It and Thou

Raekwon Gough

9/25/14

Prof. Redick

It and Thou

            After reading Martin Buber’s passage, the argument of “It versus Thou” becomes slightly clearer. A lot of the reading was confusing, but I believe I understood enough to help me. With that being said, I understand different people view situations in different perspectives. It’s up to you to distinguish the difference between an object and subject.

            Your perspective is your way of distinguishing objects and subjects. What may be a subject to me, could be an object to you. What could be an object to me, could be a perspective to you. That’s how the world works. For example, I noticed how some people call animals an “It” It relating as an object rather than a subject. I see animals as a “Thou” because I see anything that has a heart or a nucleus as a subject. That just doesn’t mean animals, but trees and plants. It’s like we forget about them and take them for granted. Forgetting animals have hearts, can cry and have emotions like humans. It’s not just the animals that get treated like objects. Sometimes we even treat humans like objects. We treat them like they mean nothing. All the experiments we use animals and humans for makes them appear as a project rather than a subject with meaning to their life

            All in all, how you view something is completely up to you. Of course not everyone will agree with everyone’s opinion, but that’s okay. Having differential opinions means there are more open-minded suggestions in the world.