This morning, I was frustrated at my children for having cavities.

Four minutes later, I hit a stopped trailer with my car.

So this is an essay about grace.

There is so much I want to share with you from the last few weeks. I want to tell you about my weekend at the Aspen Institute’s Executive Seminar, where we read Plato and Aristotle and Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and other timeless texts, some I had read before and needed to read again, and some I had never encountered.

I also want to tell you about the leadership retreat I hosted in Palmer Lake, Colorado, a very small and beautiful community that has been divided for years over a proposed Buc-ee’s. We gathered 25 leaders from across the Pikes Peak region, including several mayors and leaders from half a dozen communities, to ask: How do we rebuild after years of division? How do we begin again after civic trust has been damaged?

I want to tell you all of that. And I will.

But today, let’s talk about grace—something I think we could all use a bit more of right now.

Grace

This morning, I got my kids up early for a dentist appointment. We rushed out the door, crumbs from half eaten croissant in our wake. My daughter was still in her pajamas. Everyone was tired.

And then the appointment did not go well.

There were cavities.

Again.

Last summer, my son had a mouthful of cavities, which meant extractions and crowns and thousands of dollars and a lot of suffering for my poor little six-year-old. So when I heard there were more cavities today, I felt my frustration rising.

I was mad at all the times that they had sneaked candy and sweets without permission. Mad that they had not brushed their teeth well. Mad that they would not even keep their mouths open long enough for the dentist to do a full exam.

Not my proudest mothering moment.

We loaded into the car, and I called my husband and had him on speakerphone to the car as I recounted to him what had happened. As I was talking, I could hear myself being pretty graceless toward my children.

And then, minutes later, I hit a stopped trailer in front of me.

Thankfully, everyone was okay. But I felt sick.

We pulled over. We exchanged information. I checked on the kids. And then I felt something else too: profoundly, painfully humbled.

I pulled my children aside and told them the truth.

Mama was being graceless with you. I was angry about your mistakes, about the cavities, about the brushing, about the dentist appointment. And then, almost immediately after being so graceless with you, Mama made a mistake too.

And now Mama needs grace.

Will you forgive me?

Graceful origins

One of the things I love about the etymology of words is that word origins often remember truths we have forgotten. Take the word grace.

Today, many of us think of grace primarily as a theological concept: God’s unearned favor toward us. And rightly so. But long before Christian theologians wrote about grace, the ancient world was already wrestling with the idea.

Our English word grace comes from the Latin gratia, which meant favor, goodwill, kindness, gratitude, beauty, and gift. From the same root we get gratitude, grateful, gratify, and even gratis, something given freely.

The Romans even personified grace. They called them the Gratiae, the Three Graces.

The Three Graces

In Greek mythology, The Three Graces, or Charites, are three goddesses in Greco-Roman art that represent the act of giving, receiving, and returning gifts:

• The generous giver: One of the three graces represents the giver of grace.

• The recipient: The recipient of grace is represented by another of the three graces.

• The recipient extending grace: The last of the three graces represents the recipient extending grace

The Three Graces personify virtues associated with grace. Their names are:

• Aglaea, meaning Splendor or Beauty

• Euphrosyne, meaning Joy or Mirth

• Thalia, meaning Blooming or Abundance

There is a beautiful, virtuous cycle with grace.

It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

The Roman philosopher Seneca discusses this in his work called On Benefits (De Beneficiis). He writes about the Graces as embodying the proper circulation of benefits and gifts within society. In his interpretation, one Grace gives, another receives, and the third returns the gift. The image becomes a visual lesson about generosity, gratitude, and reciprocity.

Seneca writes, “One bestows a benefit, another receives it, a third returns it.”

Renaissance artists and thinkers loved this reading because it transformed the Graces from decorative mythological figures into a meditation on the social fabric itself. Gifts are not meant to stop with the recipient. Grace is received and then passed on.

What’s especially interesting in Primavera is that Botticelli places the Three Graces immediately beside Venus. If Venus governs love rightly understood, then the Graces show what love looks like in practice: generosity, receptivity, and reciprocity.

For someone interested in hospitality, civility, and civic friendship, there is a rich connection here.

The Graces suggest that healthy communities depend on a continual circulation of gifts:

• Host and guest

• Teacher and student

• Neighbor and neighbor

• Citizen and community

One person gives. Another receives. The recipient then becomes a giver in turn.

Grace is not a possession. It is a movement, a lifestyle. And it makes our world go round.

The Renaissance scholar Leon Battista Alberti and others saw the Graces’ joined hands and circular dance as symbolizing that benefits should keep moving through society rather than becoming trapped by selfishness or pride.

That is remarkably close to your own language around hospitality and porching. The porch works because hospitality does not end with the host. Ideally, the guest becomes a future host. The recipient of welcome extends welcome.

The same is true of grace.

Whiplash

The whiplash (pun intended) of being graceless with my kids—and then being so in need of grace myself immediately after—caused me to remeber soemthing that the pastor and theologian that Tim Keller once said: “The unforgiving heart is the unforgiven heart.”

I take that to mean that when we forget how much mercy we ourselves have received, we become stingy with it toward others. We forget our own shortcomings. We forget the moments when we needed patience instead of judgment, help instead of condemnation, a second chance instead of someone keeping score.

Which is why Keller’s insight and Botticelli’s Graces fit together so well. If the unforgiving heart is the unforgiven heart, then perhaps the gracious heart is the one that remembers it has received grace and therefore passes it on.

I was stingy this morning.

And then I needed the very thing I had just failed to give.

That is the thing about grace. We tend to remember it best when we need it.

Not because mistakes do not matter; of course they do. Cavities matter. Car accidents matter. Our choices have consequences, and sometimes those consequences are expensive, painful, embarrassing, or inconvenient. But grace lets us tell the truth about the mistake without making the mistake the whole story.

That is what I want my children to learn.

And, if I’m being honest, what I still need to learn too.

So that is my word for today, mostly to myself: be quicker, more fluent, with grace.

Who needs grace from you today?

And maybe before answering that, it is worth remembering a time when you needed grace, and someone gave it to you.

Wishing you a grace-filled week!

In the news

• Thanks to the Aspen Times for the gracious interview on Flourishing Across Difference. Here is an excerpt you might enjoy:

Bryan: If the problem is deeper than politics or technology, where does the solution begin?

Alexandra: Hyper locally. Hyper individually.

I don’t believe there’s a silver bullet. Culture is built through millions of tiny decisions and interactions. My grandmother understood the importance of ordinary human encounters: Knowing your neighbor’s name, looking your grocery clerk in the eye, taking genuine interest in another person’s culture or experience.

Bryan: She sounds like a wise woman, what else did she leave you with?

Alexandra: That one gracious life can echo across generations. We hear a lot about cycles of trauma and cruelty, but we don’t talk enough about the opposite — that goodness compounds too. I call it “the mellifluous echo of the magnanimous soul.”

My grandmother treated every person she encountered as sacred. That shaped my mother. It shaped me. It now shapes my children. We underestimate how much power ordinary decency carries, the potential for it to echo through generations.

Bryan: You’ve started turning these ideas into actual civic gatherings and initiatives around the country. What have you learned from that process?

Alexandra: That people are starving for this. A few weeks ago, we hosted 50 leaders from across politics, media, education and public life in our home in Indianapolis. We brought together people who would likely never otherwise share a room together.

The purpose wasn’t agreement. It was flourishing across difference. That phrase is really important to me. The goal is not ideological uniformity. The goal is building a society where disagreement brings out the best in us rather than the worst.

Division is everywhere, and it’s easy to feel frustrated, overwhemed, powerless about what we can do to help.

But a recent experience caused me to wonder if one of the most powerful answers is far simpler, and far closer to home.

What if renewal begins with a front porch?

Or a dinner table?

Or a restaurant where the owner remembers your name?

A Simon in a world of Soup Nazis

We all know the Soup Nazi archetype from Seinfeld: the place where the product is so good that people tolerate being diminished and abused to get it. The joke works because it reveals something true. We have all encountered institutions where excellence becomes an excuse for contempt, where customers, patients, students, clients, or guests are treated as interruptions rather than human beings. The food may be extraordinary. The service may be efficient. The institution may be impressive. But the encounter leaves you feeling smaller. I had an experience recently that showed me

Last week, I was in Iowa to be the closing keynote at the Central Iowa Business Conference. It was a joy to be there and meet in person so many of the people I’ve come to know primarily virtually, includign those in Urbandale, Iowa. Urbandale is one community that has just announced The Soul of Civility as its community read, and leaders across Central Iowa—including those at St. Ambrose University and beyond—are beginning to ask what it might look like to take the ideas of the book off the page and into the life of their community.

After several days in Chicago with the Aspen Institute at their Social Trust Summit, I drove five hours to the Des Moines for the keynote. When I arrived, tired and hungry, I asked my hosts the most important question one can ask after a long drive: Where should I eat?

Their answer was immediate. You have to go to Simon’s.

Then they looked at the clock and reconsidered.

Actually, it’s probably too late. The line will be around the block. You’ll never get in.

Naturally, this made me want to go even more.

What fascinated me was not simply that Simon’s was popular. Lots of restaurants are popular. What fascinated me was the way people spoke about it.

They did not begin with the menu.

They did not begin with the cocktails.

They began with Simon.

He knows everyone.

He remembers your name.

He makes you feel like family.

One person told me that Simon makes strangers feel like friends, and friends feel like family.

So I called the restaurant.

To my surprise, Simon himself answered.

Then he immediately put me on hold—for several minutes.

Ordinarily, I might have found this annoying. But I found myself laughing, because while I waited, I could hear him doing the very thing everyone had described. He was greeting people as they walked in, saying goodbye as they left, checking on tables, laughing with guests, moving from one act of welcome to the next.

Even over the phone, I could tell that Simon was not simply running a restaurant.

He was creating belonging—the opposite of feeling like an imposition, as the Soup Nazi does, you feel like familty.

At Simon’s, excellence is not used as permission to disregard people. It becomes a reason to honor them. The food is good, yes. But the deeper gift is that Simon refuses to make people feel like nuisances in a place they came to enjoy. He makes the stranger feel received. He makes the regular feel remembered. He makes a crowded restaurant feel like a living room.

Later that evening, I found myself sitting at his bar.

Within minutes, complete strangers were passing dishes in my direction.

You have to try this.

No, try this one.

This is your first time here? Welcome.

His hospitality was contageous. It made his patrons hospitable, too.

Beauty begets beauty. Civility begets civiltiy. Warmth begets warmth. Hospitality begets hospitality.

I had already eaten dinner elsewhere, which made no difference at all. While everythign was delicious, the evening had stopped being about food. It had become about fellowship.

The people around me spoke about Simon with an affection I almost never hear people use about a restaurant owner.

One couple told me they had been coming for years.

The food originally drew them.

Simon keeps them coming back.

They told me stories that sounded almost unbelievable. On busy nights, when people have waited too long, Simon has been known to drive guests down the street and buy them dinner at another restaurant rather than leave them hungry.

From the standpoint of efficiency, this makes no sense.

From the standpoint of hospitality, it makes perfect sense.

Because Simon understands something many of us have forgotten.

People are hungry for more than food.

They are hungry to be seen.

They are hungry to be known.

They are hungry to matter.

The Latin word hospes gives us hospitality, hospital, hospice, host, and guest. I have always loved that host and guest share the same root, because embedded in the word itself is a beautiful and demanding idea: the stranger is not merely someone to tolerate or manage. The stranger is someone to welcome.

That is what Simon does.

And as I sat there, I realized I had seen this before.

Not in a restaurant.

On a porch.

Would you like to “porch” with us?

When I first moved from Washington, D.C., to Indianapolis, I was lonely. I did not yet know many people. Indianapolis did not yet feel like home.

Then one Sunday after church, a tall blonde woman named Joanna Taft introduced herself and asked me a question I had never heard before.

Would you like to porch with us sometime?

Porch, as a verb.

I was curious, and I said yes.

That afternoon changed the way I understood community.

On Joanna’s porch, people from different neighborhoods, professions, political beliefs, and walks of life gathered together, not for a structured dialogue, not to win an argument, not to perform unity, but simply to share life.

To talk.

To laugh.

To eat.

To be neighbors.

There was something almost subversive about it.

In a culture that so often trains us to encounter one another first as categories, Joanna had created a place where people encountered one another first as human beings.

Only later as Democrats or Republicans.

Only later as professionals or activists.

Only later as people who disagreed.

Joanna’s porch and Simon’s restaurant are different kinds of places.

One has cocktails and cake.

One has wicker chairs and neighborhood children running around.

But they do the same work.

They transform strangers into neighbors.

They remind people that they belong.

They create the conditions under which trust can grow.

And that matters because I do not think our deepest crisis is political.

I think it is relational.

We are living through a crisis of alienation, loneliness, and failing to see one another clearly, as beings with dignity and worth.

Much of the hostility around us is downstream from that.

People who feel unseen often struggle to see others.

People who feel disconnected often struggle to connect.

People who feel reduced to a label often learn to reduce others in return.

The antidote is not agreement.

The antidote is encounter.

Hospitality creates the possibility of encounter.

It gives us a place to meet one another not as abstractions, not as enemies, not as avatars of everything we fear, but as fellow human beings.

That is why hospitality is not peripheral to civic renewal.

It is central to it.

One of the great lessons of my work, especially after years of traveling to communities across North America and beyond, is that the people doing the work of renewal are rarely the people making national headlines.

They are people like Joanna.

They are people like Simon.

They are people who quietly create places where others feel welcome.

Places where strangers become friends.

Places where friends become family.

Places where people remember that they are not alone.

We cannot scale Simon.

There is only one Simon.

But we do not need to scale Simon.

We need more people to ask where they can become a Simon in their own life.

Where is your porch?

Where is your table?

Where is your garden?

Where is the place where you can make someone feel seen, known, and welcomed?

Every community has opportunities for hospitality.

Every one of us has more power than we realize.

The invitation matters.

The welcome matters.

The extra chair at the table matters.

Every act of hospitality pushes back against the forces pulling us apart.

Every gesture of welcome affirms the dignity of another person.

Every porch, every table, every restaurant, every gathering can become a small act of resistance against alienation.

In a world full of Soup Nazis, be a Simon.

Their hospitality, a high and noble expression of civility, will heal our broken world.

• May 19: Aspen Institute Social Trust Summit. Chicago, IL

• May 21: The Central Iowa Chamber of Commerce Business Conference, Altoona, IA

• June 22-25: ARC Conference, London, UK: I’ll be speaking at the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship Conference this year, adding my voice to the global dialogue on rebuilding the habits of a healthy society. I hope to see you there!

In the news:

• C-SPAN Washington Journal: Lexi Hudson Discusses Civility in American Politics

  Alexandra Hudson discusses efforts to promote civility in American politics considering heated political rhetoric and its potential ties to acts of political violence.

• Art Life Faith Podcast: The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson

  Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. In this episode I had the privilege of having a conversation with Alexandra Hudson, or Lexi, the author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.” A number of weeks ago, she was passing through Tokyo on vacation with her family when she was gracious enough to sit down with me and talk about the various themes in her book and then lead an Art Life Faith event right afterward.

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

  A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Tour Launch in Indianapolis

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

The Freedom of Limits

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

We live in a strange age of perfectionism.

We expect people to have never made a mistake, never changed their minds, never contradicted themselves, never hurt anyone, never spoken poorly, never failed publicly, never fallen short privately. We demand a kind of impossible moral and psychological coherence from one another that no human being has ever possessed.

And then we are shocked when people disappoint us.

But disappointment is inevitable if our expectations are built on a false view of what it means to be human.

Alexander Pope wrote in An Essay on Criticism:

“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

That line has survived for centuries because it names something permanent about the human condition.

We are imperfect creatures.

Not occasionally imperfect. Constitutively imperfect.

As Blaise Pascal suggested in Pensées, the human condition is marked by both greatness and wretchedness. We are capable of astonishing beauty, sacrifice, ingenuity, tenderness, and love. We are also capable of cruelty, selfishness, cowardice, resentment, and destruction.

Both are true.

To deny either side is to misunderstand ourselves.

That’s why I titled this essay: How to be imperfect.

Two paths to imperfection

There are two ways to be imperfect.

1. The first is to deny our imperfection while continuing to be imperfect anyway.

This is exhausting.

It sets us up for constant disappointment in ourselves and permanent resentment toward others. Every mistake becomes catastrophic. Every failure becomes evidence that we are fraudulent. Every hurt becomes proof that another person is irredeemable.

If we insist on pretending that human beings should not fail, then ordinary human life will feel unbearable.

2. The second way to be imperfect is to embrace our imperfection honestly.

Not to justify it. Not to celebrate selfishness or cruelty or irresponsibility. But to recognize that failure is part of what it means to be human, and that our mistakes are invitations to repair, growth, humility, and reconciliation.

That posture changes everything.

It allows us to become less shocked by human limitation and more fluent in grace.

Wabi-sabi and kintsugi: the beauty of imperfection and the art of repair

Recently, I returned from Japan, where I spent time thinking about the aesthetic ideal of wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection and impermanence.

One expression of this philosophy is kintsugi, a 500-year-old art form in which broken pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with gold.

Instead of hiding the cracks, the cracks are illuminated.

The object becomes more beautiful because it was broken and repaired.

I cannot stop thinking about how countercultural that is.

Our instinct today is often to discard what is damaged.

A friendship ruptures, move on.

A marriage becomes difficult, replace it.

A colleague disappoints us, reduce them to their worst moment.

A person fails publicly, exile them.

We live in a culture with apps for replacement.

But kintsugi invites us to pause.

To repair.

To believe that healing can create something stronger and more beautiful than what existed before.

A repaired relationship carries a story. It contains memory, suffering, forgiveness, honesty, endurance.

It contains humanity.

That, in many ways, is the heart of the work I am trying to do through Civic Renaissance.

Helping us become more fluent in the human condition.

Helping us recover the language of grace and forgiveness.

Helping us remember that people are more than the worst thing they have said or done.

One of the ideas I return to often is this:

Unbundling people is the superpower of the 21st century.

To unbundle a person means refusing to reduce them to one opinion, one failure, one vote, one moment, one flaw, one wound, one act of betrayal.

It means seeing people in their fullness.

Seeing the irreducible dignity and worth of another human being while also acknowledging their failures honestly.

It means recognizing that human beings are infinitely complicated creatures shaped by fear, hope, exhaustion, insecurity, love, memory, trauma, longing, and contradiction.

It also means extending that same mercy to ourselves.

When we fail, the answer is not denial.

Nor is it self-annihilation.

The answer is honesty.

I lost my temper.

I spoke carelessly.

I was unkind.

I was defensive.

I was hungry and exhausted and angry about something else, and it came out sideways onto you.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

Those words are not signs of weakness.

They are signs of maturity—of inner confidence, self awareness, strength.

And paradoxically, relationships often become stronger after those moments of truth-telling. Not weaker.

The strongest families are not the families without rupture. They are the families where repair happens.

The strongest friendships are not the ones untouched by disappointment. They are the ones where people remain honest enough, humble enough, and courageous enough to rebuild trust after failure.

That is the kind of parent I want to be.

That is the kind of friend I want to be.

That is the kind of leader I want to be.

Not someone who never fails.

Someone who knows how to repair.

Someone who does not deny the fullness of what it means to be human.

Greatness and wretchedness, all.

And perhaps that is part of what a healthier society requires too.

Not perfection.

Not ideological purity.

Not relentless performance.

But citizens capable of truth-telling, repentance, forgiveness, humility, repair, and grace.

Your turn

So let me ask you:

• Where in your life have you fallen short recently?

• Where have you lost your temper, spoken carelessly, withdrawn, become defensive, or wounded someone you love?

• Is there a relationship in your life that you have quietly discarded instead of repairing?

• Is there someone you have reduced to their worst moment?

• Is there someone who has done that to you?

• What would it look like to practice kintsugi there?

What would it look like to say:

I was wrong.

I was hurt.

I was exhausted.

I was afraid.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

And what might become possible on the other side of that honesty?

Perhaps stronger trust.

Perhaps greater tenderness.

Perhaps a fuller understanding of one another.

Perhaps even beauty.

My invitation to you in the comments:

• Tell me about a time you repaired something instead of discarding it.

• Tell me about a moment when grace changed a relationship.

• Tell me about a crack where the gold entered.

Let’s become more fluent in the fullness of what it means to be human.

Greatness, wretchedness, all.

That restores the spirit of you

Kintsugi civis

A civilization fluent in kintsugi—the art of repair: that’s what I’d like to see us build.

A civilization that understands that cracks do not necessarily disqualify us from beauty.

Sometimes they are the very places where the gold enters.

Thank you for being part of the Civic Renaissance Community. I’m glad you’re here.

Lexi

ICMA Local Government Reimagined Conference: Democracy and the Public Trust

A complete joy to keynote for 300 local government leaders at the ICMA conference in Philadelphia while honoring America’s 250th through the stories of William Penn and Edward Coles, two men who broke false peace in service of human dignity. Penn defied polite hierarchies because he was civil and recognized the worth of every person. Coles challenged Jefferson, freed those his family had enslaved, and helped keep Illinois slave free. After the conference, I met a man who told me that in his birth country local government exists in name only and restoring it could cost him his life. I have not stopped thinking about that. As Tocqueville observed, self government must be practiced or it atrophies. American democracy lives or dies in local communities where trust is built and dignity is practiced. Agreement is not the goal. Flourishing across difference is.

Looking ahead:

• May 19: Aspen Institute Social Trust Summit. Chicago, IL

• May 21: The Central Iowa Chamber of Commerce Business Conference, Altoona, IA

• June 22-25: ARC Conference, London, UK: I’ll be speaking at the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship Conference this year, adding my voice to the global dialogue on rebuilding the habits of a healthy society. I hope to see you there!

In the news:

• C-SPAN Washington Journal: Lexi Hudson Discusses Civility in American Politics

  Alexandra Hudson discusses efforts to promote civility in American politics considering heated political rhetoric and its potential ties to acts of political violence.

• Art Life Faith Podcast: The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson

  Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. In this episode I had the privilege of having a conversation with Alexandra Hudson, or Lexi, the author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.” A number of weeks ago, she was passing through Tokyo on vacation with her family when she was gracious enough to sit down with me and talk about the various themes in her book and then lead an Art Life Faith event right afterward.

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

  A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Tour Launch in Indianapolis

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

The Freedom of Limits

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

I was thrilled when Town & Country me to comment on a question they had been reflecting on: the meanness growing at all levels of American life.

In Town & Country’s new reported piece on why America seems to have become so mean, I got to share why “unoffendability”—the super power of the 21st century— offers a third way between the two extremes that define modern life: cruel hostility and suffocating politeness.

Why we are trapped between hostility and politeness

One of the tensions of modern life that I explore in The Soul of Civility, and in my recent interview with Town & Country, is that many people feel trapped between two extremes: hostility on one side, and suffocating politeness on the other.

Both cruelty and fake niceness can become dehumanizing. One attacks people openly. The other papers over difference or manipulates people into agreement while avoiding honesty, respect, truth, and genuine engagement.

Our culture increasingly teaches people to interpret discomfort, disagreement, awkwardness, and offense as existential threats.

What can we do?

First, we can and must choose civility, which I define as:

1. The art of human flourishing.

2. The bare minimum of respect we are owed, and owe to others, by virtue of our shared humanity.

3. More than mere politeness, civility demands that we respect others enough to tell hard truths, and respect ourselves enough to speak our mind and set boundaries.

4. Not how we treat those we like, those we agree with, and those who can do things for us in return, but how we treat the other, the stranger, the person we don’t like, the person we disagree with, the person we may never see again, and the person who can never repay us.

Second, we can choose to be unoffendable, the superpower of the 21st century.

Unoffendability

Unoffendability means reclaiming the power we each have to choose how we respond to another person’s meanness.

We cannot control others. We cannot control what they say, how they behave, whether they understand us fairly, or whether they treat us with the dignity we deserve. But we can control ourselves. We can decide what we will do with our hurt, our anger, our embarrassment, and our desire to retaliate.

Unoffendability is not weakness. It is not passivity. It is not pretending that cruelty does not hurt or that injustice does not matter. Far from it. Unoffendability is refusing to surrender our agency to the person who provokes us. It is choosing ownership over our emotions and responses instead of letting another person’s failure determine who we become in that moment.

When we are misunderstood, provoked, criticized, or dismissed, we do not have to collapse into cruelty or fragility. We can maintain perspective, humor, proportion, and self-command. We can tell the truth without contempt. We can defend ourselves without becoming small. We can refuse to let another person’s meanness make us mean.

The relationship between civility and unoffendability is this: both require a secure sense of our own worth and dignity as human beings. When we know our worth to the marrow, we do not have to yell, scream, posture, dominate, or humiliate others to prove our significance. We do not need constant validation, nor do we collapse every time we are criticized, misunderstood, or slighted.

Civility is the outward expression of that security; treating others with respect because we are grounded enough not to see every disagreement as a threat. Unoffendability is the inward posture that makes civility possible; the refusal to surrender our peace, self-command, or humanity every time another person behaves badly.

As I told Town & Country:

“Unoffendability is the superpower of the 21st century.”

Questions for you to consider:

• Where were you unoffendable recently?

• Where, looking back, did you miss an opportunity to be unoffendable and want to do better next time?

I’d love to hear from you.

Each of us has far more power to be part of the solution than we realize.

Let’s choose to be part of the solution.

Thanks for being here.

Looking ahead:

• May 14: ICMA Local Government Reimagined Conference: Democracy and the Public Trust, Philadelphia, PA

• May 19: Social Trust Summit. Chicago, IL

• May 21: Central Iowa Business Conference, Altoona, IA

• June 22-25: ARC Conference, London, UK: I’ll be speaking at the Alliance of Responsible Citizenship Conference this year, adding my voice to the global dialogue on rebuilding the habits of a healthy society. I hope to see you there!

In the news:

• C-SPAN Washington Journal: Lexi Hudson Discusses Civility in American Politics

  Alexandra Hudson discusses efforts to promote civility in American politics considering heated political rhetoric and its potential ties to acts of political violence.

• Art Life Faith Podcast: The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson

  Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. In this episode I had the privilege of having a conversation with Alexandra Hudson, or Lexi, the author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.” A number of weeks ago, she was passing through Tokyo on vacation with her family when she was gracious enough to sit down with me and talk about the various themes in her book and then lead an Art Life Faith event right afterward.

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

  A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Tour Launch in Indianapolis

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

The Freedom of Limits

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

Gracious reader,

This past weekend, we gathered 50 leaders for the inaugural Civic Renaissance Retreat, a feast for mind, body, and spirit.

It was an invitation-only retreat for leaders across politics, geography, and vocation who are dissatisfied with the status quo and want to build something new.

Former governors, state representatives, journalists from The Free Press and The Atlantic, educators, school board leaders, superintendents, and practitioners joined us because they care about building an era of multidimensional human flourishing across difference, starting with ourselves.

That was the whole invitation of the weekend.

There were no preconditions and no litmus tests other than this: you cared about building something better, something that does not yet exist.

Why We Gathered

In our divided age, we vacillate between two extremes: hostility and politeness.

Hostility sees others as pawns to be steamrolled, silenced, and forced into agreement.

Politeness sees others as pawns to be managed, smoothed over, and kept comfortable rather than engaged honestly.

Both reflect something deeper: a crisis of dehumanization.

We are not seeing ourselves or one another clearly, as human beings with inherent dignity and worth.

This retreat was an answer to that crisis.

We did not gather to reduce division.

We gathered to flourish across difference.

What We Did

We began by embodying the world we want to build.

We embodied flourishing across difference, abundance, conversation, rest, and the possibility of seeing one another in the fullness of who we are.

I called the Civic Renaissance Retreat a feast for mind, body, and spirit because we are trying to recover a full sense of what it means to be human—mind, body, and spirit.

There was incredible food. Each feast, prepared by Chef Brandon and Chef Conor, carried us into a different golden age, from Ancient Greece at the opening reception to the French Enlightenment the next day, then Florence for Saturday lunch, and finally a Spanish golden age with a closing paella celebration. We had beautiful, intentional, curated meals and gatherings. We had time to rest. We had time to think. We had time to connect.

It was not only a space for reflection and renewal, but a living expression of joy, laughter, games, singing, karaoke, and toasts, a reminder that this work is meant to be embodied and shared together.

It was an unconference as well, with space for spontaneous conversation, because often the best part of a conference is the conversation over lunch, in the hallway, or in the quiet moments between sessions.

We wanted to structure an entire retreat around those moments.

Because we believe in the power of people getting in a room together and building.

What We Saw

One of the most powerful moments of the weekend was our evening with Daryl Davis.

Daryl is an African American jazz musician and a wonderful friend who has spent decades seeking out and befriending members of hate groups.

His whole premise is simple: how can they hate me if they do not even know me?

He told us about people who originally hated him, who denied his right to exist, and who, through friendship and curiosity, changed.

More than 200 members of these groups have given him their robes, flags, and memorabilia as a sign that they were leaving those views behind.

But not every story ends that way.

There are people Daryl has befriended who still hold hateful, dehumanizing views, and yet they remain in relationship.

Daryl said, I think you are wrong, and I am going to tell you I think you are wrong, but I am still going to see you in the fullness of who you are as a human being.

That is unbundling people.

It is seeing one part of someone in light of the whole of who they are.

We live in a strange era of perfectionism, litmus tests, and orthodoxies. We think that because we know one thing about someone, we know everything about them.

Daryl challenges us to reconsider that.

The goal of this work is not agreement.

We are going to disagree.

The question is whether we can maintain the humanity of one another through disagreement.

What We Learned

The next morning, we were joined by Mitch Daniels.

We asked how each of us can bring out the best in others at a time when many leaders bring out the worst.

One participant said something that stayed with me: our task is to relearn democracy.

In a democracy, the citizen is prior to the state.

We have more power than we realize to be part of the solution, not just by holding leaders accountable, but by getting to work ourselves.

We are building a renaissance starting with ourselves.

What Became Possible

In one session on education, something else took shape.

A homeschooling leader, a public school superintendent, and a school board vice president sat at the same table.

Different worlds. Different assumptions.

And yet, they found real agreement.

Education is about cultivating our humanity. It is about unlocking human potential. It is about ordering our passions, bringing forth what is most noble in us, and relegating the ignoble to its proper place.

It is about lifelong learning.

It is about forming human beings who know their own minds, who can serve others, and who can flourish.

And then the group agreed on something else.

No system is perfect.

Public, private, charter, homeschool. Each can be beautiful, and each can fail, because each is made of human beings.

We have to take this case by case, family by family, child by child.

There are no broad brushes here.

As Blaise Pascal suggested, the human condition is defined by both greatness and wretchedness.

That recognition made the conversation honest.

What We Are Building

This retreat was a glimpse of the world we are trying to build: a world of multidimensional flourishing across difference.

We are building it by gathering people who would not otherwise be in the same room.

We are building it by creating spaces where people can rest, think, speak honestly, and see one another clearly.

We are building it by refusing the two failures of our age: hostility, which steamrolls others, and politeness, which manages difference without engaging it.

We are building it by practicing civility instead.

Civility is not politeness. Politeness is technique. Civility is an inner disposition rooted in recognizing the inherent dignity of others.

This means we can disagree without dehumanizing. We can name what is wrong without reducing a person to one thing. We can build trust across difference without pretending difference does not exist.

We are building it in schools, where children are formed as full human beings, not merely prepared to be cogs in a machine.

We are building it in communities, where neighbors, mayors, educators, parents, journalists, and civic leaders can sit at the same table and ask what kind of world they want to leave behind.

We are building it in our own lives, by beginning with ourselves.

That is the work of Civic Renaissance.

What Comes Next

If you joined us for the retreat, share in the comments what you most enjoyed. If this sounds like something you want to be part of in the future, please reach out.

We began the weekend by embodying the world we want to build.

We gathered to embody a world of multidimensional flourishing across difference.

Then we left commissioned to build it.

That is the project.

A renaissance—starting with each of us.

In the news:

• Art Life Faith Podcast: The Soul of Civility with Alexandra Hudson

  Welcome to the Art Life Faith podcast, and I’m your host, Roger Lowther. In this episode I had the privilege of having a conversation with Alexandra Hudson, or Lexi, the author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves.” A number of weeks ago, she was passing through Tokyo on vacation with her family when she was gracious enough to sit down with me and talk about the various themes in her book and then lead an Art Life Faith event right afterward.

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

  A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Tour Launch in Indianapolis

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

The Freedom of Limits

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

The last 24 hours have left me with more hope than I’ve felt in a long time. In that time, I watched two communities—in the same state, yet acting completely independent of one another—reject our culture of dehumanization, division, and atomization, and actively choose a different way of life: one marked by flourishing across difference,…

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Japan is often held up as a model of social order and harmony. After two weeks there with my family, I understood why almost immediately.

When I first arrived, I loved nearly everything I saw. The streets were spotless despite a virtual absence of public trash cans. The trains were quiet, orderly, and astonishingly calm. Public life felt light because everyone seemed to carry their own weight. People were restrained, attentive, careful not to impose. It was not merely efficient. It was beautiful. It felt like living inside a society where people take responsibility for the shared world.

And then, after a little more time, after conversations with locals, after getting beneath the surface, I began to see some tradeoffs—ones that did not make me admire Japan less, but helped me understand it better. It also gave me a sharper way to think about one of the central arguments of my book, The Soul of Civility: civility and politeness are not the same thing.

Japan was, in that sense, the perfect place to test the theory.

Obedience to the Unenforcable

In an impromptu speech he gave at the Authors’ Club in London, later published in The Atlantic in 1924 as Law and Manners, Lord Moulton’s coined an important phrase that accurately describes Japan: the obedience to the unenforceable.

He used this term to described the vast sphere of life governed not by law, but by voluntary self-restraint. Obedience to the unenforceable is the quiet discipline of governing ourselves where no law can compel us, choosing restraint, honesty, and consideration even when no one is watching.

Japan is a supremely self-governing society, and one of the first examples of this that you notice in Japan is that there are almost no public trash cans. You buy something, finish it, and carry the wrapper with you until you get back to your hotel or find a place that will take it. And yet there is almost no public litter. The result is not just clean streets. It is a whole moral atmosphere. You become more aware of your own conduct. You are less casual with your waste, less entitled about your convenience, less inclined to assume that someone else will absorb the cost of your poor conduct.

That pattern repeated itself everywhere.

We took train rides all over Japan, including on the Shinkansen, and the whole system seemed to run on the assumption that of course you had paid. There were conductors and turnstiles, but the atmosphere was not one of suspicion. No one asked to see my ticket. Not once. The system did not seem braced against the expectation that people would cheat if given the chance.

One experience in particular stayed with me. Children six and under ride free, so on one leg of the trip we had not bought train tickets for our kids. But then it was so crowded that we decided to buy them tickets anyway so they would have seats and not be piled on top of us. As we went through, a woman came over, asked how old our children were, and then insisted on refunding us because they were eligible to ride free.

You can hardly imagine that happening at an American train station. There was no shrug, no well, you should have checked, no better luck next time. She corrected the overpayment because it was not right for us to pay what we did not owe.

That struck me as more than mere niceness. It revealed a deeper social logic. Japan felt, to me, like an adult society. A mature society. A society in which the system is not constantly tensed against the expectation that people will grab, evade, vandalize, or impose. It called to mind Lord Moulton’s old phrase, the obedience to the unenforceable. The health of a free society depends on a vast zone of conduct that no law can adequately regulate. It depends on people choosing to act well when no one is forcing them to do so.

Japan made that visible.

What I saw there was a society that had cultivated habits of self-command to a remarkable degree. Public life was pleasant not because there was a policeman on every corner managing every microsocial interaction, but because people had internalized norms of restraint and regard for others. I hardly saw law enforcement at all. I heard maybe one siren the entire trip. The order did not seem to be imposed mainly from outside. It seemed to be upheld from within.

And then we landed in New York.

Culture Shock

On the way home, three flights were canceled in one day, and we ended up stranded in Manhattan overnight. The cultural whiplash was immediate. In Japan, for two weeks, no stranger had tried to chat with me on the street. In hospitality settings people were attentive and thoughtful, but ordinary public life seemed governed by a simple norm: do not inconvenience anyone, do not intrude, do not impose.

Then, within minutes of walking in New York, a man complimented my shoes, asked if I needed directions, and then, in the same breath, asked me to donate to support his music career via QR code.

It was almost too on the nose.

After Japan, I could suddenly see American public life with fresh eyes. I noticed the trash piled high on corners. I noticed police officers everywhere, and felt grateful for them. I noticed the friction, the noise, the sense that public space was not exactly shared so much as continually negotiated. The contrast was clarifying, not because Japan is perfect and America is not, but because Japan had sharpened my awareness of how much freedom depends on self-government.

That, in turn, brought me back to a point I make in The Soul of Civility. If we do not sufficiently govern ourselves, governments will always be tempted to do it for us.

Obedience to the unenforceable, tested

Not long ago, Western democracies experimented rather openly with this temptation. In New York, under Mayor Bloomberg, public officials tried to regulate a whole range of rude and antisocial behaviors that are annoying, yes, but very difficult to police without drifting into pettiness and overreach.

In Britain, Tony Blair’s Respect campaign was animated by a similar impulse. The instinct behind these efforts is understandable. No one enjoys being surrounded by boorishness. But the problem remains: manners cannot be sustainably outsourced to the state. A free society needs citizens who can moderate their conduct voluntarily. Otherwise every irritation becomes a policy problem, and every bad habit invites bureaucratic correction. I explore both of these case studies—and a third experiment in Paris around the same tim—in Chapter Four of The Soul of Civility.

So far, Japan seemed to confirm my thesis.

And then came the more interesting part.

The Civic Renaissance tour Launch in Japan

Prior to our trip, I was connected by a friend to a local Japanese organization called Community Arts Tokyo, who invited me to partner with them on an event. After recording a podcast, we gathered around a table with Japanese guests for dinner and conversation, and there I had the chance to explore more directly the distinction I have long argued for between civility and politeness.

Politeness is manners, etiquette, technique. It is external. It concerns forms, signals, presentation, the visible grammar of respectability.

Civility is something deeper. It is an inner disposition of the heart rooted in recognizing the inherent dignity of others. It is a way of seeing others as they really are, beings with dignity and equal moral worth, worthy of a bare minimum of respect simply by virtue of our shared personhood.

Those things often overlap. They are not, however, the same.

That difference became much sharper in Tokyo.

We spent the first part of the evening trying to define the distinction between civility and politeness itself. Was there a word in Japanese that captured merely the external performance of respect, detached from inward regard? We struggled to find one. I do not want to make too much of a linguistic point I cannot prove with confidence. But the exercise itself was revealing. The distinction felt harder to isolate, harder to pull apart neatly.

Then our hosts began describing some of the costs of living in such a highly ordered and deferential society.

Several said that when they first went to America, they felt they discovered themselves there for the first time. I found that remarkable. America, to them, represented not only disorder but freedom. Japan was beautiful, coherent, refined. It could also feel constraining. The social order was strong, but so were the pressures of conformity.

I asked how people express dissent in relationships and in workplaces. How do they disagree? How do they challenge authority? How do they repair after conflict?

What I heard was sobering.

In personal relationships, sometimes people simply stop speaking rather than work through a disagreement directly. Silence is easier, and more socially acceptable, than open conflict. In professional settings, critiquing a superior can be difficult. Managing up is hard. Honest disagreement does not move easily in a society that places such a high premium on deference and harmony.

That was the point at which the whole trip came into focus for me.

Japan had shown me, in extraordinary detail, what public life can look like when people exercise restraint, take responsibility, and refuse to make every private impulse everyone else’s problem. It had also shown me that outward harmony can coexist with inward compression. A society can be exceptionally well-mannered and still struggle with truth-telling. It can be orderly and courteous and still make dissent costly. It can smooth the surface of social life while leaving less room for candor, confrontation, and repair.

That is why the distinction between civility and politeness matters.

Politeness can make life more pleasant. It can reduce friction, produce order, and make shared spaces more livable. Anyone who has spent time in Japan can see that. But politeness alone does not solve the harder human problem. It does not tell us how to disagree honestly. It does not tell us how to challenge bad authority. It does not tell us how to remain in relationship when something true and difficult needs to be said.

A flourishing society needs restraint, yes. It also needs candor. It needs consideration for others, and it needs the courage to tell the truth without treating the other person as disposable. It needs forms that make daily life humane, and it needs an inner disposition strong enough to bear disagreement without dehumanization.

That, to me, is the lesson.

What I brought home from Japan was not a blueprint, but a sharper question. Can a society cultivate restraint, order, and responsibility in public life without drifting into conformity, deference, and silence? Japan shows what is gained when people govern themselves well. It also suggests what may be lost when harmony becomes too costly to disturb. America needs more discipline in public life, but not at the price of honesty. The challenge is to build a culture that can bear both.

But we should not confuse surface harmony with the whole of human flourishing. A society that cannot say hard things will pay for that silence somewhere. If truth has no honorable place to go, it does not vanish. It goes underground.

Beyond politeness and hostiltiy, toward civiltiy

I came home more persuaded than ever that we need both what Japan has cultivated so well—a shared sense of duty to neighbor. We need more responsibility, more restraint, more regard for the shared world. But collective consciencousness is not enough. We also need forms of honesty robust enough to survive discomfort, disagreement, and difference.

That is our task: to move beyond the two dehumanizing extremes between which we are stuck, American-style hostility shrouded in honesty and Japanese-style politeness. One treats the other person as an enemy to be crushed. The other can treat the person as a problem to be managed rather than someone to be truly known. Neither sees the person clearly. Civility, grounded in human dignity, offers a better way: telling the truth in a manner the other can hear, and grappling with difference directly out of respect rather than smoothing it over or turning it into war.

Japan did not make me want America to become Japanese. It made me want us to grow up a little. To not litter, certainly. But also to carry the heavier burden of freedom—to choose liberty, not license—which requires that we see others as they really are, treat them with the resepct thye are due and modulate our conduct accordinyly… ideally without needing the state to regulate every corner of our common life.

Good manners can keep a train quiet. They cannot, on their own, build a free people.

Discussion questions

1. What do we gain when a society cultivates restraint, order, and consideration for others, and what can be lost if those norms become too rigid?

2. Where, in our own communities, do we see a failure of what Lord Moulton called obedience to the unenforceable—the self-governance that makes democracy work?

3. How do you create a culture where people are considerate without becoming timid—honest but not hostile?

4. For further reading, see this amazing essay I read this morning explroing what Simone Weil’s A Poem of Force says about our crisis of dehumanizing hostiltiy. I absolutely loved it!!

Share your thoughts in the comments!

In the news:

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Launch in Indianapolis last week - Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

Paideia, Humanitas, Civility and Education

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

I’m looking forward to seeing you at our monthly meeting tonight at 7:30 Eastern. You can access the meeting here.

I’m excited to share a few updates with you, including what we learned from testing the distinction between civility and politeness during our Civic Renaissance tour in Japan, reflections from …

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Gracious reader,

Over the past several weeks, the Civic Renaissance Tour has taken shape in a way that clarifies both the need and the opportunity in front of us.

In Colorado Springs, I saw something that is becoming a pattern across the country, one that gives me hope for the future of our country and our world. The Soul of Civility in Action, a Civic Renaissance Playbook, is no longer theoretical.

Across the country, communities are beginning to move through four phases— Discover, Ignite, Embody, Celebrate—that position them to be hubs of renewal.

Last week in Colorado Springs, I watched this process take root in real time.

Discover

A few years ago, two local leaders, Lori Leander and Lisa Brandt, encountered The Soul of Civility. They did not treat it as an interesting set of ideas. They treated it as a starting point. They began placing the book into the hands of mayors, council members, and civic leaders across their region, not as a gesture, but as an invitation to build something shared.

That is where this work always begins.

A community must first develop a shared language. Not politeness as surface technique, but civility as an inner disposition, a way of seeing others as they are, human beings with dignity, equal moral worth, and claims on our respect. Without that foundation, nothing durable can be built.

Ignite

From that foundation, Colorado Springs moved into what I call the Ignite phase.

Over two days, we convened leaders across the region. The mayor, members of city council, school leaders, philanthropists, and institutional heads gathered in the same room. We partnered with Braver Angels, and I was in dialogue with Maury Giles.

What emerged was not theoretical.

The region is facing real strain. A recent controversy over a proposed Buc-ee’s development revealed something deeper than a zoning dispute. It exposed a breakdown in how disagreement is carried. Residents, leaders, and stakeholders were not merely divided. They were wounded by the way conflict unfolded.

This is not unique to Colorado Springs.

How to flourish through disagreement

Across the country, the issue is not whether disagreement exists. It is whether we know how to carry it without dehumanizing one another, and whether we know how to repair relationships afterward.

Those two variables—how we engage conflict and whether we reconcile after it—determine whether difference strengthens a community or fractures it.

In Colorado Springs, leaders named the problem clearly. Then they asked the right question:

What would it look like to build a city where difference becomes a source of strength rather than strain?

That question moved us into action.

The following day, we convened a leaders’ roundtable with roughly forty decision-makers across sectors. This was not a discussion for its own sake. It was a working session. The goal was to leave with direction, ownership, and a path forward.

Embody

From that session, an Embody phase has now begun. Leaders are taking responsibility for carrying this work into schools, workplaces, civic institutions, and local networks. They are identifying who else must be at the table and what must be built next.

Parallel to this, philanthropy stepped in.

A few months ago, after I shared about the Colorado Springs Civic Renaissance launch, Will reached out to me independently. He leads a foundation in Colorado Springs and said he wanted to be part of what is being built there. He is now a Civic Renaissance Ambassador—a program I built to invite local leaders to be co-creators as we bring the ideal of flourishing across difference to life. This is how this work moves from conversation to capacity building locally.

Will then hosted a lunch at his foundation with regional philanthropic leaders. He gifted each of them a copy of The Soul of Civility in advance, and many arrived having read it and participated in the convening the day before.

The conversation centered on a question that history answers clearly:

What is the role of patronage in moments like this?

From Renaissance Florence to other periods of renewal, the answer is consistent. Cultural and civic transformation requires people who are willing to invest in the conditions that allow it to take root.

Colorado Springs is now moving in that direction.

Celebrate

This work is being built and positions the region clearly as a hub of renewal. I will be back in September in Colorado Springs to help consolidate and perpetuate this work.

But this is not a linear progression.

Discover, Ignite, Embody, Celebrate is not a sequence you complete. It is a cycle you return to, bringing new people and voices into the fold each time.

A community must continually rediscover its shared language, reignite its commitments, embody them in practice, and celebrate what is taking root.

This is what the Civic Renaissance Tour is designed to do. Not to host events, but to help communities move from language to structure, from insight to practice, from aspiration to something that can endure. This work helps communities move from shared language to durable civic architecture.

I serve as a civic architect: my book a canvas, myself a catalyst, empowering local leaders to decide what they want to build, and then to build it.

There is a place for you here

This work is already underway in multiple regions across the country. The pattern is becoming clearer. When leaders are given shared language, a structured convening, and a path to implementation, they begin building.

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If you are responsible for shaping a community or institution, and you can see the cost of division firsthand, whether in government, education, philanthropy, or civic life, and you are looking for a way to move beyond managing conflict toward building something stronger, I would welcome the conversation.

Later this month, we will gather a small group of leaders for a Civic Renaissance Retreat here in Indianapolis. This will be an invitation-only working convening, including Mitch Daniels and Daryl Davis, whose work offers a concrete example of what it means to engage difference without dehumanization.

The aim is to leave with work that will be carried forward, not ideas that stay in the room.

To bring together people who are ready not only to discuss these ideas, but to carry them into the institutions and communities they are responsible for shaping.

If that is the kind of work you are trying to do, there is a place for you in this.

Thank you for being here.

Warmly,

Lexi

Subscribe now

In the news:

• Fox 21 News: Reclaiming Civility: Cultivating connection and respect in Colorado Springs

• A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Launch in Indianapolis last week - Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

Paideia, Humanitas, Civility and Education

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

Subscribe now

Gracious reader,

Shortly after The Soul of Civ…

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Gracious reader,

In so many of the conversations I have been ha…

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Today in Tokyo I had the privilege of taking a kintsugi class, learning an art form that dates back to 15th century Japan.

Kintsugi is the practice of repairing broken pottery and highlighting the cracks with gold. Instead of hiding the break, the repair is made visible and honored. The result is often more striking than the original piece.

It reflects a Japanese aesthetic ideal called wabi-sabi, the beauty of imperfection.

As I learned from a master kintsugi artist, I kept returning to three simple truths: we are imperfect; we can be repaired; and sometimes the repaired thing is more beautiful than before. Our brokenness does not have to be hidden. It can become part of what makes us better, and more beautiful.

Where have you seen the beauty of imperfection in your own life?

How might embracing the beauty in our own imperfections, and in the imperfections of others, make us more gracious with one another?

Could it make our families, friendships, and communities more patient and more humane?

What would it look like if we approached disagreement and conflict with the same spirit, not hiding the cracks, but repairing them with care?

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I invite your reflections in the comments below.

Thank you for being part of this project of help us cultivate flourishing across difference — starting with ourselves

Warmly,

Lexi

Subscribe now

You’re Invited: Civility in the City

Featuring Maury Giles (CEO of Braver Angels) and best-selling author Alexandra Hudson

On March 30, Reclaiming Civility is hosting an expert-led evening, Civility in the City, at UCCS, featuring Maury Giles, CEO of Braver Angels, and Alexandra Hudson, best-selling author of The Soul of Civility.

Join us!

This event is an opportunity to hear directly from leaders working at the front lines of civic and cultural repair — sharing what they’re seeing across communities, what’s helping people stay human in the midst of disagreement, and why these skills matter far beyond politics.

Maury and Alexandra will explore:

• What’s driving the breakdown of civil dialogue

• The human skills that help communities rebuild trust

• How these skills apply not only in public life, but in workplaces, families, and everyday relationships

If you’ve felt discouraged by the tone of public life, or curious about what it looks like when people choose dignity over dehumanization, we’d love for you to join us.

Join us!

In the news:

• A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Launch in Indianapolis last week - Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

Paideia, Humanitas, Civility and Education

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

Civic Renaissance is no longer merely an idea, a publication, or an aspiration.

It is now a transformation that is well underway, taking root in real communities with real leaders who are choosing to build.

• In Shelbyville, IN, a divided community gathered and left with tools.

• In Texas, legislators are using The Soul of Civility to strengthen their institution.

• Last week in Indianapolis, 150 leaders filled a room with a single shared conviction: we cannot change our neighbors, but we can change ourselves, and that is where renewal begins.

• In 2026, we have the privilege of bringing The Civic Renaissance Tour to several dozen communities, countries, and institutions on the Civic Renaissance Tour, a place-based effort to come alongside local leaders and help them move from conversation to construction, bringing the ideas of The Soul of Civility off the page and into lived, institutional practice. Phoenix, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Urbandale, California, Colorado Springs, Boulder, Denver, London, Rome, and many others. In each place, there are Civic Renaissance Ambassadors who care about their cities and are committed to building durable civic architecture that helps their communities flourish across difference. I am grateful to come alongside them and support the work already underway.

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Over the past two and a half years, I traveled to 145 cities and five countries sharing the ideas in my book.

That was the season of discovery and observation. How are these ideas being used and brought to life? I watched and I listened.

Now, we are in the season of construction.

Across the country, people are asking the same question: now what? How do we move from reading about civility to building institutions shaped by it? How do we translate conviction into daily practice?

The Civic Renaissance Tour and Retreat are our answer.

The Civic Renaissance Retreat

On April 24 and 25, we will gather at my home in Indianapolis for two days devoted to civic architecture, not abstraction. You will not leave with inspiration alone. You will leave with a defined Embody plan, relationships with fellow builders, and a shared path forward. We will decide what this movement is, define what it can become, identify who must be at the table, and determine how it grows from here.

This will be serious work. It will also be joyful: A feast for mind, body, and spirit. We will cultivate space to think, space to plan, space to play, and space to remember that civic life can be ordered toward dignity rather than division.

Tomorrow, Sunday, March 1, at 5 p.m. Eastern, I am hosting a vision session—both for the retreat and for this movement. I will lay out the structure of the retreat and the outcomes we are building toward. Then I want to hear from you. What are you facing in your city or institution? What would make this gathering catalytic—one that you would be excited to join?

If you sense the division in our world, if it is palpable in your workplace, your school, your church, or your community, and you want to be part of the solution rather than another spectator to the problem, I invite you to gather with me and others who care just as much about rebuilding what feels fractured.

Voices of Experience: Learning from Mitch Daniels & Daryl Davis, Leaders Who Have Done the Work

At the retreat, we will be joined by world class statesman Mitch Daniels, whose leadership as governor of Indiana and president of Purdue University demonstrates how serious institutions can be guided with steadiness and long-term vision.

We will also be joined by Daryl Davis, who has spent decades engaging members of the Ku Klux Klan in conversation and has persuaded many to renounce hatred, offering a living example of what patient, principled engagement can accomplish.

If you already know that The Civic Renaissance retreat is a weekend retreat you want to be part of, claim your spot here. We are capping registration, and space is EXTREMELY limited. (Few scholarships available—write to me with your questions about this.)

Claim your spot here

Whether you’ve already registered or are still discerning, if you feel the fracture in our culture and refuse to step back from the work of repair, this is for you.

The link to register for tomorrow’s (Sunday) vision session is here.

The work has begun. It is making a difference.

Join us.

Warmly,

Lexi

Subscribe now

In the news:

• A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Launch in Indianapolis last week - Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent surveyshared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

Paideia, Humanitas, Civility and Education

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

Gracious reader,

This line from Lady Mariko, a protagonist in the 2024 Hulu series about the Japanese Shogunate, Shōgun, has been echoing in my mind as we pack for Japan.

In case you’re new here: My name is Alexandra Hudson. I am the author of The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. Civic Renaissance is my public humanities project and intellectual community dedicated to reviving the wisdom of the past to help us lead better lives here and now. We are animated by one question: How do we flourish across deep difference?

Japan is widely regarded as one of the most polite societies in the world. It is coherent, ordered, attentive, beautiful. That makes it a fascinating place to test the core distinction at the heart of my work: the essential difference between civility and politeness.

Politeness is technique. Manners. Etiquette. Surface harmony. It comes from polire, to polish or smooth.

Civility is an inner disposition of the heart rooted in recognizing the inherent dignity of others. It comes from civitas, the root of citizen, city, civilization. Civility is the duty of citizens who must live and disagree together.

As we prepare for this trip, reading The Tale of Genji with the children and immersing ourselves in Japanese film and history, I am carrying four working hypotheses with me. They are provisional. They are drawn in part from dramatized history and early reading. I expect them to be refined, complicated, perhaps overturned. But they are honest starting points.

First: Outer politeness can conceal true feelings.

In Shōgun, Lady Mariko tells John, an English outsider, not to mistake bows and rituals for intimacy. Beneath them, she says, one may still be alone. She calles this the “Eightfold Fence,” a metaphor for emotional and social restraint.

She explains that in Japan, people build an “eightfold fence” around their hearts. The idea is that a person can perform perfect composure, loyalty, and politeness on the outside, while their inner thoughts and feelings remain sealed off behind multiple layers.

It is not a literal fence. It is a cultural metaphor. This concept is not a recognized historical concept, philosophical school, or codified element of Japanese social theory.

But this notion that there can be a disconnect between our outer conduct and inner feelings is an observation is not uniquely Japanese. It is human. A society can perfect the form of respect while neglecting the inner orientation that gives it meaning. One can perform deference while inwardly resenting. One can execute ritual flawlessly while feeling nothing at all.

There is another cultural echo of the distinction between civility and politeness. In Confucian philosophy, Confucius distinguishes between Li—manners, ritual, and propriety— and Ren—often rendered as common humanity.

Li refers to ritual and propriety, the outward forms that structure relationships and preserve social order. Ren refers to common humanity, the inner disposition of humane regard toward others. Ideally, li is meant to express and cultivate ren. Right action can, after all, re-enforce right belief and feeling.

Correct form can and sould should train the heart. But this tradition itself recognizes the danger that ritual can become hollow. One can perform the rite and miss the person. Confucian thought shaped Chinese civilization and, through centuries of cultural transmission, profoundly influenced Japanese political and social norms, especially around hierarchy, harmony, and role-based duty.

What interests me is the fault line between outer correctness and inner recognition. When propriety is severed from humane regard, the bow remains, but the bond does not. That disconnect between form and inner truth is the tension my work seeks to name.

We do this in the West as well. We smile at neighbors we quietly despise. We say yes to our boss, politely, through gritted teeth. We send carefully worded, pleasant emails while nursing contempt. We confuse the appearance of harmony with the presence of it.

Civility asks more. It asks not only that I say the correct words, but that I see you as a person whose dignity does not depend on my agreement.

Second: Rule-following is not the same as moral responsibility.

In one vignette, a gardener removes a rotting pheasant that has been left hanging outside a home. The stench is unbearable. He knows he is technically disobeying an order. He does it anyway for the good of the household. He is executed.

John, the Englishman, is horrified. He meant the spirit of the command, not blind compliance. He is stunned that obedience to hierarchy outweighs discernment about what is humane.

It is easy to treat this as dramatized, medieval excess. But the underlying question is perennial. When does fidelity to rules eclipse responsibility to persons? When does hierarchy replace judgment?

Civility, as I define it, requires moral agency. It requires that we do not hide behind structure or authority to avoid thinking. Respect for persons cannot be eclipsed by procedural compliance. (For more about this idea from a different cultural context, see Hannah Arendt on the Banality of Evil.)

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Third: Social order can silence necessary dissent.

Early in the series, a samurai speaks out of turn in a council meeting. The punishment is ritual suicide. His infant son is also killed, because the father’s impropriety stains the family line.

The scene is harrowing. It dramatizes a culture in which preserving order outweighs preserving life. The town grieves, yet still insists that the penalty was required. The rule was broken. Therefore, death.

Again, this is historical drama. Still, it raises a live question. In any highly ordered society, what happens to dissent? What happens to the person who challenges authority without formal permission?

Democracy depends on disagreement. Disagreement is not a glitch in the system; it is evidence that citizens are thinking. But disagreement must be anchored in recognition of equal dignity, or it devolves into dehumanization.

If a culture overvalues politeness and ritual harmony, it may struggle to surface injustice. If it overvalues bluntness and individual assertion, it may fracture into contempt.

Which brings me to the fourth hypothesis.

Every culture has blind spots, including ours.

If Japan risks elevating form over interiority, the West often risks the opposite. We valorize disruption. We reward outrage. We confuse cruelty with candor. Social media incentivizes public shaming more than patient argument. Political discourse frequently slides from disagreement into character assassination.

Our problem is not that we are too polite. It is that we often disagree in ways that deny the humanity of those across from us.

Politeness without inner regard becomes hollow.

Candor without respect becomes corrosive.

Civility is neither avoidance nor aggression. It is an inner disposition that recognizes equal dignity, and then expresses that recognition through speech and action. It means I respect you enough to tell the truth as I see it. It means I respect myself enough to speak, and you enough not to patronize you by pretending we have no differences.

That is the experiment I am bringing with me to Japan. Not as a critic, but as a student. I want to visit schools. Observe classrooms. Learn about sake from those who craft it. Watch how table manners encode meaning. Notice how hierarchy functions in practice. Pay attention to when disagreement is voiced and when it is deferred.

If you know individuals or institutions in Japan who would want to explore these questions with us, reply and introduce us. I am eager to listen.

I am going for myself. I am also going for you. Many of you are not passive readers but intellectual sparring partners. The Civic Renaissance ambassadors among you are co-creators, leaders who have read the book and asked what it looks like to live this where they are.

If that is you, there is a place for you in this work.

Become a Civic Renaissance Ambassador

When I return from Japan, I suspect I will have more questions than answers. I will bring stories. Some will confirm my hypotheses. Some will undo them. That is the discipline of travel.

There will be bows. There will be ritual. There will be order.

The question, for Japan and for us, is whether beneath the form there is recognition. Whether beneath the ritual there is regard. Whether beneath the harmony there is the courage to see and to speak.

Not whether we polish our interactions, but whether we practice equal dignity.

Warmly,

Lexi

Subscribe now

In the news:

• A media interview about The Civic Renaissance Launch in Indianapolis last week - Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• A podcast interview with Michael Lee of the University of Charleston, When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Review of The Soul of Civility in Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent survey shared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Review of The Soul of civility in Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

Paideia, Humanitas, Civility and Education

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

Last evening, we gathered in our home for the inaugural Civic Renaissance Salon, a feast for mind, body, and spirit.

The intention was not entertainment. It was restoration.

Those of you who joined us are faith leaders in our city. You spend your lives carrying the burdens of others, tending souls, mediating conflict, offering consolation, speaking hard truths. For one evening, we wanted to reverse the direction of service. To nourish those who so often nourish everyone else.

Hospitality, rightly understood, is not ornamental. It is civilizational. In Homer’s Odyssey, the practice of welcoming the stranger, xenia, functions as a moral test. Civilized people receive the guest before interrogating him. Disorder begins when hospitality collapses. The table, in that sense, is political.

Aristotle, in Nicomachean Ethics, wrote that friendship holds cities together. He did not mean sentimentality. He meant that political life depends on habits of regard that prevent disagreement from becoming dissolution. A city without civic friendship fragments.

That was our aim.

Not to harmonize our differences into a thin consensus. Not to reduce Hindu, Jewish, Christian, LDS, and other traditions to a lowest common denominator. The goal was robust pluralism. Bring your convictions to the fore. Articulate them without embarrassment. Listen without fear. Remain friends.

Agreement was not the objective. Politeness was not the objective. Civility was.

Civility is an inner disposition rooted in recognizing the inherent dignity of others. Politeness is a set of manners and techniques that smooth the surface of interaction. Politeness papers over tension. Civility permits tension while refusing dehumanization. It respects oneself enough to speak honestly and respects others enough to hear them fully.

Several of you asked why I shared Chapter Two and the final chapter of The Soul of Civility.

Chapter Two traces a pattern observable across philosophical and religious traditions: independent thinkers, separated by centuries and continents, repeatedly arrive at similar conclusions about what strengthens human communities and what corrodes them. The question they are asking is not sectarian. It is anthropological. What kind of person makes flourishing possible? What habits destroy it?

The final chapter, on misplaced meaning and forgiveness, confronts a more contemporary distortion. In his Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke argued that the magistrate’s authority concerns civil interests, while the care of souls belongs to a different sphere. When we collapse those domains, when politics becomes the vehicle for ultimate meaning, we overload the democratic process with expectations it cannot bear.

No election can answer questions of origin, purpose, and destiny. When we demand that it do so, politics becomes salvific, and disappointment becomes existential.

Faith leaders therefore have a distinctive role in stabilizing a democracy. Not by baptizing party platforms. Not by retreating from public life. But by restoring proportion. By reminding communities that the state is limited, and that ultimate meaning cannot be legislated.

Several of you have written since last night asking, what now?

Here is a concrete path.

First, I am attaching the free reading guide that communities across political, geographic, and vocational lines have used to read The Soul of Civility together. I invite you to gather your congregations and read it with an explicit orientation toward practice. Not as abstraction. Not as theory alone. Ask: What would flourishing across difference look like here, now, in this community?

Download the reading guide!

Second, let us reconvene in six to twelve weeks. Return with observations. Where did your communities resonate? Where did they resist? What new possibilities emerged? From there, we ask together: what institutional forms might embody these principles?

Third, expand the circle. Who else belongs at the table? Civic leaders. Educators. Elected officials. Nonprofit directors. Invite them. Renewal spreads through concrete relationships.

This is not a request for spectators. It is an invitation to co creators. Civic Renaissance will only take root if local leaders adapt these principles to their own contexts and build durable structures around them.

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Across the country, similar conversations are unfolding in legislatures, universities, and cities. But renewal is always local. It begins in particular homes, among particular people, around particular tables.

If last night felt like the beginning of something, that is because it was.

If this was the first course, there is much more to come.

Warmly,

Lexi

Join the Ambassador Program

In the news:

• Fox 59: 11th annual Fairbanks Symposium- Watch here

• When We Disagree Podcast: The Soul of Civility, Tested

  What does civility demand when justice is costly and deeply personal? Alexandra Hudson, author of The Soul of Civility and founder of Civic Renaissance, shares a raw story about how being scammed sparked both a lengthy legal battle and a profound disagreement with her husband over whether to fight or walk away. Through that conflict, Hudson wrestles with whether civility means politeness or principled confrontation, and what it costs our families when moral crusades take over our lives. The episode explores civility not as courteousness or softness, but as disciplined respect for human dignity even when the stakes are high and the gloves stay firmly on.

• Indiana Capital Chronicle: With all due respect

  Hudson is not alone in her pursuit for civility. A recent survey shared by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Center on Civility and Democracy reported that 72% of Americans want to see more civility in our nation’s politics. The same survey found that Americans are divided on their outlook for our nation’s future, split nearly in half over whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about our ability to come together.

• Bitterroot Star: Disagree better

  Our community is full of independent people who don’t like being told what to think. That’s a strength. But independence only works if we can argue honestly without tearing each other apart in the process. This book doesn’t offer a program or a slogan. It offers a reminder of the habits that make self-government possible.

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

When does an intellectual failing become a moral one? Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

I wanted to share more with you about the launch of the Civic Renaissance Tour launch in Shelbyville, Indiana, in late January.

Rather than narrate it myself, I want to pass the microphone to pastor of First Church Shelbyville, Rev. Ralph Botte, who initiated this effort in Shelbyville. He carried a clear vision for his church to help le…

Read more

I want to share with you a chapter from my children’s book project: Heroes and Villains. I very much welcome your feedback. If you’d like to read early chapters and share them with your little ones or in your classroom or homeschool setting, I would be grateful to hear your reflections and experiences as the book continues to take shape…

Read more

I got back very late last night from the great state of Texas, and I wanted to share a brief update while everything is still fresh.

I was there for two full days. On the first day, I gave a keynote at the University of Houston Law School. It was an exceptional experience. I was in dialogue with Professor Kate Brem, who had read my book and saw it as a foundation for rethinking professionalism and ethics for young lawyers. That conversation was thoughtful, serious, and encouraging, and the room was full. I was grateful for the engagement the students brought to our dialogue.

That evening, Braver Angels of Houston graciously hosted a public conversation. It was wonderful to meet so many of their members and to have such a thoughtful discussion, including about the legislative initiative we are building. I left that night encouraged by the hunger for practical ways to lower the temperature and rebuild trust.

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Dispatches from the Texas State Legislature

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the American democratic experiment, many people quietly wonder whether, in our state of political violence, hyperpartisanship, and division, our democracy can survive another 250 years. The question is not only about laws or elections, but about whether we still possess the habits of self-government that make freedom workable. Civility is essential to democracy because it sustains self-rule at the level where law cannot reach.

As I argue in The Soul of Civility, free societies depend on the daily practices of restraint, respect, and responsibility that allow people to govern themselves rather than be governed in every detail. When those habits erode, government grows more intrusive, not because leaders necessarily want it to, but because citizens no longer trust one another to act with care.

Civility also makes shared life possible. It fosters the kind of civic friendship that allows us to keep showing up across disagreement, even when our side loses, even when the outcome disappoints us. It resists the impulse to withdraw at the first sign of difference. Without civility, democracy becomes a contest of power alone. With it, democracy remains a shared project. That is why the work now beginning in Texas matters. It is an effort to test whether these habits can be renewed, practiced, and sustained inside one of our most consequential democratic institutions, before they are needed most.

Yesterday was a long and important day for this work. I was up early, took a coach from Houston to Austin for a full day of meetings with legislators,staffers, and partners . The whole day left me hopeful and grateful for the opportunity to put the ideas from The Soul of Civility into practice in a high-stakes, tense political environment.

In every meeting, I said the same thing. The vision here is that this civility initiative is built, led, and sustained by legislators and Texans. I am a catalyst, and my book is a canvas, for these conversations. The work itself belongs to the people inside the institutions; it must be owned by those who want to build a culture of trust across difference.I saw, again and again, a seriousness among these people about doing the hard, long work of building a culture and a system meant to endure, one that is woven into the air and fabric of the institution itself, fifty years from now.

As a student of history, I think in centuries, not because change takes that long to appear, but because lasting change in hearts, minds, and behavior is slow work. Persuasion takes time. Trust takes time. Shared norms take time. The good news is that this kind of change, when it comes, is harder to undo. That is why our civility work in the legislature is deliberate and grassroots-led, focused on shaping habits and relationships that can endure.

I met first with senior staff from across the legislature. We had Republican and Democratic staff, from both the House and the Senate. There were staff there who had read my book and believe in the mission of this work, and eager to lead it. That meeting had two main questions at its center.

First, what role do staff play in helping a member-led, grassroots civility initiative around these ideas succeed? Second, what would a parallel initiative look like for staff themselves?

We talked about infusing this work into mentorship programs, into chiefs of staff meetings, and into the rhythms and culture of legislative life. What stood out most to me was the level of commitment. These were people who see the need for this work in their daily context and who want to help lead it.

I then met with members of the legislature. Texas is unique in that it meets every two years, and this is an off year. There is no session right now. That means every member who came flew in or drove in specifically for this conversation. That matters.

One reason we are starting this work now, a year before session, is because social trust cannot be manufactured on command. You cannot show up once every two years and expect to have the relationships that sustain good deliberation across disagreement. Trust has to be built before it is tested.

We had members present, Republicans and Democrats, from both the House and the Senate. That bipartisan and bicameral foundation—in both the staff and member meeting—is important. I spent most of that meeting listening. Where do you see the needs? Where do you see opportunities for growth? Where should we begin?

We discussed many concrete ideas, including the distinction between civility and politeness, our crisis of dehumanization, and the reality that disagreement is inherent to democracy. Disagreement is not a bug in the system. It is a defining feature of it.

We also talked about practical ways for the intellectual foundation of the book to take root, including using it as part of orientation training for newly elected legislators. The goal would be that from the moment someone is elected, they are grounded in the difference between civility and politeness, an awareness of how dehumanization takes hold, and a responsibility to recognize the dignity of colleagues and staff alike.

One encouraging pattern I continue to notice is this. Whenever I describe this initiative as member-led and member-sustained, someone says, I know exactly who should be part of this. And it is often a different name each time. That tells me something important. There are already models of this way of showing up inside the legislature. This work is not about fixing villains. It is about gathering, supporting, nourishing and convening the people within the legislature who already want to lead well.

We also talked about civic friendship, and the cost of its breakdown. There were moments of real emotion. Members shared that after certain votes, colleagues would not look them in the eye, would not speak to them, would not acknowledge them. That hurts. There is real woundedness, and real erosion of trust.

History teaches us that trust can be rebuilt, but it is fragile, and it must be cultivated. That is why this initiative is being designed as something ongoing, not episodic. It is about day-to-day practice, not just showing up when session begins and hoping for the best.

After that, I was invited to the governor’s office, where I met with several senior staff to brief them on the legislative initiative and to share the framework from my book. The conversation was thoughtful and encouraging, with serious questions and engagement. I was grateful for the opportunity to share this work with them.

At its heart, this is an experiment.

In an environment with low trust and low civic friendship, can trust be rebuilt if even a small group of members believe it can and are willing to work at it?

I believe it can, and we are starting with a strong foundation.

The next step is a twelve-week reading of my book with members, meeting weekly and inviting new participants as we go. These sessions will not just discuss the text, but will ask, directly and practically, how these ideas apply to the legislature as it exists right now, and how they can improve working relationships in service of constituents.

Overall, I am hopeful, and I am honored to partner with these members and staff. The longer-term vision is to build a set of tools and a framework that can serve other leaders, other legislatures, and other divided environments where trust has frayed.

At the end of the day, it was a gift to meet with friends who lead Braver Angels and Leadership Austin to talk through how, from their vantage point as citizens, they might support the legislative initiative among members—and to perhaps start their own initiative around The Soul of Civility Action as well.

I am grateful to these leaders and citizens alike who are saying—in word and action: “The way things are is not the way they have to be. I cannot control others, but I can control myself, and I will choose to be part of the solution.”

That is what I heard yesterday. That is fertile ground for us to build something beautiful, and lasting, together in Texas.

Thank you for your questions, your prayers, and the good will that many of you sent my way. I welcome your feedback, your questions, and your ideas. If you know of partners, organizations, or institutions in Texas that should be part of this, I would love to hear from you.

This work is just getting started. If you’d like to initiate a stop on the Civic Renaissance Tour and bring these ideas to your community, we’d love to hear from you.

The Civic Renaissance Tour has been in Shelbyville, now Texas, and it launches in Indianapolis in a few weeks in partnership with Indiana Humanities, the Fairbanks Foundation, and the University of Indianapolis.

Free registration here!

Thank you for being here, and for walking alongside me in this work.

Lexi

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Invitation: The Forgotten Virtue of Moderation

A live dialogue with Alexandra Hudson and Thomas Chatterton Williams

In an age shaped by outrage, certainty, and faction, moderation has become suspect. Those who refuse to sort neatly into camps are often dismissed as weak, naïve, or uncommitted. And yet, across history, the thinkers who most enlarged human understanding were rarely loyal to a side. They were loyal to truth.

This evening is a live dialogue between Alexandra Hudson and Thomas Chatterton Williams on the recovery of moderation as a serious intellectual posture, and on the examined life as its necessary foundation.

Join us!

In the new:

• The Shelbyville News: FCC hosts Civic Renaissance Tour community engagement event

  

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

When does an intellectual failing become a moral one? Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com

This past week marked a visible milestone for Civic Renaissance.

In Texas, members of the state legislature invited their peers to read The Soul of Civility together. A member-led experiment, quiet but serious, is unfolding inside of one of our nation’s most polarized institutions. Leaders there are turning to my book to help them navigate our crisis of dehumanization. I will be back in Austin this week to continue that work.

In Shelbyville, Indiana, we launched the Civic Renaissance Tour: A church-led, community-wide effort to take these ideas off the page and into schools, churches, and civic life. On Thursday night, the room was full. On Friday morning, we sat around tables and built a plan. Superintendents, city council members, pastors, and local leaders asked the same question in different ways: what does this look like here?

All of that mattered. All of it was good.

And yet the moment that stayed with me most this week did not happen on a stage, or in a council chamber, or around a conference table.

It happened on the phone, with a car dealership service manager.

It was a personal victory that was more important to me than these great public ones.

The story.

Last year, my car was stolen from our driveway. We eventually got it back and took it to the dealership to be repaired. We paid for what we were told was a complete fix, with a two-year warranty. Months later, water started getting into the vehicle. Then the battery failed. The dealership refused to take responsibility.

I was angry. I felt wronged. I felt justified.

I left negative reviews. I was sharp on the phone. I replayed the situation in my head, again and again. It took up far more space in my interior life than it deserved. Eventually I thought, with some embarrassment, that I might need to sell the car simply because I could not bear to deal with this one person anymore.

That is when I realized how upside down things had become.

On Thursday morning, as I was packing to drive to Shelbyville to launch the Civic Renaissance Tour, a quiet but persistent thought surfaced. I cannot stand in front of a community and speak about flourishing across difference if I am not willing to practice it when it costs me something.

So I called the service manager of the dealership.

The conversation did not begin with the car. It began with Christmas, with getting sick over the holidays, with kids, with hosting. For twenty minutes we talked as human beings. The tension softened.

Then I said what I needed to say.

I told him I was sorry. I told him I had not shown up well in our previous conversations. I regretted being unkind. This was not who I want to be. I told him, a little awkwardly, that I had written a book about learning how to live well with others across difference, and that in this small but real disagreement, I had failed to live up to my own ideals.

He was gracious. He accepted my apology. We worked out a solution.

By the end, the car barely mattered—and I was ready to have him and his wife for dinner. Repair had led to a stronger friendship than I ever thought possible with my car dealership’s service manager.

I realized that this work matters: that the promise our differences can bring out the best in us, and that conflict can strengthen relationships, is true.

I lived it out firsthand.

What has stayed with me was the physical lightness that followed. The release of resentment and bitterness that had been weighing on me without my realizing it, draining my joy and my will for this work in ways I had not fully appreciated.

The sense of being back in proper alignment was electrifying.

I may have been right about the facts, but I was wrong about what mattered most. I had forgotten the person on the other side of the exchange.

This work is not about perfection. It cannot be. We are human beings, which means we will fall. All of us. We will lose our cool. We will say things we regret. We will forget to see the dignity of the person in front of us when we are tired, stressed, or convinced of our own righteousness.

The question is not whether we will fail. The question is whether we become fluent in repair.

Can we apologize without self-justification? Can we forgive without keeping score? Can we hold the personhood and dignity of the other in view when it would feel easier not to?

Private conduct matters. It always has.

Public initiatives, institutions, and movements rest on the habits we practice when no one is watching.

This work begins there, or it does not begin at all.

As I explore in my book, character is habit long continued, and integrity is what happens when all the parts of the self make sense together.

We cannot be publicly for a school, an institution, or a cause, and privately undermine it through how we live. Making mistakes does not mean we lack character. We will make mistakes. Character is revealed in what we do next. It is shown in our willingness to correct what we have done wrong, to repair what we have damaged, and to bring our private conduct back into alignment with our public commitments. That work is not incidental to who we are. It is who we are.

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Shelbyville: The Civic Renaissance Tour Begins

That theme echoed again in Shelbyville. The community is navigating a contentious local issue involving a proposed data center. The divide is not cleanly partisan. It is urban and rural. Neighbors who feel sold out by leaders they once trusted. On Thursday night we named the tension honestly. On Friday morning, we asked a different question: what power do we already have?

The answer surprised some people. More than we think.

Reading groups forming immediately. Schools engaging the children’s book. Churches hosting conversations. Leaders committing to live this not as a program but as a way of life. The book is a catalyst, not the end. I am a catalyst, not the solution. The goal is a durable, local culture that can outlast any one visit or initiative.

Texas State Legislature: The Civic Renaissance Tour Continues

Texas reflects the same truth. One book study is not enough. One lunch is not enough. Trust is built daily. Civic friendship is practiced daily. Democratic life is sustained not by grand gestures but by small, repeated acts of restraint, generosity, and repair. I’ll be there with legislators in Austin this week to explore this and hopefully build something there together.

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this July, that reality feels especially urgent. Our public life is woven together, or unraveled, by these small threads.

So this is my invitation to you.

Think of one relationship where resentment has settled in. One conversation you have avoided. One apology you have delayed because you were certain you were right.

Reach out.

I cannot promise it will go perfectly. I can say, with confidence born of experience, that reconciliation brings a kind of freedom nothing else does. And that private victories like these are not distractions from the work. They are the work.

More soon from Texas, and The Civic Renaissance Tour, soon.

If you’d like your community to host a stop on the Civic Renaissance Tour this year, reach out. Join the Civic Renaissance Ambassador Program here.

Apply here!

I am grateful to be on this journey with you.

Warmly,

Lexi

Join me in Texas!

Houston friends, I’ll be speaking at the University of Houston Law Center on Tuesday, February 3rd. That evening, the Houston Alliance of Braver Angels is hosting a public conversation exploring the grassroots, member-led reading of my book, The Soul of Civility, currently underway in the Texas State Legislature.

The event is called The Leaders We Deserve, and it takes up a timeless chicken-and-the-egg question that democracies have wrestled with across history: what comes first, good leaders or good citizens?

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More pointedly, what responsibility do we have as citizens to shape the kind of leadership we want, to hold leaders to account, and to encourage seriousness, integrity, and sound judgment in public life?

If you’re in Houston, I’d love to see you there. If you’re not, please consider sharing this with friends who might want to join the conversation.

Join us!

Invitation: The Forgotten Virtue of Moderation

A live dialogue with Alexandra Hudson and Thomas Chatterton Williams

In an age shaped by outrage, certainty, and faction, moderation has become suspect. Those who refuse to sort neatly into camps are often dismissed as weak, naïve, or uncommitted. And yet, across history, the thinkers who most enlarged human understanding were rarely loyal to a side. They were loyal to truth.

This evening is a live dialogue between Alexandra Hudson and Thomas Chatterton Williams on the recovery of moderation as a serious intellectual posture, and on the examined life as its necessary foundation.

Join us!

Join me in Indianapolis!

Free registration here!

Year Ago on Civic Renaissance:

When does an intellectual failing become a moral one? Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity

Thank you for being part of our Civic Renaissance community!

Review on Amazon

Review on barnsandnoble.com