Buber perceives man becoming more through his human capacity to relate
to other being in all forms from the materialistic to the spiritual in
"I-Thou," "I-It," and "We" ways.[8] Gestation, with the closeness of
mother and child, has left man with an ingrained knowing of the
experience of closeness. Thus, throughout man's life his condition of
existence is affected by and desires relationship with and closeness to
other being. The closeness of the conditions of gestation is never again
possible, hence existential loneliness. Yet because of this prenatal
experience Buber conceives of man as born with a "Thou"--another--before
he is conscious of himself, his "I." With growing consciousness he sorts
out his "I" from his "Thou." You can see the late infant doing, acting
through, this separation. During this growing phase, often to the
care-taking adult's frustration, he repeatedly, intensely, and excitedly
throws his toys or bottle out of the crib, carriage, or playpen. Often
he runs away from his "Thou," his parental security source, to a safe
distance with intense awareness of what he is doing. While internalizing
these and subsequent "Thous" as part of his "I," his knowing place,
paradoxically, he sorts out who he is, and who and what is other than
himself. So with ever more relationship, ever more experience, he
becomes ever more the person he has the human capacity to be. He becomes
more through his relations with others, never the same as these others,
though he does internalize these others as part of himself.
Buber describes "I-Thou" relating, man merging with otherness, as always
necessitating an "I," a man, capable of recognizing self as at a
distance, apart from otherness. Therefore, his "I-Thou" relating, a
merging of beings, is not like the psychological defense, unconscious
identification. Buber's "I-Thou" relating emphasizes awareness of each
being's uniqueness without a superimposing, or a deciding about the
other without a knowing. Such relating is a turning to the other,
offering the other authentic presence, allowing the authentic presence
of the other with the self, and maintaining one's capacity to question.
It is not then identification or an idealization of the other. Within
this mysterious happening of "I-Thou" relating, when both participants
are human, each becomes more. Buber refers to the event of this merging
of otherness, of man with other being, as "the between." Humanistic
nursing is concerned with "the between" of nurses and their others.
Their others, the {45} microcosms of their communities, would be
patients, patients' families, professional colleagues, and other health
service personnel.
Buber describes man's ability to come to know and relate in "I-It" as
man looking back, reflecting on his past "I-Thou" relations. Looking
back these "I-Thou" relations are viewed as an object to be known, as
"It". "I-It" relating allows man to interpret, categorize, and accrue
scientific knowledge.
Finally man relates with others as "We." This permits the phenomenon of
community and of adult unique contribution. So man becomes through
relating with family, others, and community, like Hesse's onion or a
being who actively moves toward ever more integuments, qualities,
threads, and complexity.[9] Many unique contradictory type beings, then,
have influenced the becoming of each individual human person. In a sense
each unique person might be viewed as a community of the beings with
whom he has meaningfully related in struggle and/or complementariness.
In fact Buber talks of thinking man as a dialogue of internalized
"Thous."