December 18, 1959
CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
11
terns of responding to people and stress, we often observe that the client, the human being, is still entrapped in an on-going process of existing on a subject-object level. Like so many others, he is trapped by the everyday routines of subtle or obvious mutual manipulations. Busy playing different roles, there is no emotional time for being. We may rephrase the poet and say that the dilemma of our times is Being or not Being.
Is it not true that what is often
with a potential fire, or accident,
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The teacher, busy motivating her class, seeking to achieve so many units that can be tested and measured at the end of the week, cannot pause too long to pick up the particular child's yearnings for understanding, for the insight that will bridge a gap between inhibition and comprehension. The organization must produce its units or services for sale, or it cannot compete in a very demand-
taken for tender loving care between mother and child, is the inevitable, dutiful manipulation by the mother of the object of her care, the child, and vice-versa? The child needs the mother for survival, and competes with other demands on the mother, who must simultaneously be wife, companion, hostess, club member, etc. This often reduces the possibilities for human relationship to a series of endless object-subject manipulations.
This is not to reject or condemn such inevitable responses between any object-subject relationship in human affairs. How else could the world function; how else could the peace of a city or neighbourhood be sustained, if the policeman or fireman stopped to think of human beings before calamity or danger? They must respond automatically in a protective and authoritative manner in dealing
ing society. Our urban civilization, our very social structure proclaims the need for coordination, so that consumer distribution will be expedited. The social system cannot pause too long for individuals to feel through and truly experience the meaning of their behaviour, feeling; and~thinking; ~'"
We are so busy playing different roles in every day life, from worker to father, to husband, to companion, to pal, to club member, etc.; or trying to be both a good child, a sympathetic sister, a girl-friend, a student, that we have no time to meditate or to experience the fulness of being.
It is here that Martin Buber offers the understanding which can enrich Being for each person, regardless of their protean roles, regardless of their object-subject relations, and fill with meaning^ the~ "otherwise empty voids which modern life produces.
This is what may be the major awareness of the existentialists, namely, that one must affirm in every human transaction a real-ness and a truth for which each person alone is responsible. The alternative of the "beatnik" rejection of the world as it is, is to put personal chaos before human involvement.
Though all human societies require of its members hyphenation, or human involvement as John stated it, in order to sua-
tain themselves on a series of inter-dependencies, we must acknowledge that this is merely the primary and most elementary form of social intercourse.
Experience in the healing and treatment professions emphasizes
__that_all_ anguished_uand -bewildered
persons are only involved in mankind on a contactual or hyphenated basis. Many of our friends and neighbours are thus tenuously involved in mankind, and though this may be attributed to social and economic forces and influences, it does not resolve the problem of Being. Beginning with human contact, one has the potentials to develop and build such contacts in the inter-action between two or more human beings that permit for deeper relationships to evolve.
Human relationships by defini-
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tlon are those which go beyond the fulfilment merely of role inter-action and transaction. These do include such inter-actions and transactions as they lead to accepting reciprocal involvements such as friendships, family, and social ties afford. Such involvements enable each partner in the relationship to endure the sorrows, the sufferings, and the achievements which are possible in each human being. Such relationships offset the otherwise quiet desperation of every day" existence; and transmute that existence into true human being.
It happens in the treatment and healing professions which utilize relationship to clarify and to enable people to confront the reality and truth of their own destinies. Perhaps this is "whaT tKe philosopher meant when he said that every person can be responsible for his own birth. Perhaps this is what is also meant by the statement that "In the hands of the Executioner, I still own my self". And yet this too is a limited conception of what Being can lead to in every day experience.
We turn to Buber's dialogic understanding of life and its lessons for every one. Putting aside his theological development and his concept of man's relationship
(Continued on Pigt Fifty-four)
It's Monday, and you want a wine to give the cold Sunday roastalt/f; .
It's Tuesday, and you both want a v]j(lass of something nice with the omelette;
It's Wednesday, and there's just time for a quick snack before going to the movies;
It's Thursday, and you're having a silver-and-crystal dinner with wine and all the trimmings;
It's Friday, and the fish sticks need encouragement;
It's Saturday, and the steaks are so good you want the wine to make them taste even better;
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