I-Thou or I-It: A Glimpse on ‘Relations’ in the Post-Pandemic Digital

Age

Suresh M

Bhopal School of Social Sciences, Bhopal, India

Keywords: The Other, Moral Decadence, I-Thou, I-It, Proximity

Abstract: ‘Covid-19’ is the word that everyone is averse to hear it nowadays. The pandemic has caused havoc in almost

all the spheres of human life and the world is still trying to get back into the past. The world is not anymore,

the same. Amidst the chaos, one can see the booming of digital media and gadgets that have become the norm

of building and defining relationships. While the technologies through apps bring people together, one can

see a decay of human dignity and respect in the interpersonal relationships. A perspective of the other as ‘I-

It’ (in Buber’s words) in this digital age has fueled crimes of all sorts. Blooming of technologies and gadgets

have boomeranged in distancing one from the other. This article is an attempt to redefine human relationships

on ‘I-Thou’ rather than ‘I-It’ in this digital age which alone can concretize the ‘future’ of the human society.

1 INTRODUCTION

Gautama Buddha in one of his famous discourses

said, “three things can no longer be hidden, the sun,

the moon and the truth.”

The world is still waking

from the darkness of the pandemic and its aftermath.

The pandemic has revealed many truths about the

disparity and the vulnerability of the world, inhumane

behaviors of millions, intricacies of the human

relationships and the sharp rise of violence in all its

forms. Survival of the fittest was the mantra of

hospitals, welfare programs, rehabilitation centers,

government policies and this mantra defined human

relationships in almost all the spheres starting from

family. Thousands lost their loved ones and

thousands were left to die due to hunger and lack of

timely medical attention. Principle of utility was the

only ethical principle that influenced decision making

especially by medical practitioners, oxygen and

grocery vendors. The world is still recovering from

the havoc and maladies of this pandemic and a few

countries have stooped to economic regress and some

others are facing irremediable consequences at

various levels. Amidst all these hard realities, the

world has witnessed digital boom and sudden rise in

the usage of media and gadgets. Digital media are

supposed to build human relationships but

unfortunately, what we are witnessing is not the

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/buddha-133884.

narrowing of the barriers but widening the gap of

relationships. In addition, what really disturbs is the

attempt to color the truth with the prism of lies. In this

article, we are going to evaluate human relationships

philosophically taking the concepts of I-Thou and I-

It (of Martin Buber), and the author proposes the need

for redefining human relationships which alone can

assure a better future for the coming generations.

1.1 Moral Degradation in Human

Relationships

The pressures of the series of lockdowns at regular

intervals caused human persons to invent and

discover new avenues of letting out one’s frustrations.

It is not a secret that almost all the countries

especially growing countries like India have seen a

sudden rise of internet users and some of the chatting

apps like Instagram, telegram, and WhatsApp besides

dating apps. One would imagine that such apps help

the frustrated individuals to build up like-minded

groups and platforms to share and to express one’s

opinions, but unfortunately what we have seen is not

coming together of humanity but these avenues were

used to divide and instill negative feelings towards

the other. Thus, the society at present is not the

society of moral strength but of moral decadence. I

would like to borrow the three main strategies of

Zygmunt Bauman in evaluating the moral decadence

684

M, S.

I-Thou or I-It: A Glimpse on ‘Relations’ in the Post-Pandemic Digital Age.

DOI: 10.5220/0012501100003792

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 1st Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies (PAMIR 2023), pages 684-686

ISBN: 978-989-758-687-3

in the post pandemic society. He identifies three

strategies as: 1) denial of proximity 2) effacement of

face and 3) reduction of traits.

The human society has seen apathy of thousands of

migrants, poor laborers walking hundreds of miles, a

starving man feeding off a dog carcass on the Delhi-

Jaipur highway, more than ninety-seven passengers

found dead in Shramik Special trains, etc. Hunger,

thirst, poverty, loss of jobs, economic discriminations

causing denial of food grains, and oxygen cylinders,

more than all these, a sense of unwantedness and

rejection coupled with the division of ‘mine’ versus

‘the others’- all these are the observable phenomena

of the post pandemic society. Why does a human not

see the other in proximity? Why does the human

person choose to deny the proximity of the other?

Bauman observes that proximity means the realm of

intimacy and morality. ‘The Other’ is a ‘face’ that

gazes prompting a moral impulse and triggering a

moral responsibility. The ‘face of the other’ invites a

subject to treat the other with mercy and compassion.

But what has happened in our society is, the subject

denies the proximity of the other knowing very well

the implication of withdrawing from moral and social

responsibility. We can see this denial of proximity in

the social discrimination with regard to high or low

caste, majority versus the minority based on religion,

companies sacking the employees at the wee hours

without owning up the responsibility of the

employees and their families, etc.

‘A face’ gives someone an identity. When someone

is denied of one’s face, one loses his/her identity.

During and post pandemic era, we have seen

thousands of lives were lost and the bodies were

dumped without any dignity and no one really

bothered to have even the count of them. Why so?

These were the so called ‘faceless’. When there is no

‘face’ one is not obliged morally to care for these and

thus today, there is diminishing of moral

responsibility and zero guilt even if an individual or

the government has not done what they are supposed

to.

The third element in Bauman’s analysis is reduction

to traits. This is a process to neutralize the moral

impulse and to destroy the object of action as a moral

self. This moral self is not in totality but is typically

dissembled into traits. So, no moral self and no moral

responsibility. There is also another aspect. An

individual is not considered as a subject in totality but

rather from the perspective of utility. A subject

reduces the other into an aspect of usefulness and

therefore excuses him/her self from moral

responsibility. Such attitude in relationship takes us

further into the explanations propounded by Buber.

1.2 I-Thou and I-It: ‘Relations’

Questioned

For Buber, there are two attitudes with which we

relate with other realities (God, world, the other); I-

Thou being a dialogical relationship and I-It being

reduced to merely an experience. These two attitudes

are generally found in all the relationships especially

interpersonal human relationships in the society. I

find it apt to discuss these in the background of post

pandemic digital age wherein the subject relates with

the other mostly not with the attitude of I-Thou but

that of I-It which is the cause of relational maladies

of the present day.

I-Thou is the relation of subject to subject. A subject

is aware of the other as having unity of being.

Therefore, the dialogical relationship blooms with

each other considering each one’s whole being. In the

I-It relationship, the subject perceives the other

merely as having certain qualities which are useful or

instrumental. In the I-Thou relation, there is growth

due to mutuality and reciprocity, whereas in the I-It

relation, there is stagnancy due to separateness and

detachment. This stagnancy is the cause of moral

decadence and violent outbursts of all its kinds. In

the I-Thou relation, there is a sharing of caring,

respect, commitment and responsibility.

Based on these two perspectives of relations, let us

discuss further the evolution of ‘relations’ in the post

pandemic digital age. The online platforms without

any doubt enabled personal interactions, facilitated

comfort, individuals found support in the like-minded

online groups. Companies were forced to adapt to the

module of ‘work from home’. As a consequence,

relationships in general, person to person relations in

various spheres (companies, factories, families,

educational institutions, etc.) in particular have gone

through an evolution. But this evolution in

relationships raises two main questions; is it for better

or worse? Second, can we reverse into a humane

relation rather than the periphery (instrumental or

valuable) even in this post pandemic era?

Virtual environments as a result of digital

technologies have impacted the very essence of

relationships (be it in organizations or any other work

space). Pandemic has forced people to profoundly

review values, purposes, and norms which basically

have defined relationships in the past. As we find

ourselves in this hybrid module of relationships, as

philosophers, we need to redefine ‘relationships’ in

order to accommodate and achieve ‘human well-

being’.

I-Thou or I-It: A Glimpse on ‘Relations’ in the Post-Pandemic Digital Age

685

2 CONCLUSION

Famous Immanuel Kant built his philosophical

treatise on the assumption that “moral law is inside

the subject.” Emmanuel Levinas had observed that if

the moral law is inside the subject, that should reflect

on the individual’s relation with the other. Moral

responsibility certainly involves being for the other

before one can be with the other. Buber also asserted

that love is the defining criteria of subject to subject

relationship but he also cautions that this love is not

instrumental or of utility but that shapes the unity of

being. We are aware that we can never revert back

into time. This pandemic has taught a number of

lessons for the humanity by exposing the truth of our

own selves. The challenge before us is, what kind of

a world, are we going to create? Is it a world defined

by relationships promoting the unity of being or is it

a world divided by fragmentation and

instrumentalism? Digital media and their effort to

bring out the truth should never underscore the

fragmented reality of truth and of the subject but that

of aiming to achieve the unity of being taking into

consideration the moral responsibility in every human

act.

REFERENCES

Bauman, Z (1990). Thinking Sociologically. Cambridge:

Basil Blackwell.

Buber, Martin (1958). I and Thou. (Trans.) Ronald Gregor

Smith. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Empson, L. and Howard-Grenville, J. (2021), “How has the

past year changed you and your

organization?”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 2021

No. 3. available

at:https://hbr.org/2021/03/how-has-the-past-year-

changed-you-and-your-

organization.

Frisch, B. and Greene, C. (2021), “Make time for small talk

in your virtual meetings”, Harvard Business Review,

Vol. 2021 No. 2. available at:

https://hbr.org/2021/02/make-time-for-small-talk-in-

your-virtual-meetings.

Pandey, Neelam. The Print, 19 September, 2020.Empson,

L. and Howard-Grenville, J. (2021), “How has the past

year changed you and your organization?”, Harvard

Business Review, Vol. 2021 No. 3. available

at:https://hbr.org/2021/03/how-has-the-past-year-

changed-you-and-your-organization.

Frisch, B. and Greene, C. (2021), “Make time for small talk

in your virtual meetings”, Harvard Business Review,

Vol. 2021 No. 2. available at:

https://hbr.org/2021/02/make-time-for-small-talk-in-

your-virtual-meetings

Bauman, Z (1990). Thinking Sociologically. Cambridge:

Basil Blackwell

Neelam Pandey, The Print, 19 September, 2020.

PAMIR 2023 - The First Pamir Transboundary Conference for Sustainable Societies- | PAMIR

686