During the First World War, it became clear to me that a process was taking place that I had only suspected until then: the increasing difficulty of genuine dialog, especially genuine dialog between people of different types and convictions.

Existential Distrust between Man and Man[1]

Martin Buber

Philosopher and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Translation by Estevan de Negreiros Ketzer

Clinical psychologist. Doctor of Letters (PUCRS).

We ask for hope in this hour. This means that we, the questioners, perceive this hour not only as one of the most severe anguish, but also as one for which there seems to be no prospect of future hours, essentially different, of a time of brightness and height. In fact, it is this prospect that we, in a specific sense, call hope.

Today, as before, the human world is divided into two camps, each of which understands the other as falsity incarnate and itself as truth incarnate. Man is no longer content, as in previous eras, to consider his own principle the only true one and the opposite completely false; he is convinced that, on his side, things are right and, on the other, wrong, that he is concerned with the recognition and realization of what is right, while his opponent is concerned with masking his selfish interests - in modern terminology: that for him, ideas are the only ones, for the other, only ideologies. This source feeds the mistrust that prevails between the two camps.

During the First World War, it became clear to me that a process was taking place that I had only suspected until then: the increasing difficulty of genuine dialog, especially genuine dialog between people of different types and convictions. Direct and unreserved dialog is becoming increasingly difficult and rare, the chasms between people threaten to become ever more implacable and unbridgeable. This, as I realized at the time, 35 years ago, is the real question of humanity's destiny. Since then, I have ceaselessly pointed out that the future of humanity as human beings depends on a renaissance of dialog. We must overcome the massive distrust of others, but also that within ourselves. By this, I don't mean ancestral and primordial distrust, such as that of the foreigner, the unstable, the non-traditional, the distrust of the farmer on the remote farm against the vagrant who suddenly appears in front of him. I'm referring to the universal mistrust of our time. Nothing hinders the emergence of a culture of dialog more than the demonic power that rules our world, the demon of fundamental mistrust.

It's important to clearly see how specific modern mistrust differs from the ancient, indeed seemingly inherent, human mistrust that has left its mark on all cultures. There have always been countless situations in which a person, in their dealings with another, was gripped by doubt as to whether they could trust that person - that is, whether the other person really meant what they said and would act as they spoke; in which a person believed that their vital interest required them to harbor the suspicion that the other person was trying to appear different from what they were, and that they should be on their guard to ward off the encroaching illusion. In our time, something fundamentally different has emerged, something that is much more powerful than undermining the foundations of interpersonal existence. One no longer simply fears that the other person will intentionally understand them, but that they simply cannot act otherwise; the presumed difference between opinion and expression, between expression and action, is no longer understood here as an intention, but as an essential necessity.

The other person tells me the aspect they have acquired of a certain object, but I don't really recognize their communication; it's not a serious contribution to my knowledge of that object; instead, I mainly hear something that leads the other person to say what they say, an unconscious motive, a "complex" perhaps. He or she expresses a thought about a problem in life that concerns me, but I don't even ask myself about the truth content of what he or she has expressed; I only pay attention to which interest of the group to which the other person belongs has disguised itself in this apparently objective judgment; the idea, precisely like the other person's idea, is just an "ideology" for me. The main task in dealing with my fellow human beings is increasingly to see through them and unmask them, whether from an individual psychological or sociological perspective - whereby, in the classic case, this no longer means a mask that they have put on to fool me, but one that has been put on them without their knowledge, indeed has been virtually imprinted on them, so that it is their own consciousness that is really being fooled; in between, of course, there are countless forms of transition. With this fundamental change in attitude, which found scientific rationalization in the teachings of Marx and Freud, distrust between people has become existential, in a double sense: it no longer only questions the sincerity and integrity of the other, but also the internal harmony of their own existence, and it no longer only abolishes trusting dialogue between open or secret opponents, but also the immediacy of coexistence between people. Seeing through and unmasking has now become the great interpersonal sport, although those who practice it have no idea where it is taking them. The fact that we can no longer have a genuine conversation back and forth is the strongest symptom of humanity's illness today; existential mistrust is that very illness. But the destruction of trust in human existence is the internal poisoning of the entire human organism, from which this disease originates.

Where should the will to overcome begin? More precisely: from what intellectual position should a person, for whom existential mistrust has already become a natural starting point in their interactions with their fellow human beings, be encouraged to engage in self-criticism on this crucial issue? It's a position that can be described as a critique of the critique. It is about demonstrating a fundamental and tremendously influential error of all theories of insight and unmasking. The essence of this error is that a previously ignored or insufficiently observed element, now discovered or clarified, in the human psychic and spiritual constitution is identified with the general structure of the human being, rather than integrated into it. Consider, as an example, the theory of ideology, according to which the opinions and judgments of a person belonging to a particular social class must be examined essentially as a product of their class position, that is, in the context of their class's actions to assert its interests. If the problem of class position and its influence had been posed with absolute clarity, the initial scientific question would have been: since man is inserted into his world as part of a diverse network of spheres of influence, from the cosmic to the erotic, one of which is social stratification, what is the relationship and interaction between class influence in the form of ideology and the non-ideological nature of the person? The hope for this moment lies in the renewal of dialogical immediacy between people. But let's transcend the pressing need, fear and concern of this moment; let's see this need in the context of the great human journey, and we will recognize: immediacy has been violated not only between man and man, but between the human essence and the primordial foundation of being. Hidden in the innermost conflict between distrust and trust in man lies the conflict between distrust and trust in eternity. If our mouths really say "You", then, after a long silence and stuttering, we turn again to our eternal "You". Reconciliation begets reconciliation.

Translation from the German original: BUBER, Martin. Das existentielle Mißtrauen zwischen Mensch und Mensch (1953). In: Martin Buber Werkausgabe 10: Schriften zur Psychologie und Psychotherapie. München: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008, pp. 70-73.

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[1] Das existentielle Mißtrauen zwischen Mensch und Mensch [Existential Distrust between Man and Man.] Original text: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Christmas edition 1953, Supplement p. 1. MBB 928. This is an excerpt from a speech given on April 6, 1952, at Carnegie Hall in New York. Also published under the title: Hoffnung für diese Stunde [Hope for this Hour] in: Merkur, 6th year, number 8, August 1952, pp. 711-118. MBB 902 Include as: Hope for this Hour, in: Hinweise - Gesammelte Essays [1909-1953] [Notes - Collected Essays], Zurich: Menasse 1953. MBB 919.