Buber, Between Man And Man (In) Bb.pdf - PolkFolk

education 115
of a tree, or even of an animal or a man, and as it were to trace it
from within, understanding the formation and motoriality of
the object with the perceptions of one’s own muscles; it means
to “transpose” oneself over there and in there. Thus it means the
exclusion of one’s own concreteness, the extinguishing of the
actual situation of life, the absorption in pure æstheticism of the
reality in which one participates. Inclusion is the opposite of
this. It is the extension of one’s own concreteness, the fulfilment
of the actual situation of life, the complete presence of the reality
in which one participates. Its elements are, first, a relation, of no
matter what kind, between two persons, second, an event
experienced by them in common, in which at least one of them
actively participates, and, third, the fact that this one person,
without forfeiting anything of the felt reality of his activity, at
the same time lives through the common event from the
standpoint of the other.
A relation between persons that is characterized in more
or less degree by the element of inclusion may be termed a
dialogical relation.
A dialogical relation will show itself also in genuine conversation,
but it is not composed of this. Not only is the shared silence
of two such persons a dialogue, but also their dialogical life
continues, even when they are separated in space, as the continual
potential presence of the one to the other, as an
unexpressed intercourse. On the other hand, all conversation
derives its genuineness only from the consciousness of the element
of inclusion—even if this appears only abstractly as an
“acknowledgement” of the actual being of the partner in the
conversation; but this acknowledgement can be real and effective
only when it springs from an experience of inclusion, of the
other side.
The reversal of the will to power and of Eros means that
relations characterized by these are made dialogical. For that
very reason it means that the instinct enters into communion