Why Be Good at All?

Reading it step by step

This is the first page of Threads. So far we have read the books one at a time. Here each page asks one question, sets several books on the same table, and looks at where they agree and where they part.

The first question is the oldest and the newest: why be good at all? In Confucius' day the Zhou rites still stood and the sacrifices went on as before, but people's hearts had stopped following them. The honest lost out and the crooked got ahead. People could no longer tell right from wrong, or see what being right would earn them. Where could a reason to be good come from now?

First: Confucius moved the reason inside. People do good because the rules require it, or because they believe a god rewards and punishes, or because they couldn't live with themselves otherwise. The first two sit outside you, and fall when the outside falls. “A person without ren: what is ritual to him?” Without a sincere heart, ritual is just motion. When Zai Wo wanted to cut three years of mourning to one, Confucius didn't quote a rule. He asked one thing: would you be at ease? That small unease is the pull toward good, speaking.

Second: Mencius says everyone has this heart. Where Confucius asked “at ease or not?”, Mencius asked “can you bear it or not?” See a toddler crawling toward a well and your chest tightens before you can wonder whose child it is or what saving it would get you. That jolt needs no reward and no audience. Because the reason grows inside the person, a person can still stand when the rites fall.

Third: Laozi asks something deeper: is living itself worth it? In an age of war, death is everywhere, and “why live?” is harder than “why be good?” Laozi says: once everyone knows beauty as beauty, ugliness has arrived; once everyone knows good as good, so has not-good. Human standards are relative and pull against each other. Step back and see from the larger Dao. Everything comes from it, so simply existing has worth, with or without anyone's label.