00:03:14.600But one thing my mother had said to me growing up was that manners mattered because they were an outward expression of our inward character.
00:03:20.860And yet here I was surrounded by people who are well-mannered but ruthless and cruel.
00:03:25.320So part of the argument is that there's this essential distinction between civility and politeness, that civility is more than just manners.
00:03:31.700Because as I learned, you could smile and be polished and well-poised but not be respectful of others.
00:03:38.480So part of the argument of the book is disambiguating, disentangling these ideas, arguing we need actually less politeness, less the faux respect, the tone policing, the worrying about saying and doing the right thing, and more actual respect, more the disposition of actually respecting others.
00:03:54.980That sometimes requires telling a hard truth, offending people, engaging in robust debate.
00:04:00.760Yeah, and I found that politeness, civility, contrast to be a fascinating one because we see it.
00:04:07.380I'm glad you used the word tone policing because we see how civility or appeals to civility are used as a tool to quell dissent, to quell challenging certain ideas, behaviors, whatnot.
00:04:21.420And I think young women are probably particularly susceptible to this, young women and girls, where you're told to be civil.
00:04:28.520But the issue is not actually one of civility.
00:04:35.740I grew up in Canada and I am a strong woman and I'm from a family of strong women.
00:04:41.220And that often rubbed people the wrong way.
00:04:43.300Canada prides itself on being this polite society.
00:04:45.520I mean, I have friends that, you know, wear Canadian pins when they travel abroad because they, Canadians are beloved.
00:04:52.760We're so nice, you know, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, you know, that actually being niceness, being nice is not all it's cracked up to be.
00:05:00.320Like there were times where I was told, like people didn't, you know, male figures in my life didn't know what to do with me because I spoke my mind.
00:05:07.440And like I didn't fit their mold, their norm of what and how a woman should, Canadian woman should behave.
00:05:13.260And actually, so it's possible to, to that, that, to, you know, value, you know, tone.
00:05:19.880And as you, as you mentioned that these norms can be a tool of, of silencing, of repressing.
00:05:26.340And that actually, if we want a society of, of openness, of tolerance, of pluralism, it's actually essential that we make these, these norms of propriety matter less in order to have open, honest discussion and, and to have an open, an open society.
00:05:42.760How universal is this idea in your research of, of civility and how much does this change from a North American context to a European context to say an Asian context?
00:05:55.280And so what I found in my research, and I did approach this question from a global perspective, a universal perspective.
00:06:02.300And, and what I, what I discovered is that, that, that, that the norms of politeness, the manners, the etiquette, the technique, the external stuff of manners and etiquette, they tend to be very changeable across history and across culture.
00:06:15.200And even within a culture between classes, often manners have been used and they are still used as a way to define in group, out group, you know, keep, keep the nouveau riche, the outsider outside.
00:06:28.060It's a way to distinguish who, you know, we're okay as long as we're doing and doing and saying the right things.
00:06:32.320And this is actually an all too human tendency that we see across history and across culture.
00:06:37.820Whereas the timeless principles of civility, restraint of the ego so that the social can flourish, that we can become fully human in friendship and relationship with others.
00:06:46.960Because that is, those norms are remarkably timeless.
00:06:51.120And in fact, I opened my book with the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest story in the world, in my chapter one, and then moved to the oldest book in the world, which is a manners book, a civility handbook from ancient Egypt, given to us 2400 BC.
00:07:06.260And so I really try to do justice to this subject matter.
00:07:09.940This is, my book is about the most important question of our day.
00:07:16.220But as I learned, even though it's the most important question now, it's also the defining question of democracy, of the classical liberal project.
00:07:23.860Also the defining question of our species.
00:07:26.840We've been trying to do this thing called life together across difference as long as we've been around.
00:07:30.980And I bring to bear the wisdom of the human tradition to help us do life better together now.
00:07:36.260Well, just thinking of Asia for a moment, I think it's Japan where I learned of this.
00:07:40.840I've never been, but a friend of mine, his wife is from Japan, and he's been there many times.
00:07:44.900And he had said that there was a culture there where it's considered rude to not have the answer if someone asks.
00:07:51.220So if you, say, ask for directions in some context and someone doesn't know, they'll give you the wrong directions because they think that's the polite thing.
00:07:59.000But that's not actually helping you in any way.
00:08:00.940They're just pointing you down some random street.
00:08:02.800So you are right about how manners and civility, I mean, and that's an extreme example of your being done a disservice in the interest of being polite and respectful.
00:08:12.940And I think that's one of the areas where I would say is the core distinction and that manners is how you behave.
00:08:19.360Civility requires a respect of other people that manners doesn't.
00:08:23.380I mean, being well-mannered in any context is just something you do.
00:08:26.500So can you have civility without respect and how do you get to the point where there is respect, which also seems to be in short supply, certainly in politics, but I'd say in society in general?
00:08:38.200It's a great question about the relationship between civility and politeness.
00:08:41.780You know, can you have one without the other?
00:08:43.120And I think at its ideal, the disposition of civility, the inner orientation that honestly respects others, the dignity and irreducible value of others out of that disposition will flow kind actions, you know, polite actions that are that are actually other oriented.
00:09:00.220But they come, they are an outgrowth of that earnest respect and esteem for the other.
00:09:06.940But the problem is when as a society, we value just the external, just what we do and say, and we insufficiently seek to cultivate that inner disposition of really respecting others, really respecting the gift of being human.
00:09:25.540It sets us up for, you know, disingenuousness.
00:09:28.140And so as a society in the West, as Canadians, it's essential that we, you know, care less about the norms that make us seem good and instead shift our focus to what actually makes us good and what is actually truly respectful of others.
00:09:43.880One of the things, if we were to take a more forward looking view on this, that a lot of people will struggle with is the how do we get there?
00:09:53.480Because civil people engaging in a civil discussion like you and I are, and I hope our audiences can say, oh, yeah, this is great.
00:09:59.460But that doesn't deal with the shortage of it.
00:10:01.920So, I mean, you talked about your experience in politics and government where you have people that are very ruthless, maybe they're ambitious, maybe they're sociopaths, whatever it is.
00:10:10.060But clearly they don't have or tap into in themselves what it is that they need to be more civil.
00:10:17.620So how do we as a society deal with this without just pointing the fingers and saying, well, I'm not the problem.
00:10:24.060No, it is the most human and natural thing in the world to want to blame, you know, our public leaders, the other side.
00:10:31.760And my book is all about the power that we each have to be a part of the solution, that we can't blame media.
00:10:39.520We can't blame, you know, who's prime minister, who's president, what's going on around the world that we can all we can control is ourselves.
00:10:45.120And we vastly underestimate the power we each have to be part of the solution.
00:10:49.640So I call myself a refugee from federal government.
00:10:53.560So when I was in Washington, D.C., I fled.
00:10:55.520I came home from work one day and said to my husband, I am done with government.
00:10:58.580I'm done with D.C., done with politics.
00:11:29.440But we were curious to know many people.
00:11:30.940We went to her home one afternoon and I realized that she was staging this quiet revolution against our atomized and divided status quo from her front porch.
00:11:40.120That she had curated people across class, race, ethnicity, politics, just to inhabit a shared space, not to, you know, have a curated conversation across difference, but to build trust and friendship that is so lacking today in our public life.
00:11:53.400And is, in fact, one reason why we're not able to have conversations across difference well at all if we don't have that basic respect, trust, affection for our fellow citizens, our fellow human beings.
00:12:02.840And I actually had the privilege of studying and researching and visiting people like Joanna across North America who are doing the exact same thing.
00:12:12.140They're saying, I can't control what's happening in my nation's capital or around the world, but I can control myself.
00:12:18.900And I'm going to double down and make my community better, my family stronger.
00:12:24.980I met people who were doing that with and without a porch from their local coffee shop, from their, you know, hosting supper clubs, dinner parties, from using a front stoop or front lawn that is not about, you know, big city, small town.
00:12:36.400It's just about a way of engaging others in the world with civility, with hospitality, which is a high and noble expression of civility and wanting to transform the outsider to the inside of the stranger into the friend.
00:12:49.120And this is something that is too important and too sophisticated and complex to be left to our public leaders to be, and it can't be scaled either.
00:12:56.720It's only something that can be individual, micro, at the one-on-one level.
00:13:00.840And it's a decision we have to make every moment of every day.
00:13:03.200Are we going to make the world a better and brighter place for future generations to live in?
00:13:07.700I mean, that's why I wrote this book for my children.
00:13:09.660Or are we going to be part of the problem in how we live our lives?
00:13:13.360And I hope that readers come away encouraged that, again, we have far more power to be part of the solution of restoring the soul of civility in our world today than we realize.
00:13:23.500Well, and you even got the title in there.
00:13:25.380We'll put the cover up to augment that in people's minds.
00:13:28.760It is called The Soul of Civility by Alexandra Hudson.
00:13:32.340People can catch it on Amazon or elsewhere.
00:13:34.740And you've actually had quite a bit of critical acclaim for this now that's been out a few months, which is quite good.
00:13:40.180So congratulations on that, Alexandra.