Martin Buber, in his book I and Thou, tells us that the most powerful affirmation we can make toward one another comes in the "I and Thou." He calls it a "basic pair" which operates as a single word which indicates a form of philosophy, a way of viewing the nature of the world and our relationship with it. Whenever we encounter a challenging philosophy, one that questions our own previously held meaning perspectives, it can produce a critical moment, a moment in which we might question and critically reflect on the now apparent meaning perspective. The I/It also speaks about relationship and operates as a "basic pair. The I/It turns living beings into an Other. We reify them. We turn into objects, things. The Other does not exist except that we make it happen by believing in the I/It relationship as a meaning perspective. We make of other beings an It. In the I/Thou relationship, we accept other beings as connected fully to our own being and equal to our being in the other's unique way. In that way, we all attain our fullness of humanity and express our becoming self as we embrace the other being's becoming self. In the I/It we reify the other being into an object which in relationship exists primarily if not solely for our use. In that way, we also turn ourselves into an It. We have become an object for our own use. Having leads us out of the moral sphere wherein we violate the ends principle: to treat everyone as an end in her/him self and never as a means to our or anyone else's end. The I/Thou serves as a philosophy of being. The I/It serves as a philosophy of having. We cannot possess what lives; we cannot have or possess the living lest it lose its essential freedom and thus its essential life.
When we own something, we become tied to that something, and it becomes part of our sense of identity. What we have, we defend with our ego. Our ego needs to defend what we have because what we have forms part of our identity. Some people say, "We are what we eat." However that may work or not, many people think and feel, "I am what I own." If we own objects, and we can only own an object or something we have reified, made into an object, then we reify ourselves and shift very far away from the becoming self. All our attention and energy shifts into the things we have and the thing we have made of ourselves. Our identity hardens around the habits of having, and our ego makes sure that we and everyone else around us know that what we do, the having we perform, is the right thing to do. We know that because, at heart, we know that the having way of life conforms to the way of life for most of those who surround us. We conform to having as we conform to many things. In this case, we feel our having things will protect us from our essential vulnerability and answer our need for unconditional positive regard. The act of having doesn't satisfy any real need, and it leaves us feeling as if we need more, so we reach out into the material world and take more from it and from other people only to find ourselves still wanting more. Such actions of having do not and cannot fulfill our need for unconditional positive regard and to return to our awareness of the becoming self. I learned about the need for and the pain of having and needing to have one summer in Phoenix, Arizona.
I drove a taxi to support myself when I went to college. I was thirty-five at the time. It gets hot in Phoenix, but I drove all summer long to keep my budget intact. One summer, a slow time because the tourists and others don't come to Phoenix, I drove for a company that ran the cheapest cabs in town.