“When we place this next to this Ubuntu formulation – “I am, because we are” – well, man oh man, that’s a pretty big difference. Schur goes on to contrast this with Descartes’ quote: “I think, therefore I am”, which underlines the Western approach, focusing on the individual. The individual can only say, ‘I am because we are and since we are, therefore I am.’ He is simply part of the whole … Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. He owes his existence to other people including those of past generations and his contemporaries.

“The individual does not and cannot exist alone. It’s accessible and funny, as you might expect from a writer of his calibre, and an illuminating study of the question: how do we live a good life? Schur punctuates the book with real life-dilemmas, from the absurd (“Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?“) to the complex (“Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people?”). It’s a whistle-stop tour of the main philosophical and ethical arguments of the past 2500 years: Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, the big names ticked off and their views summarised.

So, it’s not surprising he has written a book exploring the ethics of living, boldly called How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. Or does it? Is it ethical? Should we even care? Schur says he has always been obsessed by rules and abiding by them, so this is the sort of stuff that preoccupies him. It’s no big deal, a simple celebration of karma that causes no harm. Mike Schur, comedy writer and author, is obsessed with obeying rules.

How to be a perfect person mike schur