How Social Capital Makes Us Better Humans
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An Ancient Approach to a Modern Problem
China in the Zhou period (771 to 256 BCE) was a time of rapid change and social upheaval. The feudal lords were fighting amongst themselves and with the ruling Ji, Meng, and Shu families. Religious practices and beliefs that often holds a society together were being questioned and were out of touch with people’s lives.
Into this mix appeared a man called Confucius with a new approach on how to organise the society. He believed that the way forward to creating a healthy and cohesive society lay in the day-to-day rituals that made up people’s lives. Confucius’s approach was a significant departure from the religious approach of the day. He proposed a way that was secular, humanist, and rational rather than mystical, magical, and spiritual.
Confucius taught the importance of taking everyday life seriously and not seeing it as trivial. He believed that often we just go through the motions of gathering with others and are too preoccupied to pay full attention to what is happening. By coming together and paying attention to the minute details and habits we ensure a high level of caring, trust, and moral excellence. It was by highlighting the importance of “right practice” that Confucius taught people how to be better humans.
He believed that social solidarity could be achieved by collective rituals, not through legal and external constraints. Collective rituals were the underlying social structure that maintained and built cohesion and mutual understanding.
Law and punishment are the minimum requirements for order; the higher goal of social harmony, however, can be attained only by virtue expressed through ritual performance. To perform rituals, then, is to take part in a communal act to promote mutual understanding. (1)
Confucius defined the process of becoming human as being able to “discipline yourself and return to ritual” (*12:1). The dual focus on the transformation of the self (Confucius is said to have freed himself from four things: “opinionatedness, dogmatism, obstinacy, and egoism” [*9:4]) and on social participation enabled Confucius to be loyal (Zhong) to himself and considerate (shu) of others (*4:15). It is easy to understand why the Confucian “golden rule” is “Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you!” (*15:23). Confucius’s approach is captured by his “plain and real” appreciation that learning to be human is a communal enterprise:
Persons of humanity, in wishing to establish themselves, also establish others, and in wishing to enlarge themselves, also enlarge others. The ability to take as an analogy what is near at hand can be called the method of humanity. (*6:30)
Initially, I found Confucius’s approach to ritual did not gel with me. It was too fixed and I felt it would lead to an empty and lifeless approach in which people just followed the rules and customs of the past. However, as I explored his writings more I realised the issue was not with Confucianism but with my western mindset. I was used to seeing the world from a highly individualistic perspective in which I controlled my own destiny.
As I explored Confucianism more I discovered that my mindset was totally at odds with this approach. I was seeing the world through my cultural/historical lens and was missing the fact that the experience of people living in China at this time was very different. They experienced the world as a collective endeavour. There was no individual perspective at the centre of everything. I was used to looking inwards at my internal psychological state and self-motivation. Instead, Confucianism focused on correct external actions in order to undertake the performance of a human, civilised and social society.
In this perspective, ritual is central to a civilised society. However, this ritual is not about people performing empty, mechanical patterns of behaviour in service of some cosmic or social law. Rituals were performed with a specific set of practises and approach based on the central idea of Li. Li in its root meaning is close to “holy ritual” or “sacred ceremony”.
Li is about the way in which rituals are performed. Correct Li occurs when there is a fusion between the rules and practises of the ritual and the deeper live participation of the people involved. Without complete participation, the ceremony is empty and lifeless. For the ceremony to be authentic “one must participate in the sacrifice” otherwise it is as if one did not “sacrifice at all” (*3:12). The participation is not about forcing, pushing, demanding or compelling an outcome or behaviour. The action flows smoothly from the participants having the correct intention. When the correct intention is established good and virtuous collective action will flow naturally and easily.
There are no pragmatically developed and tested strategies or tactics in ritual. He simply wills the end in the proper ritual setting and with the proper ritual gesture and without further effort on his part the deed is achieved. (2)
The ritual is like a dance that is performed unselfconsciously and flows effortlessly. All that is required is the initial gesture in the proper context. From then onwards everything flows.
This idea of collective social rituals is gelled with my community work practice in contemporary Australia. I’ve worked as a community worker for over a decade with people from all walks of life, often experiencing challenges such as poverty, discrimination, and ill-health. Social services have traditionally focused on helping individuals with charity, which comes from the religious roots of many organisations in the field. However, in the 1960s and 70s, there was a recognition that social problems were often structural in nature and required approaches that didn’t focus on the individual but on the capacity of communities to work together.
A number of writers identified the importance of building social capital in well-functioning societies. Social capital is about the level of trust and connection between people and is notoriously difficult to measure as compared to more tangible outcomes such as GNP, profit etc. I have written separately about social capital in a healthy society.
In my experience as a community worker, one of the best ways to build social capital in communities is through the day-to-day ways that people interact with each other. These daily rituals are what build and maintain connection and trust between people. In my job, I organise countless community events and get-togethers such as BBQs, morning teas, special days, celebrations, and meetings. For me, this was the most natural, unforced, and easy way to do my job. It was invisible and voluntary and didn’t require a well-meaning and problem-focused welfare intervention.
The writer and community worker Peter Block called this approach building “structures of belonging” (3). Structures of belonging are concrete ways that communities connect and build trust and accountability. They are not dependent on governments or external experts but arise from the voluntary actions of the participants. One of the most common structures of belonging that he identified was community events. Block documents numerous ways that community events can be utilised to help build social capital.
The idea of social capital is the core of Confucianism. Confucius realised that the best way to reinvigorate a society that had become disconnected and chaotic was not to focus on spiritual and religious salvation which often only served elites in society but to focus on creating concrete rituals and habits in the families, schools, local communities and societies of his day.
By highlighting the importance of day-to-day rituals and practices Confucius was a pragmatic social change agent who brought about a revolution in Chinese society.
Confucius taught the importance of taking everyday life seriously and not seeing it as trivial. He believed that often we just go through the motions and are too preoccupied to pay full attention to what is happening in the present.
And so at a community event, I am organising I see a volunteer who is helping me. I move towards them, smile, and raise my hand to shake hands. We shake hands, not by forcing my hand up and down or them doing the same, but by spontaneous cooperative action. It is like a dance in which I lead but the action flows smoothly and naturally as they respond with the appropriate action. Normally we would not notice the complexity and subtlety that is occurring in this “ritual” act. This would become apparent if we were following some fixed set of rules as taught to us in a book of instructions.
Confucius points out that if we are not “present” to each other, then there is no “life” in this ritual. If we are just following the rules of social engagement and showing mutual respect because of these rules, I am much more likely to be self-conscious or unauthentic and the “ceremony” will reveal a certain awkwardness (I put out my hand too soon and it is left hanging in mid-air). The act is authentic not because I am consciously feeling the need to respect the person and focus my attention on this but because of the live, correct, and spontaneous performance of the act. (4)
Confucius’s idea of ritual predated western ideas of social capital by thousands of years. And yet in many ways, it provides a concrete practical way to build social capital in our daily lives. Just because it’s from another time in history doesn’t mean it’s less relevant to the challenges we face in the world today. What do you think? Can this ancient approach help us build a more humane and civilised society?
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Cheers Thor
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(1) “Confucius: The Secular as Sacred”, Herbert Fingarette, Waveland Press, 1998 p8
(2) Fingarette p8
(3) “Community: The Structure of Belonging”, Peter Block, Berrett-Koehler, 2008
(4) Paraphrase example Fingarette p9
(*) Analect quotes from “The Analects of Confucius”, Arthur Waley, Random House NY, 1938
