Buber's Notion of Signs

   In the book Between Man and Man, Martin Buber begins his section entitled 'The Signs' with the following statement: ''Each of us s encased in an armour whose task is to ward off signs" (p.10) Buber suggests that people often try to reduce their interactions with others into something predictable that can be packaged or symbolized in some way, rather than simply lived head-on for its own sake. It's interesting that Buber would have us believe that signs can threaten a person with annihilation; hence, at one point, he remarks, "the risk is too dangerous for us, the soundless thunderings seem to threaten us with annihilation" (ibid). It's interesting because I would think that a universe without signs would threaten a person with annihilation. After all, one could argue that signs are what give meaning to a person's life. But I suggest that Buber has a specific meaning attached to a universe of signs. While certain kinds of signs, such as augurs, are things which confer status of 'knower' on the sign reader (p.11-120), the signs Buber is referring to relate more to something which addresses me (or you) uniquely and specifically as an individual. Whereas traditional forms of knowing tend to stress being able to objectify and predict relationships, the signs that Buber describes are the kinds of personal calling which speak specifically to one person, in one situated event in time. Signs become so special to the person that they can strangely enough seem overwhelming, often creating a demand for a response. I am almost thinking that perhaps these 'signs' that Buber is referring to are more about fate, destiny or personal calling: the kinds of things that people often back out of because they fear the responsibility they shoulder for fulfilling a personal calling. While the more mundane examples of signs (such as dream dictionaries) tend to operate from the opposite principle of trying to fix situations according to a specific map of symbols, the signs Buber refers to point to a person's freedom to choose and her ultimate responsibility. About these signs, Buber remarks, "it is no experience that can be remembered independently of the situation, it remains the address of that moment and cannot be isolated, it remains the question of the questioner and will have its answer." (p.12)
     One thing I find interesting about Buber's notion of signs is that it leaves room for the wild unpredictability of how people are 'called' to be in the world. Think back, for instance, to the days when you were  a student and you had to fill out those very long aptitude questionnaires to determine what you are most suited to do for a living. While these kinds of tests have a value in pointing people in the direction of their skills and interests, there is something that happens when one graduates from university and enters into the working world. I believe that what happens is one realizes that what one is called to do in life cannot be reduced to aptitude tests or questionnaires. Often, what a  person is 'called' to do in the depths of experience could never be predicated or quantified. This is because being 'called' to do something means that only I and I alone am being called at that time and place, to do a specific job or task. Although I may have been able to predict in general outline what I would be doing for a living, it's only the specific call to do so which allows one to really rise to the situation. And this calling takes one into the depths of their own mystery, which can never be reduced to a statistic.

Buber, Martin, (1967), Between Man and Man.     New York, NY: Macmillan