David, thank you for sharing your essays. By coincidence, I just finished Martin Buber’s essay, “The Way of Man According to Hasidic Teaching.” Buber believes strongly in the essential nature of the self, writing: “Every individual is a new entity in the world and must strive to perfect his [sic] individual nature in this world.” He also writes, of interest to you: "The soul has an inner core, a divine force in its depth, which has the power to influence, to alter, to bind together its diverse controlling forces, and to fuse the elements that would pull the soul in different directions.”
Buber's strong “one-self” philosophy seems to be a simultaneous rejection of Buddhist “no-self” philosophy, Christian “two-selves” philosophy (one sacred, immaterial soul and one profane, material body), and Freudian “many-selves” philosophy (id, ego, super-ego, etc.). At the same time, although he doesn’t seem to believe in the social construction of reality, Buber does believe strongly that the self is shaped through relations - this is a minor theme in “The Way of Man,” and the main theme of his much more famous, longer, honestly rather turgid book “I and Thou.”
Despite his "one-self" philosophy, I think that Buber would share your concern with the role of algorithms in our society. Algorithms, as we use them, inject a dominant mediating force into relations (between potential partners, between teachers and students, judges and defendants, employers and employees) for which Buber would prescribe exactly the opposite: a deepened and unmediated relation of one self to another.
Fascinating! I've never read Buber... though your description of I and Thou makes me imagine a possible history of trying and failing to get into him. "Hasidic Teaching" sounds lively, story-driven and also mercifully brief, all of which sends it toward the top of my to-read pile.
I recommend Part I of “I and Thou,” where he lays out his basic thesis. I think of it almost like a spiritual Fourier transform - teaching you to look not at individuals but at relations between individuals as your unit of concern. Parts II and III are where he tries to develop his insight into a systematic theory of psychology, sociology, and metaphysics, and bogs down about as badly as you would imagine from that description.
In some ways it seems intuitive to understand the ways in which our identities are overlapping and are contingent on facts that are only true by fate or luck.
Important aspects of my identity: I’m a brother of sisters and a father of daughters - but also keenly aware that these are facts over which my control was quite limited. I can also imagine a world in which Tuukka exists, but is neither a brother nor a father. When I imagine this other Tuukka, I imagine that there is still a unique person - me - to which different characteristics than those which I actually have can be ascribed.
Is there an assumption that an “identity” is but the collection of attributes? I find stories of change and redemption appealing, in part because I find the idea of a single person with a narrative arc, who can live more than one life in their lifetime, compelling.
David, thank you for sharing your essays. By coincidence, I just finished Martin Buber’s essay, “The Way of Man According to Hasidic Teaching.” Buber believes strongly in the essential nature of the self, writing: “Every individual is a new entity in the world and must strive to perfect his [sic] individual nature in this world.” He also writes, of interest to you: "The soul has an inner core, a divine force in its depth, which has the power to influence, to alter, to bind together its diverse controlling forces, and to fuse the elements that would pull the soul in different directions.”
Buber's strong “one-self” philosophy seems to be a simultaneous rejection of Buddhist “no-self” philosophy, Christian “two-selves” philosophy (one sacred, immaterial soul and one profane, material body), and Freudian “many-selves” philosophy (id, ego, super-ego, etc.). At the same time, although he doesn’t seem to believe in the social construction of reality, Buber does believe strongly that the self is shaped through relations - this is a minor theme in “The Way of Man,” and the main theme of his much more famous, longer, honestly rather turgid book “I and Thou.”
Despite his "one-self" philosophy, I think that Buber would share your concern with the role of algorithms in our society. Algorithms, as we use them, inject a dominant mediating force into relations (between potential partners, between teachers and students, judges and defendants, employers and employees) for which Buber would prescribe exactly the opposite: a deepened and unmediated relation of one self to another.
Fascinating! I've never read Buber... though your description of I and Thou makes me imagine a possible history of trying and failing to get into him. "Hasidic Teaching" sounds lively, story-driven and also mercifully brief, all of which sends it toward the top of my to-read pile.
I recommend Part I of “I and Thou,” where he lays out his basic thesis. I think of it almost like a spiritual Fourier transform - teaching you to look not at individuals but at relations between individuals as your unit of concern. Parts II and III are where he tries to develop his insight into a systematic theory of psychology, sociology, and metaphysics, and bogs down about as badly as you would imagine from that description.
In some ways it seems intuitive to understand the ways in which our identities are overlapping and are contingent on facts that are only true by fate or luck.
Important aspects of my identity: I’m a brother of sisters and a father of daughters - but also keenly aware that these are facts over which my control was quite limited. I can also imagine a world in which Tuukka exists, but is neither a brother nor a father. When I imagine this other Tuukka, I imagine that there is still a unique person - me - to which different characteristics than those which I actually have can be ascribed.
Is there an assumption that an “identity” is but the collection of attributes? I find stories of change and redemption appealing, in part because I find the idea of a single person with a narrative arc, who can live more than one life in their lifetime, compelling.