A place at the table

Shang and Western Zhou · c. 1600–771 BCE

Can habits make us better? Are we born compassionate? And when does our effort to improve life become part of the problem? In five chapters, we meet thinkers who disagreed about relationships, power, knowledge and what it means to live well.

Imagine arriving at a feast to find a seat prepared, your name known, and someone waiting to welcome you. Small things, yet they change how it feels to be there. This question about the gestures that give relationships their shape brings us into ancient China.

During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, centuries before Confucius, elite families used bronze vessels to make ritual offerings to their ancestors. Some vessels bear the names of their owners and ancestors, binding a family's memory to its standing in the world. A vessel had a role within a web of relationships. Even after its owner's death, it could carry that person's name into later generations.

We will see why thinkers such as Confucius gave habits and respectful conduct such attention: perhaps we learn to care for others by practising care, as a musician learns rhythm by playing. Yet a difficulty remains. The same gesture can express genuine respect or become an empty performance.

Every community passes on ways of sitting, speaking and remembering. What else should we hope to pass on with them: the meaning of an action, or only its outward form?