The Civility We Need

Alexandra Hudson was working in the Trump administration, of all places, when she learned the value of civility. A staffer in the Department of Education, Hudson found herself surrounded by “people who were willing to do anything, uninhibited by the constraints of common decency.” Some were openly aggressive and self-serving, but the more subtle operators disarmed their prey with “faux politeness.” A few honeyed words had her hard at work on a project, for which the flatterer later took all the credit. Worse, she found herself adopting her colleagues’ tactics, baking cupcakes and hosting get-togethers, all in the hopes that her performative “niceness” would win her mercy during the “office power games.”

Hudson soon escaped this “toxic environment” for its diametric opposite: the Midwest, a place so hospitable, she is delighted to find, “porching” is a verb, used to describe hosting your neighbors on your front porch. But Hudson remained perplexed. Her mother, a children’s singer and educator known as the “Manners Lady,” had taught her that manners are the “outward expression of inward character,” yet her fellow political appointees had disguised their true natures with social pleasantries and courtesies. Was civility all just a sham — an outmoded set of “stuffy norms” used to manipulate and oppress?

For answers, Hudson turned to what she calls the “Great Conversation, the iterative dialogue of wise men and women across history and culture.” The result of her explorations is her humanistic manifesto, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.

As an online educator and proprietor of the newsletter Civic Renaissance, Hudson is devoted to reviving the wisdom of the past. In making her case for civility, she draws on thinkers from the classical tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Tocqueville) but also on writings from non-Western cultures (the Teachings of the Egyptian vizier Ptahhotep, the Mahabharata, Confucius). Across this diversity of cultures and civilizations, Hudson finds deep commonality, in keeping with her conviction that “the principles of human flourishing tend to stay the same across the human experience.” There is a “duality in our nature,” “an ongoing battle” between the forces of civility and those of incivility in every human soul. With Aristotle, Hudson believes man is by nature a social animal, drawn to others by an innate sentiment of “fellow-feeling,” variously expressed as the Chinese virtue of ren (or “benevolence”), the African concept of ubuntu (“humaneness”), or the Enlightenment theory of sympathy. But this pro-social impulse in our nature is at odds with our self-love and (borrowing from Augustine) our resulting “lust for domination.”

Hudson is a lover of etymology, and she reminds us that civility derives from the Latin civilis, which describes “the civil conduct befitting a citizen in the city.” In order to live together, we must “rightly order” our passions, “restraining self-interest for the sake of community.” Although we are naturally disposed toward sociality, Hudson wisely cautions that civility is not “the default state of humanity” but rather must be inculcated by “cultivation, education, training, and habit.” To that end, she presents us with precepts from etiquette manuals across the ages. We get advice on basic decencies; the twelfth-century poet Daniel of Beccles instructs us on table manners while the Renaissance courtier Giovanni della Casa is enlisted to promote the cause of good hygiene: “Don’t lean over and sniff someone else’s food. It’s gross, and nose debris could fall in.”

It’s hard to argue with such advice, but Hudson insists that outward refinements are not the “soul of civility.” She fears that an overemphasis on decorum or manners can devolve into snobbishness, in which etiquette is treated solely as a matter of knowing which fork to use. It can cause us to devalue people, such as those with disabilities, who may have difficulty complying with social norms. It can also foster hypocrisy, as with the political staffers who flatter even as they secretly undermine one another.

True civility requires an attitudinal transformation. Civility is a “disposition,” while politeness is a mere “technique”: “Politeness . . . focuses on seeming good, while civility focuses on being good.” For Hudson, civility can be summed up as internalizing the Golden Rule, and “seeing all people as they really are: beings with innate dignity.” Her plea for “reconciliation, friendship, and human harmony” is saved from triteness by her evident sincerity, and if there is a certain sameness to some of the chapters, Hudson reminds us that civility’s proponents have to keep dispensing the same old advice because we keep falling short.

Reviewing a book about civility is a tricky task. If I quibble here or there with Hudson’s argument, will I have failed to heed the wisdom of Erasmus: “Readily ignore the faults of others, but avoid falling short yourself”? Hudson gets at this reviewer’s dilemma in the opening of her book, where she invites her readers to continue the “Great Conversation” with her on Civic Renaissance. “While reading this book, if you think of examples that support or add to my argument, please write to me,” she urges. But naysayers should remember the old adage about keeping mum if you have nothing nice to say: “If you have ideas or examples that contradict my argument, do keep those to yourself.” Is Hudson enjoining me to mere politeness — which, as she tells us, comes from the Latin polire, which means “to polish, to make smooth”? Should I smooth over our differences, or is that patronizing? Doesn’t she say civility sometimes requires “telling people difficult truths”?

Hudson acknowledges that her case for civility “is grounded in a high view of humanity.” It feels ungenerous to argue with such a noble ideal, yet I couldn’t help wondering whether Hudson, in her defense of civility, had given politeness short shrift, and whether her “plan of general civility” (to quote Jane Austen) might not gain more ground through the practice of common politeness.

Hudson wants to avoid freighting “matters of taste” with too much “moral significance.” People with perfect manners can be perfect villains, and the uncouth can have hearts of gold. While good manners might not perfectly reveal “inward character,” they do help us cultivate the habits of self-control that are the foundation of true civility. Hudson invokes Aristotle in emphasizing the role of habit in developing virtue. She shares Max Beerbohm’s fairy tale “The Happy Hypocrite,” in which a vicious man dons the mask of a saint to woo a virtuous woman. After he wins his bride, he must drop the mask and reveal his “true, vicious countenance.” But lo and behold, in feigning virtue, he has become virtuous, and his face now fits the mask. It’s probably too much to hope that the daily practice of politeness will make us all saints, but certainly habituation in small courtesies, even those grudgingly bestowed, can moderate our self-love, bringing us closer to Hudson’s ideal of civility. The “technique” of politeness thus makes possible — even brings about — the inward “disposition” of civility.

But this is perhaps more a matter of emphasis than a real disagreement. I had more trouble with Hudson’s account of civil disobedience. She asks, “Are there instances when we should be willing to overlook the fundamental respect we owe to others in the name of the common good?” She assures us that we can be civil in our disagreements but says that true civility will sometimes require “breaking prevailing laws and norms if they promote inequality and injustice.” She gives as her example the abolitionist Edward Coles, who freed his own slaves and sought to enlist Thomas Jefferson in his cause, writing him to point out the contradiction between his ideals and his practices. Accusing someone of hypocrisy is definitely not polite, but it is civil, Hudson argues, because it is an action undertaken “with the end of respecting human dignity.”

Hudson initially commends Coles for “not calling Jefferson out publicly.” Later, though, she notes that, during his campaign for Illinois governor, Coles leaked his letters and Jefferson’s response to the press. The letters helped establish Cole’s bona fides as an opponent of slavery, and he won the election.

Here we can see the problem with treating civility purely as an inward disposition, of judging an action by its (purported) motives. Does Coles’s writing of the letters become uncivil if he wrote them with the purpose of aiding his political career, not simply telling “hard truths” to a friend? Coles’s cause was righteous and just, and so it is easy to celebrate him now, as Hudson does, for speaking “truth to power,” even if his action has the whiff of political self-interest. But is he the example of civility we need most at our current moment?

Students shout down professors and guest speakers; social-media mobs hound people for errors of opinion; human-rights activists tear down flyers of children and babies held hostage. All these people would justify their appalling incivility by claiming they are acting in accord with a higher form of civility, telling “hard truths,” as Coles did. Wouldn’t it be better — more civil, even — if they were just polite?