Our world is suffering a deep unrest. The term “civil war” has been thrown around more than once in reference to the deep divide that seems too broad to risk crossing. And it’s not just the protests that devolve into riots or the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol—it’s the very way we look at each other, address each other. Political differences have become cruel hills to die on. Medical decisions break families apart. And we see our neighbors with underlying suspicion at best; at worst, they’re not our neighbors at all, but the other.
This is the picture that Alexandra Hudson frames in her book The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. She raises questions many of us are probably asking right now: What does it mean to be a civilized nation? And if we’re not as civilized as we thought, is there a way to reform the barbarous nature that defines so many modern relationships?
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