HEFFNER: I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, author of the new book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles To Heal Society and Ourselves, Lexi Hudson.

A pleasure to meet you today and to host you on The Open Mind.

HUDSON: Alexander, thank you so much for having me.

HEFFNER: You're very welcome.

This is an important subject to you and to me.

You've been traveling the country and the world over the last year promoting this book, and the substance of what you're trying to convey.

In short, for our viewers who are just seeing this now, what is the top line thesis of what you're hoping to convey in this book?

HUDSON: My top line thesis is twofold.

On one hand, this is the most important question of our day.

How do we flourish across deep difference?

We're in a divisive presidential election cycle.

We're in a time of war.

This is a very important central question of our moment.

And yet, this is also a timeless question.

This is one we've been grappling with as long as we've been a species.

It's also the defining question of liberal democracy, but it's also we've been grappling with as long as we've been around, and I survey the human experience to shed light on this issue- how the wisdom of the past can inform how we grapple with this issue now.

And then secondly, my thesis is that there is an essential distinction between civility and politeness, and that we need to be less focused on politeness, more focused on civility to help us navigate deep differences today.

HEFFNER: That is eye-opening and heartening to hear.

So I want you to expound on that idea.

There is a perception that civility is primarily about manners.

You say politeness, but I think about it like you, as the building blocks or foundation of civil society, go to the root of the word and you get to civil society and how to preserve a civilization.

And I think that's what you're hinting at.

HUDSON: That's exactly correct.

So I argue that politeness is manners, it's etiquette, it's technique, it's external, it's the superficial stuff.

Whereas civility is internal.

It's a disposition of the heart, a way of seeing others as our moral equals who are 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 our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens, requires being impolite, telling a hard truth, engaging in robust debate, even protests.

We have a vibrant tradition of civil disobedience in this country.

Our country was founded on protest, the Boston Tea Party, the civil disobedience of Dr. King of Thoreau.

In fact, last week I had the privilege of speaking about my book at the Alabama Supreme Court.

I was next door to Dr. Martin Luther King's church.

And I was a stone's throw away from where Rosa Parks was kicked off the bus because she refused to sit at the back of the bus in accordance with Jim Crow laws, and was subsequently arrested for that act of civil protest.

And so I got to talk about this aspect of the book that civility is not politeness, and that in fact requires being impolite.

It requires taking a stance, speaking truth to power in ways that might make us feel, feel uncomfortable having, being confronted with uncomfortable, ugly truths about an unjust status quo.

But in fact, that is a way to deeply respect others.

HEFFNER: So where is the boundary there?

How ugly can you be in conveying a hard truth and preserve civility?

Because still, even if we're you, I agree that the primary purpose ought to be to prolong a flourishing civil society, that there are rules of decorum and etiquette.

Let's say maybe more ethical rules of conscience that are the border of the means to which we achieve that end of civil society.

So we can't abandon humane contact in our behavior, in our discourse.

HUDSON: It's a great question.

You're asking about the relationship between civility and politeness, and in an ideal world, having the disposition of civility, first, the disposition that actually loves and respects the humanity of our fellow human beings, out of that civil and kind actions flow.

But my point is that the actions alone are not enough.

If you lack the disposition of actually respecting someone that underlies and informs that action, for example, I don't know if you've spent any time in the south, but the sort of “Bless your heart ” culture, right?

Like verbally, the words and the smiles coming outta of my mouth and what I'm gesturing like is kind of respectful, right?

“Oh, bless your heart.

” That's so sweet.

Right?

And I'm smiling.

But we all know that means like you're an idiot.

Like that's deeply patronizing, right?

Yeah.

Like, there's that disconnect between what you're actually saying and gesticulating, and what you actually mean that disconnect between manners and inner disposition.

And so, in an ideal world, people, and, and as a society, I think we ought to focus more on cultivating the disposition of actually respecting people and not being content with just pretending to and going through the motions in ways that seem to respect them.

HEFFNER: I say amen or bless your heart in not a patronizing- HUDSON: Received.

HEFFNER: I do concur.

And you know my body of work here on The Open Mind, I've spent the last two years traveling around the country completing my 50th state, which was Alabama, by the way.

And having these discussions and specifically having these discussions with elected officials over meals for a Bloomberg series that I've hosted called Breaking Bread.

And I mentioned this because there doesn't seem to be enough of the civic renaissance.

You call civic renaissance, your organization.

And I want you to tell our viewers about it, but there doesn't seem to be any more heart to carry forward, have the will to transcend the toxic polarization and deep wounds and divisions of the age.

Now, it most assuredly could get worse.

I'm not saying you've reached any kind of peak incivility or peak indecency.

We had that period of yes, civil war.

But that being said, I just don't know that I see the will from enough people who agree with your basic premise that we need to roll up our sleeves and actualize this, not just go back to our separate corners.

What do we do about this problem?

That there's a majority consensus in this country that we have to fix the problem, but a majority that doesn't want to roll their sleeves up and fix the problem?

HUDSON: It's such a great question, a central question.

We lack fundamentally civic friendship, a respect, a basic affection for our fellow citizens across differences.

And that that's at the level of our public leaders who are a part of a dysfunctional Congress.

Like our democracy is being undermined because our democratically elected officials are not able to pass laws and work together across their differences that's bad for democracy, but also at the local level, at the individual level, where we see people ending lifelong friendships, family relationships, over these political differences and disagreement.

And that is so not how it should be.

That is not the stuff of the good life Lord Harcourt, an English Lord said that, democracy depends on constant dining with the opposition.

You alluded to breaking bread earlier and just that constant being together, breaking bread, familiarity, friendship, companionship.

In fact, the word companion is etymologically linked to the French word pen and the Latin word pen, which means bread.

In fact, companionship depends- friendship depends on breaking bread.

And the words community and communion and communication are etymologically linked.

They come from the same Latin root because communication is the baseline of community.

And we just lack both of those right now, healthy communication and healthy community.

And of course, we lack the opportunity to be together.

We're just not doing life together as maybe we have in past eras or ought to be.

And my theory of social change is fundamentally local.

It's individual.

The subtitle of my book says it all, heal.

My book is called “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.

” But I believe that as we choose to make these changes in our own lives, reaching across the divide and inviting people into our home, our lives, and that's an individual in Congress or an individual on your neighborhood block that those small incremental changes, that's what sustains a civilization, a democracy, and that can reclaim that vision of the soul of civility can heal our world.

HEFFNER: I am endorsing everything you said, and I'm not at all contemptuous of it.

And yet, I am finding myself again and again, hearing this refrain.

Not all politics is local anymore, but we can only do this locally.

And I'm concerned that there aren't seemingly avenues or vehicles of participatory democracy that are interlinked with the municipal, the state, and the federal that can cohesively integrate this idea.

I think you can still end up with civil war, not to be too pessimistic, with a great appreciation of your neighbors and love for your neighbors, but your brother's keeper not extending beyond your zip code is not a recipe for warding social disaster.

So I keep hearing this, civil society can be achieved through local, local governance achievements, camaraderie, but then I'm left with, here's the status quo.

People are doing good work in local communities, and yet we are where we are.

HUDSON: It's a great point.

I think it is dangerous that we've seen a sort of nationalization of our politics, like the decline of local news.

For example, local news, newspapers and news stations have been shuttering across the country for the last decade.

And as a result, local papers, if they still exist, are syndicating national stories in USA Today and other big national outlets.

And that has caused a shift in attention.

The information that's available to us is now not what's happening at City Hall, it's now what's happening in Congress.

And so that's one example.

Another example is the growth of the federal government in a very real way that has made the stakes of our politics, our national politics higher.

And we perceive that we hear our public leaders all the time say that the stakes are too high, and the other side is too bad to be decent and kind to them, and that we have to be willing to take the gloves off and do whatever is necessary to win.

I can speak to that, that myself and, and personally.

I mentioned to you offline that my home was destroyed in a flood.

I had a massive mold problem.

I hired a company to come fix the mold, and they made the problem three times worse.

This company called the Mold Pros in Florida, and they come after me.

They sue me for nonpayment after making my problem three times worse.

And I'm in litigation with them now, they put my kids in jeopardy.

They harmed my family, and I'm willing to take the gloves off.

I find myself ready to do that.

And I find myself testing my own ideals, like, what are the limits of civility?

And it's hard.

It's easy to talk about civility in theory and write a book about it.

It's harder, a whole different thing to embody it.

And so I share that to say I'm not here from on high, having it all figured out, like it's messy.

This thing called life together.

It is fraught.

It is difficult.

The stakes feel high.

It feels existential.

And that's exactly when we need civility.

Most, when our ideals are tested, when the stakes feel high.

HEFFNER: Lexi, first of all, my apologies, for that experience.

And I hope that it has a happy resolution that you're in a home that is safe and secure, and anybody who wronged you pays.

I'm thinking about human experiences of a similar kind, although in a different realm.

But I'm thinking about those people on airplanes who cough incessantly.

I joke with loved ones.

It seems like people decide to get sick to then fly, and I realized we're in a different place vaccinated than we were.

And I don't have any fundamental disrespect for people who want to study reports about vaccination before they decide to inoculate themselves or immunize themselves.

But when it comes to that question of manners, which you may call more decency, I actually tend to think of decency through that bigger lens that you look at civility through.

But the idea that someone who is visibly sick would not mask whatever their vaccination status.

They had a flight.

Maybe they're seeing an ill relative or have an emergency or just going about their daily lives.

They need to fly from Orlando to Indianapolis or whatever, but they're clearly sick and they can't bother to mask, perhaps because they don't believe in the efficacy of masks or whatever.

But there seems to be like a common civility or decency around the ethic of masking, because we know that those germs are coming out of your mouth.

Now, whether it's enough to infect us or whether that mask is blocking, the scientists know, right?

There's a higher authority maybe that knows that, but at least let's try.

So this is far and away different than, than your experience.

But it's kind of common link, and I don't know how to handle that.

Maybe you have some advice.

HUDSON: Yes.

I think you'll find it interesting to know that while politeness tends to [inaudible] the manners, etiquette tends to evolve over time.

And often these norms of propriety tend to arise because the ingroup wants to distinguish themselves from the outgroup from the other culture, the neighbor, the enemy, or even within a culture from the lower classes.

So politeness tends to change across history and across culture.

It's a kind of fashion, it's a fad used to often divide and differentiate, whereas civility tends to be pretty darn universal.

And I'll give you an example.

And just like the common decency, the things that you do to just do life together, it tends to be less focused on the ornate, you know, gesticulations and propriety and polish, and just focusing on what is necessary to peacefully and healthfully coexist.

And so one of my favorite thinkers in history, but also civility experts, his name's Erasmus of Rotterdam.

He was the intellectual superstar of the European Renaissance in the 1500s.

This is genius scholar.

He didn't spend more than two years of his life in any place, just traveled from kingdom to court to court.

He was amazing conversation, the most coveted dinner guest in all of Europe.

And he was just the tutor to princes and just a wonderful jovial guy, and a true genius and scholar.

And yet he nothing new unto the sun, right?

He was distraught about the manners of kids these days.

He could, he said he was walking the street one day and a kid didn't salute him appropriately.

And he goes, that's it.

Manners have gone to hell in a hand basket.

I'm going to do something about this.

So he writes this book, it's called Handbook on Civility for Children.

And he has several ideas that are related to what you're, well, first of all, a lot of his ideas are timeless.

They just kind of common decency, but they're also presciently sanitary.

Before a germ theory, Erasmus was saying, wash your hands before a meal.

And he has this great line I'll share with you, says, you know, as you wash your hands before a meal, so cleanse your mind for the pollution of the day.

Just don't let the contaminants of your day, the frustrations of traffic and your boss and everyone being annoying in life cause life together is really hard.

Sometimes he says purify that, and then sit down and be clean, physically, but also emotionally to be fully present with others.

Erasmus talks about coughing in your arm, and actually so does George Washington and the famous, 110 Rules of Civility, he transcribed from a Jewish etiquette book that date back all the way to the Italian Renaissance, and then also eventually to Aristotle.

So there's this is a great conversation about the propriety and the best way to do life together with others that has stood the test of time, and that's the body of wisdom and the genre that I tap into to revive, to help us think more clearly about these ideas now that we're still dealing with.

HEFFNER: I was going to quote George Washington, but instead I'm going to quote Jack McCoy of Law and Order.

Sam Waterstone's character, who I just heard last night, say, “Never underestimate the depravity of American society.

” And I say that with a glow in my face, but I should say it with a horror in my face, right?

Because there is some truth to that, through the original sin of slavery to corporate malfeasance that victimize workers every day in this country.

And not even just malfeasance, but just antipathy for the common person, saying that I can disregard and disrespect them.

In the American capitalistic system, you could theoretically have a compassionate capitalistic system, but too often we do not.

It's more of depraved capitalism.

My point is that when someone is on that airplane and they're choosing not to put a mask on, even though they know they're sick, it's kind of analogous to what I said before about the consensus in America.

There's something wrong with our politics, but it is what it is, right?

That's how President Trump and other people responded to the pandemic at certain times.

It is what it is.

This is all to say that I think that the apathy is so deeply ingrained in us that I'm afraid we're unable to escape it.

I'm really troubled by that.

But this idea that things are so dysfunctional, so depraved, it's not even worth it.

It's David versus Goliath, and in this case, we're kind of almost in a simulation.

That's how I fear we live today.

HUDSON: You make some interesting points.

I argue in my book that democracy, our free and flourishing way of life, our limited government that allows us agency requires us to choose to do right, do the right thing for ourselves, for others, even when we have the opportunity to not.

Edward Shils the sociologist called this, the antinomy of liberalism, that within a free society, there's this paradox, right?

That we have the freedom to undermine our freedom.

And not to harp on my issue with the mold company again, but this company, the Mold Pros in Florida, it's a regulatory gray area.

You know, like there's no laws about mold.

It depends on company.

And if we don't want more laws to regulate every area of our lives, it depends on companies being like, I'm going to do right by you, even if there's a gray, I'm just going do it.

If there's kids involved, if there's like a few days, you know, where we found mold after we treated it, we're going do it, right?

Uh, it depends on people choosing to put their carts back when they don't have to.

And no is watching, there's no law that says in the parking lot, return your cart at the end of your shopping endeavor, right?

But society, civilization depends on us choosing to maybe sacrifice ourselves a little bit for the sake of society, for the sake of others.

If we don't want a totalitarian regime micromanaging our everyday actions, we have to be willing to do the hardest thing to make small sacrifices, even big sacrifices for others.

HEFFNER: So how can we do that?

Um, clearly it sounds like Florida needs to reform some laws to protect you from what you experienced so that you don't have to then afterwards engage in litigation on this, right?

I'm serious in the sense that- what should we be doing now that we're not doing to inform that that better society?

HUDSON: really depends on us.

I tell this story in my book of Michael Bloomberg's misguided politeness campaign in New York City.

So apparently New York had reached a fever pitch of incivility, and Michael Bloomberg and his bureaucrats were like, “Okay, enough's enough.

” We must do something.

And so they rolled out this legislative proposal to enforce common decency politeness.

And so you could be fined $50 for texting at the movie theater, for taking a phone call at a Broadway show, for putting your seat on the subway seat next to you for yelling at your kid's softball game.

If you were a parent that got too rambunctious, fine, fine, fine.

And New Yorkers did not like being civilized by their local government.

It didn't last and it was utterly enforceable, right?

Like, and- HEFFNER: I don't even remember this.

So it must not have lasted even like a few hours- HUDSON: Right?

It was the early 2000s.

Exactly.

And, and of course, the NYPD is like, why do I care?

I have bigger, better things to do.

So it was utterly unenforceable and totally impractical did not last long.

And the point is, though, if we are insufficiently mindful of our fellow citizens, and we don't make these common sacrifices, bureaucrats, technocrats, past and present, like, there's a whole another analogous story in England, Tony Blair's Respect campaign.

Like if you were deemed a neighbor from hell, rambunctious, noisy, whatever, you could have your property taken from you.

That also didn't last long.

But it's scary, right?

These government overreaches have happened.

And it depends on us to choose to restrain ourselves and not just monotonically think about ourselves.

We have to consider others.

And if we don't, there are consequences to that.

There have been, there will be.

HEFFNER: So you're not of the mind that if Florida law had been different, you could have averted some of this trouble?

HUDSON: It's a great point that laws are insufficient to do this thing called life together.

We also need fundamentally pro-human social norms that support and inform our laws.

The force of law, law is a blunt instrument, right?

It's powerful.

There is a lot- legislators have a lot of power.

They should think seriously before enacting laws, right?

But if we don't want every aspect of our life legislated as, I don't want mine and you don't want yours, then, it requires norms to support the laws of our free- HEFFNER: That's fair, that's fair.

When I interviewed Senator Thune in Spear outside of Spearfish, the question of the draft came up, and I do think we were in a better place as a country, even with the torment of the draft and perhaps the unfair policies that drove the draft that might have disadvantaged, economically distressed people.

I feel as though we do need a public service campaign, if not laws.

I feel that the only societies that can preserve a civic renaissance, if you will, have the common values.

Just last thing, we're basically running out of time, but I wanted to share this with you, which is that Biz Stone, one of the three co-founders of Twitter, essentially said to me on this program years ago, what you just said, which is “We can't force people to say nice things.

” Like now we know kind of who operates Twitter, Elon Musk, someone who says provocative and sometimes not nice things and models that often on his platform.

My point is that we haven't gone anywhere better with Biz's philosophy or Elon's philosophy in general.

And I'm all for intellectual honesty and confronting dishonest contrived ideas of political correctness.

I'm all for that.

But at the end of the day, it hasn't gotten better.

And it was better, I would argue, when we had requirements of national service, if not a draft.

HUDSON: So in my book, I talk about how there are two social contracts.

One is the contract between citizens and sovereign.

We move from the state of nature into a civil society, surrender certain rights and get certain protections.

But there's also an invisible social contract that exists between citizens, a horizontal one that supports the vertical one.

And sometimes that horizontal social contract between citizens is governed by laws, but far more often it's governed by social norms.

And Judge Learned Hand understood this.

He said, the spirit of liberty lives and dies, and the hearts of men and women, when it dies, no law, no constitution can revive it.

No law, no constitution can do much to save it.

That it has to be voluntary.

If we don't want to be micromanaged from the top down, as I don't think either of us want to be.

HEFFNER: I knew this was going to happen, Lexi, because this is like my favorite subject of all time.

We're out of time.

We'll do this again, hopefully in some in-person venue, the author of a truly important new book, “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society, and Ourselves ” by MacMillan.

Lexi Hudson on the official pen name of Alexandra Hudson.

We will continue this soon.

Thanks for your insight today.

HUDSON: Thanks so much for having me, Alexander.

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