Bauman and Buber: towards an ethic of responsibility

• Main Author: Paula Calderón
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Chile 2017-12-01
• Series: Cuadernos Judaicos
• Online Access: https://cuadernosjudaicos.uchile.cl/index.php/CJ/article/view/48009

In this article we will make a brief diagnosis about the crisis of modernity, as it is proposed by the Jewish thinker Zygmunt Bauman. He make reference to the notion of "liquid modernity", which is characterized by a precariousness of human bonds, marked by the transitory and volatile nature of their relations, including the link with the religious, where man, according to the thinker, is "trapped" in technology, in relationships that become disposable and where individualism prevails over the collective, where the "other" is typified as strange and superfluous. In this scenario of technical epoch, we will make reference to the certain proposed solutions proposed by the German Jewish thinker Martin Buber, in order to recover the links with the sacred, getting out of these times of emergency. The thinker proposes a turn towards dialogue, which translates into a movement from oneness to multiplicity, that is, from the thought centered in the "I-It" to the thought "I-You", which allows a genuine and transcendent dialogue with people, nature and, above all, with God.