How to be civil even if you disagree (w/ Alexandra Hudson) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Chris Duffy: 

You’re listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. What do you do when you disagree with someone? I'm not asking what you're supposed to do. I'm asking what you actually do. Personally, a lot of times I give a kind of strange smile and I try my best to change the conversation topic as quickly as I possibly can.

Or if it's a person who I don't know very well and they're being particularly strident, I will sometimes make a little mental note to say, “Never hang out with this person ever again.” To be clear, I don't think that's a good thing. I think it is bad to only talk and spend time with people who 100% agree with me, but if I'm being honest, it is hard to push past those boundaries.

And I think that one big reason why it feels so hard is that there aren't all that many good models right now of civil and constructive disagreements. Most of the examples that I see are of people disagreeing very loudly and very angrily. There's not a lot of calm, respectful listening happening. As a result of that, having conversations across difference feels scary and dangerous.

Today's guest, Alexandra Hudson, is the author of the book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles To Heal Society and Ourselves. Alexandra believes that the answer is a lot more civility in our lives. But she also believes that many people don't understand exactly what that means. Here's a clip where Alexandra tells me what that word civility means to her.

[00:01:24] Alexandra Hudson: 

This is both the challenge and the opportunity in writing about a topic like civility. Everyone thinks they know what civility is, and my argument is that actually very few people do. It's not just manners and etiquette. It's actually much deeper, a much richer, it's a civic virtue, uh, and an ingredient in and the timeless principles of human flourishing that has have helped communities across time and place thrive across deep difference. 

So I argue that civility is again, different from your politeness. Politeness is etiquette, it's technique, it's external stuff, it's manners. Whereas civility is an internal disposition of the heart. It's a way of seeing others as our moral equals worthy of a bare minimum of respect, just by virtue of our shared moral status as members of the human community and that crucially, sometimes actually respecting someone, actually loving someone well means foregoing the rules of etiquette and propriety and politeness for a greater good. 

To tell a hard truth, to engage in robust debate that's not, that's breaking the rules of politeness, but that is engaging in true civility.

Seeing someone saying like, “I see you as my equal, and therefore I'm not gonna patronize you and pretend that a difference doesn't exist or disagreement doesn't exist. I'm, I respect myself enough, a civility has a mutual obligation.” It's about respecting others, but also having a basic respect for ourselves.

And that means speaking up sometimes, telling hard truth, not be not remaining silent and actually broaching an uncomfortable conversation, actually risking offending people by saying, “No.” You know, I think we're really uncomfortable with that sometimes. So civility is different from your politeness. It's not just the the form of an act, the technique, the external stuff.

It is the internal disposition, the fundamental orientation that actually informs when we break the rules of propriety, norms of etiquette in order to actually help us thrive across deep difference.

[00:03:23] Chris Duffy: 

We are going to have much more civil discussion with Alexandra in just a bit. But first, a quick break. 

Today we're talking about civility with Alexandra Hudson. 

[00:03:42] Alexandra Hudson: 

Hi, my name is Alexandra Hudson. I'm the author of The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. 

[00:03:51] Chris Duffy: 

So Alexandra, at the start of this podcast, we played a clip of you defining civility. And I think that definition that you give is really interesting 'cause you draw this distinction between what it means to be polite and what it means to be civil.

And in your book you say that one of the ways you learned that distinction was you had this job in politics, it's one of your first jobs. And what you saw was that there was this group of people who were really rude and aggressive to other people to try and get them to do what those people wanted them to do.

And then there was this other group that were just as aggressive, I guess, in, in using other people, but they were doing it under the guise of, uh, politeness. And you said that at some point you realized that both outward aggression and uh, enforced politeness were two sides of the same coin, and that neither of those modes was actually being civil to other people.

[00:04:39] Alexandra Hudson: 

Exactly like at first when I saw these two modes, the extreme hostility and bellicosity and aggression, and then on one hand and then the extreme politeness and kind of swath polish on the other. I thought they were polar opposites, but I actually realized at a deeper level they were very similar. There're again, like as you mentioned, two sides of the same coin because both modes see other people purely in terms of means to their selfish ends.

They see 'em as, as instruments to their, to their, to their aims, their goals, as opposed to seeing others as, uh, mean a as, as ends in and of themselves worthy of respect, just because they're human. Full stop. I saw that happen and happened to me and I realized that both and, and this is really the crisis that we face as a society as a whole, that we insufficiently appreciate the gift of being human.

My book is in many ways a humanistic manifesto extolling the gifts of being human, which is the antidote that which is exactly what we need in these deeply dehumanizing times. We're very inclined to diminish the value, the inherent moral worth of, of people we differ from, we disagree with. 

[00:05:45] Chris Duffy: 

It's one of the big things that I, I took away from in engaging with your ideas is the, that we really have to find ways to see people who we disagree with, and in fact, people who we really may not like as still being fully human. 

[00:06:01] Alexandra Hudson: 

Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:01] Chris Duffy: 

In, in all the ways that, that makes them complicated and, and nuanced. And let's put it in a low stakes terms. You have a, a sandwich in front of you and I steal it from you. And it's your sandwich. And then you say, “Give that back to me.”

And I say, “You didn't say please. So actually you are being rude. Not me, the person who stole the thing from you.” And you very much say like, “That's politeness.” Right? That's like using these weaponized norms rather than thinking about this person is a complete person. Right? Like, tell me what's wrong about my example 'cause I'm sure there's lots of things that I'm missing. 

[00:06:32] Alexandra Hudson: 

No, it is good. I think today we see people too often, content with themselves and others settling with the norms of politeness and propriety doing and saying the right things, and we're content, which is people going through the motions. There's this great line by the English playwright George Bernard Shaw that I'll paraphrase as says, you know, “You can get away with murder as long as you do and say the perfectly correct thing.” You know that it's. 

[00:06:59] Chris Duffy: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:06:59] Alexandra Hudson: 

Entirely possible to actually be ruthless and cruel and manipulative, and to debase others to dehumanize them while smiling and you know that what we see is not all we get. How people a appear, how the people present that, the things, how they dress, the things they do, and the things they say that too often as a society we're content with just that superficial artifice, the stuff of politeness and etiquette.

And I argue that, no, we should not, you know, just go by what people do and say we should actually care about what's going on in people's hearts. What is their motivation for doing this thing? And is it actually respecting others? Is it seeing, knowing, loving them? Is it seeing them in the fullness of who they are?

[00:07:43] Chris Duffy: 

It, it seems to me like one of the, the differences in, in terms of how they're used is that, um, politeness is often used by people in power to put people below them “in their place”, and I put in their place right in big quotes. You know, there's this idea about like, what does it mean to look dressed professionally for an interview, and often that's like used to select for people who are like you, right?

Like dress the way you dress for that interview as opposed to looking at people as humans would say that like the external appearance is not very relevant to the sort of like what the job is going to do. So I'm gonna try and see your deeper humanity rather than just how well you perform these norms in a way.

[00:08:23] Alexandra Hudson: 

It's a great point. So there are two core contingents, two, two voices in our public life today, there's one that says, you know, “We just need more civility and politeness in public life.” And they often harken back to this bygone era of comity and, and harmony. And they say, “Oh, if, if we could just, you know, revive this bygone era of gentility and chivalry, then it'll solve all of our problems.”

You know, and there's another contention that says to the point of your question, “No. Civility and politeness are part of the problem. There are tools of the patriarchy, the powerful, the white supremacists, the people and positions of authority to keep the powerless to silence, to suppress. So we need to burn it all down. We need less civility and politeness in public life to bring forth greater justice and equity in our world today.” 

And again, both these contingents miss this essential distinction that I argue for throughout the book about what civility is and what politeness is. And in fact, true civility sometimes requires speaking truth to power, sometimes requires protest.

And I'll just make one more comment about the difference. Um, my distinction honors that the etymology, these words, the etymology of our word politeness, is the Latin word polire, which means to smooth or to polish, and that's what politeness does. Again, it connotes external stuff, right? Staying at the superficial artificial, it polishes over papers, over difference, it sweeps it under the rug, as opposed to giving us essential tools to grapple with difference head on, whereas the etymology of civility is the Latin word civitas.

Which is the, the etymological root of our word, citizen, citizenship, the city and, and civilization and, and of course civility. And, uh, this is what civility is. It is the duties that the, the mores, the conduct befitting of a citizen in the city. That, especially the democracy, like our own demands, that we bring our deeply held values and notions and beliefs to the fore and not just sweep the difference under the rug.

It demands sometimes, especially in art, the American context, protest. You know, the right to civil disobedience is enshrined in our founding documents, and that is part and parcel with the true spirit, the true soul of civility. 

[00:10:34] Chris Duffy: 

When you framed this as like, there's kind of two sides, right? There's the side that says like, we need this, and there's the side that says, we don't need this.

The examples that you gave of people who say, “We don't need civility.” You kind of located those people on one side of the political spectrum, right? People who are like fighting patriarchy and white supremacy. And I think that actually a, a thing that is really compelling about this idea is that there are just as many people on the other side of the political spectrum who also don't believe in civility, who think that it's kind of like for suckers or like a, a form of wokeness. And I think that the idea that civility is actually politically neutral. 

[00:11:12] Alexandra Hudson: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:11:13] Chris Duffy: 

And I think you make such a compelling argument for how throughout history and in this moment across all countries, one of the most important skills and values we can do is to see other people as human. And that that is why civility is necessary, right?

Like that there's this idea that we can only conquer the ills of society, whatever we perceive those ills as if we are not civil. And in fact it's the opposite. We can only do it if we are civil to each other. An idea in your book that I have really has stuck with me because I hadn't ever, ever thought about it in this way, is that I think all of us are familiar with the idea that there can be a just or an unjust law.

But you talk about how there are also just or unjust norms and that that is equally important and also much more directly relevant. Right. As an individual, we probably have way more ability to influence just and unjust norms than we do to repeal a law that we feel is unjust. What exactly you mean by that? What does a just or  unjust norm? 

[00:12:09] Alexandra Hudson: 

This is a question that that people have engaged with across the millennial, and I bring that to bear in my book, but it was especially a close rereading of Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail that brought a lot of clarity to me on this topic and about the difference between civility and politeness, and to your point, just an unjust laws and norms.

So he makes an observation, how do we distinguish between a just and unjust law? A, a a just law squares with the eternal moral law. It uplifts human personality. It affirms human dignity. And, and, and an unjust law does the opposite. It doesn't square with the eternal moral law. It degrades human personality, corrodes and undermines human dignity.

That's the litmus test he uses as to whether or not we should consider engaging in extra legal means of civil protest, of engaging in civil disobedience, that if there is a law that doesn't score with the moral law, then we sometimes have an obligation to take action in the face of that, that injustice.

And I realize this same is true with our social norms and we do have more power. Maybe not all of us wanna spearhead a letter writing campaign or, you know, pick it and protest. You know, that's not the spirit or the ethos or the calling that, and some of us do have that calling but other of us don't. Our everyday actions in wa, in ways great and small, they matter way more than, than we realize.

Little things that we do that affirm the dignity and the personhood of those around us have great power. Just choosing to acknowledge that our Uber driver, our clerk at the cashier choosing to know our neighbor's names. And maybe even invite them over like that has many practical benefits. It's just, it's just inherently good to know the people that you share, that you do life together with, that you share a vicinity with.

I have this metaphor of the front porch. The porch is just a metaphor for a way of life. And the way of life is choosing to use what we do have to create community and to create relationship and this feeling of, of choosing to make people feel seen and known and loved wherever we are. We can have a front stoop, we can have a lawn party.

You know, some people have supper clubs. I met people in the course of writing this book who host office hours at a coffee shop. You know, it's not about what you have. It's about how you choose to use what you do have. We have a profound crisis of alienation where people are alone and they want friends. They just dunno, dunno how, and, and we underappreciate and this is a whole body of research that backs us up. How much are small bids of affection matter to people? We, we often underappreciate that.

[00:14:51] Chris Duffy: 

We are gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back.

And we are back when we're thinking about some of these big societal issues. How do we rebuild civil society? How do we make it so that people can talk to each other against political divides, against ideological divides, and talk to each other in a way that they're heard and feel safe and respected? I do think that technology has really changed a lot of this because we both feel constantly connected all of the time and extremely disconnected and isolated from each other. 

[00:15:33] Alexandra Hudson: 

Yes. 

[00:15:33] Chris Duffy: 

I'm just gonna quote from the book, “When you interact with people in a digitally mediated way, either online or over the phone with customer service representatives, remember the human on the other side.”

[00:15:43] Alexandra Hudson: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:15:43] Chris Duffy: 

“Digital interaction makes it easy to forget another's personhood.” I certainly know that this is a challenge. How do you actually put that into place? What are things that people should be practicing and trying to do? 

[00:15:53] Alexandra Hudson: 

Well, one thing I have personally done right now is like I've deleted all social media apps off my phone. I'm in like a zero digital interaction kind of phase where I'm just kind of limiting it to email and and texting. I have a lot going on in life, but the point is I'm just like trying to focus on what's in front of me and people who are in front of me right now. And I think that we underappreciate how our energy is like sapped by just the constant connectivity and we're drained.

I think it's only when we actually disconnect and, and kind of digitally detox, which I do, I try to do quarterly, a little retreat where there's 24 hours, I'll go into the woods and just like be totally alone with my thoughts, with my journal, with prayer, with stillness, silence. And it's only after we digitally disconnect and have that detox that we realize how refreshed we feel.

And so I'm trying to kind of protect my mental health, headspace, my, my bubble of peace. My friend Sherry Turkle, she's at MIT, but her, a lot of her career, she's been tech skeptic and her next book is about how technology is not neutral. Actually, we underappreciate the way in which we are changed. Our humanity is altered by our interaction with technology and she's interviewing these people that are choosing to have relationships, like either through therapists or actual romantic relationships with AI. This is increasingly common, but it's emblematic of our desire to escape vulnerability. Like, we'll never be rejected by a computer, you know, we'll never be dumped by, by an AI and, and a therapist AI. They are only gonna affirm us and tell us who we're not gonna challenge us, you know?

And, and that's not neutral. She's exploring the way in which our humanity is, is corroded, is actually diminished by these interactions with these virtual mediums. You know, I think we all learned during the pandemic that virtual interactions with others was a cheap substitute. It was an imperfect replacement for the power of the, the irreplaceable magic, I like to call of the corporeal, the embodied, the in-person experience. There's just something magical that happens when you're just sharing a, a, a moment in time with someone else. That's good for its own sake. 

[00:17:53] Chris Duffy: 

You have a section in the book where you talk about how to restore trust, civility, and civil society and save democracy and, uh, you know, just a small.

[00:18:00] Alexandra Hudson: 

No big deal. 

[00:18:01] Chris Duffy: 

A small prescription there. 

But you have, you have a list of things that, that regular people can do to help accomplish those goals, and it feels very related to this. So can you tell me some of the, those that, that kind of stand out to you as like the steps that regular people should be taking to strengthen and encourage civil society.

[00:18:19] Alexandra Hudson: 

Yeah. I, I, and I wrote a, a lot about this during the pandemic actually, where we were hearing so many stories of, of gloom and doom and of crisis and, and despair. I was, you know, and without question of very devastating time for the world, but this is the remarkable thing about the human condition and our how we respond in times of crisis.

It brings out the worst in us, and we definitely saw that in full display during the pandemic, but also brings out the best in us. I, you know, reported on just stories of ingenuity and resiliency, and, and, and people rise to the occasion to meet the needs of those around them. Whether, whether it was restaurants who were delivering food to the elderly, or, or people who are not, you know, immunocompromised, not able to go to their home, or just people who volunteered to, to deliver groceries or to check in on, on, on people and their vicinity.

I wrote about stories of families who had been pulled in a million different directions. Then all of a sudden during lockdown, they're just re rediscovering the beauty of just sharing a meal together. And there was this untold story of like a hidden silver lining during the pandemic of people just rediscovering the people closest to home, you know, where we are so digitally connected in new and new and new and beautiful ways, so we can often miss the opportunities to invest and give and receive from the people right around us.

There is much that is the same about this problem of civility. This is actually, you know, not a new problem, not a problem of Twitter. Not a problem of Donald Trump or democracy or America, like this is a timeless human problem. This, this question of how do we flourish even, we differ and disagree? This is one, it emerges from a part of the human personality we all share.

We're profoundly social as a species, but also defined by self-love and inordinate self love is that the timeless threat, the perennial threat to flourishing human community. Choosing to put our own needs before the needs of others 

[00:20:05] Chris Duffy: 

Is civility for everyone or is it just for rich people, right? Like is civility, does civility apply if you are living paycheck to paycheck, working, you know, multiple jobs and struggling to make ends meet? 

For some people, the challenge of civility is getting people to view you as a fundamental human rather than you viewing other people as fundamental human. So how does it apply or does it apply? 

[00:20:33] Alexandra Hudson: 

Mm-Hmm. 

[00:20:34] Chris Duffy: 

Across the board? 

[00:20:35] Alexandra Hudson: 

So it's a great question that reminds me of this fabulous etiquette manual that I write about in the book called Il Galateo which is by, uh, a guy from the Italian renaissance called Giovanni della Casa. And I encourage everyone to pick up the copy of this book. It's just delightful and hysterical.

Uh, Giovanni della Casa, you know, he, he's in this long line of etiquette writers who just have a very particular sense of social justice and social etiquette and propriety, how the world should be. And you know, he just has lots of funny insights. And he says that “Life can really be death by a thousand paper cuts if we're just walking around doing and saying whatever we think that like life can either be inherently ennobling or degrading everything we do matters in ways great and small.” 

And his general ethos of his book Il Galateo is just like, consider the basic needs and well beings of others and don't be disgusting. You know, people can be pretty gross and be pretty inconsiderate. And he's like, “Just modulate your interactions with others enough to just not repulse those around you and that's like a pretty low bar to have a decent, you know, flourishing society.” And so I really love this, you know, parsing out how, how do we disambiguate the norms that silence and oppress and do divide? 

Are we so focused on people doing and saying the right things and following the rules of propriety that we're actually inhibiting open and honest conversations about really important questions and, and dialogues of our day? 

[00:21:55] Chris Duffy: 

Can you maybe give me just a sentence or two each for what are um, two things that people listening should start doing to encourage the practice of civility in their lives?

[00:22:07] Alexandra Hudson: 

I love that question. I'll leave listeners with two thoughts. One, recover the power, the superpower of the 21st century, I call it, of unoffendability. We have way more power when it comes to our lives with others to choose whether we are offended or not. Uh, I love this line from, from from Marcus Aurelius.

He, he says this exact same thing as it his medi Meditations. And again, former emperor of, um of Rome who said, you know, “Just remember that in our interactions with others, we always have the, the chances. It's not about what other someone else does to us. It's how we choose to respond and interpret what, uh, what's someone does.”

And I love this line from my friend Daryl Davis. He's a, uh, African American jazz musician who has for 40 years sought out and befriended members of hate groups, members of the KKK and white supremacist groups. Take them for dinner, take them for a drink, and, and he's like morally converted three, 400 people away from these hateful detestable views and bigoted views by just befriending them and asking questions about 'em.

So what he would say, and this leads me to my second point, is, “Don't get furious, get curious.” You know, curiosity is also an underrated superpower in our world today, I think this, we have unfortunately succumbed to a really kind of cheapened view of others in the world around us. Where we see others in the world, around us in terms of these simple dichotomies of right or wrong, you know, good and evil like, and we assume that we know everything there is to know about a person based on one aspect of who they are.

You know, “Who do they vote for in 2016? What was their view on the pandemic and vaccines or this one issue?” You know? And that in our minds is enough to say, “Okay. I don't want you in my life or I know everything there is to know about you or, okay, you're on my team.” That is so harmful and, and reductionistic and degrading to the human personality.

We are also profoundly complex. We come to our views about the world for many different reasons, and we have many different experiences that lead us to how we view the world. And I argue for this idea in my book called unbundling people, can we see the part of someone that their, their bad view that we might think is disgusting and morally abhorrent even the mistake that someone's done the bad tweet, the the tasteless joke or even the, the really bad thing from, from way back in their past.

Can we, the part of them in light of the whole, the irreducible dignity and worth that they, that they have, they possess inherently as, as just being for just being human. 'Cause too often we see the part and define the whole bind that, but can we invert that honor people with a bare minimum of respect that they deserve by virtue of our shared, shared dignity.

And can we be curious about the stories, but to say, “Actually that's so interesting. I would love to hear more.” But you know, I think a little bit more of curiosity and unoffendability and unbundling people 

[00:24:50] Chris Duffy: 

The idea of unoffendability to me, I, I guess I would say like. I think that there are lots of things that it's really good or important to be offended by and yet to find a person's idea or action offensive and not their being offensive.

[00:25:06] Alexandra Hudson: 

Exactly. 

[00:25:07] Chris Duffy: 

You know, there, there's an idea we talked about on the podcast with, um, Dylan Marron, that empathy is not endorsement. 

[00:25:12] Alexandra Hudson: 

Hmm. 

[00:25:13] Chris Duffy: 

In other words, like you can have empathy for a person who's expressing something that you find vile and disgusting. 

[00:25:20] Alexandra Hudson: 

Right. 

[00:25:20] Chris Duffy: 

And that you could still have empathy for them as a person without endorsing their idea.

And, and that to me is, I mean, I think this is a really challenging thing. And so I, I think this is at the core of what I find so important and interesting about your work and about the idea of civility because it is, it's really countercultural, the idea that we would be respectful and see people who we don't share beliefs or values with as humans who are worthy of respect and care. That is very countercultural and, and it's really important. 

[00:25:56] Alexandra Hudson: 

Thank you, countercultural and important. I love that. I'm gonna, it's gonna go on the cover of my next book if it gets reprinted, so I love that. 

[00:26:03] Chris Duffy: 

Well, a Alexandra Hudson, thank you so much for being on the show.

[00:26:06] Alexandra Hudson: 

Thank you. And if I may make a shameless plug or invitation to your audience. I have a publication, a Substack called, Civic Renaissance, and it's about reviving the wisdom of the past as my book and my work does to help us lead better lives today to help us be better people in the present. So everyone's welcome to continue learning and talking about these things about beauty, goodness, truth, respect we owe to others across the difference over there. 

So thanks again for having me, Chris. A real pleasure.

[00:26:33] Chris Duffy: 

That is it for this episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to today's guest, Alexandra Hudson. Her book is called The Soul of Civility. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and you can find more for me, including my weekly newsletter and other projects at chrisfuffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is brought to you on the TED side by a group of renaissance thinkers, Daniella Balarezo, Banban Cheng, Cloe Shasha Brooks, Lanie Lott, Antonia Le, and Joseph DeBrine

This episode was fact checked by Julia Dickerson and Matheus Salles, who know that there is nothing civil about getting your facts wrong. On the PRX side, our show was put together by a team who are known in the biz as the soul of audio Morgan Flannery, Noor Gill, Maggie Gourville, Patrick Grant and Jocelyn Gonzales.

And of course, thanks to you for listening to our show and making this all possible. If you are listening on Apple, please leave us a five star rating and review. If you're listening on the Spotify app, answer the discussion question that we've put up there on mobile. It is so fun every week to read your answers and your thoughts.

We will be back next week with even more episodes of How to Be a Better Human. In the meantime, be civil to each other. Be better than civil and take care. Thanks for listening.