, the criticism needs to be taken seriously. For secular humanism is like a house built on sand. When the going gets rough-when a business is bad or strife is abroad-such humanistic attitudes may easily be blown away.
For this reason, I do not believe that secular ethics -ethics without theology--can be adequate. They do not relate us to the larger system. They leave God out of the picture. Mind you, secular humanists may be quite conscious of systems theory and the most active of ecologists. But the larger system they have in mind is solely that of the ‘visible,' material world.
The word religion comes from the Latin religio, a root that has received a remarkable number of different translations. The translation most meaningful to me is ‘to connect.' William James defined religion as the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things. In other words, theology attempts to delineate our proper connection to a spiritual, as opposed to purely material, universe.
This matter of connection is the essence of Michael Novak's distinction between what he called the 'secular' and the 'sacred' mentality. The person with a secular mentality feels himself to be the center of the universe. Yet he is likely to suffer from a sense of meaninglessness and insignificance because he knows he's but one human among five billion others-all feeling themselves to be the center of things - scratching out an existence on the surface of a medium sized planet circling a small star among countless stars in a galaxy lost among countless galaxies. The person with a sacred mentality, on the other hand, does not feel herself to be the center of the universe. She considers the Center to be elsewhere and other. Yet she is unlikely to feel lost or insignificant precisely because she draws her significance and meaning from her relationship, her connection, with that center, that Other.
More specifically than in the Eastern religions, the Western religions designate the Other or God to be Creator. And here we have a theological foundation for the humanism civility requires. Human beings are special because God created them. By virtue of their relationship with the sacredness of their Creator, they themselves are sacred creatures. (1)
Indeed, Islam holds that God not only created human beings but actually created them higher than the angels? In Judaism our creation in some ways is seen as an ongoing process. Yahweh is a’ God of Presence,’ speaking to us, listening to us, and actively intervening in our lives. Note the intimacy of the Psalms. And in Christianity, God is still more present and intimately involved, even to the point of coming down ‘to live and die as one of us’ and, as the 'Holy Spirit,' whispering daily in the ears of each one of us.
The idea that God has a direct, perpetual, loving relationship with each human being has extraordinary significance in every aspect of our lives, including our organizational behavior. Glenn Tinder, a political scientist, has recently and compellingly argued that it provides the only ideological foundation for humane ethics .From it is derived the concept of what he calls 'he exalted individual.' He is careful to point out that our exalted nature is but one side of a paradox; the other side is our 'fallen,' sinful nature. The entirety of the paradox must be embraced for us to keep our spiritual feet on the ground. But since God, despite our sin, considers each of us worthy of his/her unconditional love, it is incumbent upon us to afford each other in our organizational lives at least some faintly corresponding measure of dignity.
As Tinder puts it, ‘The concept of the exalted individual implies that governments-indeed, all persons who wield power-must treat individuals with care.’ It is a cornerstone of civility.
Tinder's article was entitled in the form of a question: ‘Can We Be Good without God?' I would answer, ‘Yes ... when the living is easy.’ So I now complete the definition of civility not as merely ‘consciously motivated organizational behavior that is ethical,' but specifically ‘ethical in submission to a Higher Power.’ Without such submission, our ethics are likely to fly out the window in times of trouble. Secular humanism tends to become less humanistic when the climate is harsh. By civility, I mean something deeper - more radical and fundamental- than a fair-weather phenomenon.
(1) The belief that we are sacred creatures has enormous implications in regard to our treatment not only of others but also of ourselves. It is the essential reason-to give just one instance-for the religious prohibition against suicide. From one vantage point, suicide may be looked upon as the ultimate act of arrogance. Being sacred creatures, we are not our own creatures in large part. What right do we have, then, to be our own destroyers? Many who commit suicide think, ‘It’s my life to do with as I want,' as if their life were an ‘It’-a thing-of their own creation.
Extracted from M Scott Peck’s A World Waiting to be Born.
As its title indicates, Buber labeled the most healthy or mature relationship possible between two human beings as the 'I-Thou' relationship. In such an instance, I recognize you to be different from me, but even though you are different-a ‘You’ or other you can still be beloved to me; namely, a 'Thou.' Such relationships are relatively rare. Indeed, one should not even aspire to too many of them since they require a lot of work. For instance, I do not have an I-Thou relationship with my tax lawyer. I do recognize him to be different from me: a You. Indeed, it is precisely because he is different from me-because he has gifts different from mine-that he is so valuable to me, but I have not yet taken the energy (nor am I likely to do so) to make him particularly beloved to me. Most of the time we go around having I-You relationships. There is nothing unethical about this as long as we recognize and respect the essential humanity of each other.
But the problem comes, as Buber indelibly pointed out, when we lose sight of the humanity of the other simply because he or she is other. Consequently, Buber contrasted the I-Thou relationship with what he called the I-It relationship. This occurs when I see you as a subhuman, even inanimate, object-an ‘It’- simply to be used, as we might use a chair or shovel. What was so seriously wrong with that advertisement was its implication that I-It relationships are perfectly acceptable, if not downright virtuous, forms of organizational behavior. The depicted businessman was pretending that his seatmate was a Thou or his 'new best friend' when, in fact, he was an object, an account to be checked out, and if the results warranted it, to be buttered up with a pretense of civility.
So what? Why is it necessarily wrong to treat our fellow people like objects? Granted, we don't have outright slavery anymore, but this is certainly a common practice in our military and business affairs, where workers become mere numbers to be moved around. There are, in fact, rare times when top executives may have little other choice, and the ambiguities involved will be addressed in some depth much later in a chapter on business and ethics. For the moment, however, let me simply state that it is wrong to regard any other human being, a priori, as an object, or an ‘It.’ This is so because each and every human being you, every friend, every stranger, every foreigner-is precious.
The attitude that all human beings are precious is referred to as humanism. By itself, however, it is merely an attitude. It doesn't say anything about why humans are precious. This is the reason conservative Christians in recent years have been decrying ‘secular humanism.’ Many such conservative Christians behave with far less civility than the secular humanists they criticize. With this caveat, however, the criticism needs to be taken seriously. For secular humanism is like a house built on sand. When the going gets rough-when a business is bad or strife is abroad-such humanistic attitudes may easily be blown away.
For this reason, I do not believe that secular ethics -ethics without theology--can be adequate. They do not relate us to the larger system. They leave God out of the picture. Mind you, secular humanists may be quite conscious of systems theory and the most active of ecologists. But the larger system they have in mind is solely that of the ‘visible,' material world.
The word religion comes from the Latin religio, a root that has received a remarkable number of different translations. The translation most meaningful to me is ‘to connect.' William James defined religion as the attempt to be in harmony with an unseen order of things. In other words, theology attempts to delineate our proper connection to a spiritual, as opposed to purely material, universe.
This matter of connection is the essence of Michael Novak's distinction between what he called the 'secular' and the 'sacred' mentality. The person with a secular mentality feels himself to be the center of the universe. Yet he is likely to suffer from a sense of meaninglessness and insignificance because he knows he's but one human among five billion others-all feeling themselves to be the center of things - scratching out an existence on the surface of a medium sized planet circling a small star among countless stars in a galaxy lost among countless galaxies. The person with a sacred mentality, on the other hand, does not feel herself to be the center of the universe. She considers the Center to be elsewhere and other. Yet she is unlikely to feel lost or insignificant precisely because she draws her significance and meaning from her relationship, her connection, with that center, that Other.
More specifically than in the Eastern religions, the Western religions designate the Other or God to be Creator. And here we have a theological foundation for the humanism civility requires. Human beings are special because God created them. By virtue of their relationship with the sacredness of their Creator, they themselves are sacred creatures. (1)
Indeed, Islam holds that God not only created human beings but actually created them higher than the angels? In Judaism our creation in some ways is seen as an ongoing process. Yahweh is a’ God of Presence,’ speaking to us, listening to us, and actively intervening in our lives. Note the intimacy of the Psalms. And in Christianity, God is still more present and intimately involved, even to the point of coming down ‘to live and die as one of us’ and, as the 'Holy Spirit,' whispering daily in the ears of each one of us.
The idea that God has a direct, perpetual, loving relationship with each human being has extraordinary significance in every aspect of our lives, including our organizational behavior. Glenn Tinder, a political scientist, has recently and compellingly argued that it provides the only ideological foundation for humane ethics .From it is derived the concept of what he calls 'he exalted individual.' He is careful to point out that our exalted nature is but one side of a paradox; the other side is our 'fallen,' sinful nature. The entirety of the paradox must be embraced for us to keep our spiritual feet on the ground. But since God, despite our sin, considers each of us worthy of his/her unconditional love, it is incumbent upon us to afford each other in our organizational lives at least some faintly corresponding measure of dignity.
As Tinder puts it, ‘The concept of the exalted individual implies that governments-indeed, all persons who wield power-must treat individuals with care.’ It is a cornerstone of civility.
Tinder's article was entitled in the form of a question: ‘Can We Be Good without God?' I would answer, ‘Yes ... when the living is easy.’ So I now complete the definition of civility not as merely ‘consciously motivated organizational behavior that is ethical,' but specifically ‘ethical in submission to a Higher Power.’ Without such submission, our ethics are likely to fly out the window in times of trouble. Secular humanism tends to become less humanistic when the climate is harsh. By civility, I mean something deeper - more radical and fundamental- than a fair-weather phenomenon.
(1) The belief that we are sacred creatures has enormous implications in regard to our treatment not only of others but also of ourselves. It is the essential reason-to give just one instance-for the religious prohibition against suicide. From one vantage point, suicide may be looked upon as the ultimate act of arrogance. Being sacred creatures, we are not our own creatures in large part. What right do we have, then, to be our own destroyers? Many who commit suicide think, ‘It’s my life to do with as I want,' as if their life were an ‘It’-a thing-of their own creation.
Extracted from M Scott Peck’s A World Waiting to be Born.
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