Have we misplaced our meaning in politics?

If so, our democracy, and our souls, are at stake. Plus notes from book tour, and The Soul of Civility in the news

Gracious reader,

In an age of extremism, political violence, and hyper partisanship, threats to democracy are everywhere and growing. The stakes feel higher than ever.

There’s a concerning reason for this, as I explored recently in The Dispatch, expanding on ideas I explore in my bestselling book, The Soul of Civility.

The problem is this: as traditional touchstones of meaning—faith, family, friendship—have been on the decline in recent decades—people are increasingly misplacing their meanings, the ultimate source of their identity, in politics and political issues.

In short, we’ve made idols out of politics, and it’s hurting our democracy, and ourselves.

First, we’ll explore symptoms of our cultuture of misplaced meaning in politics.

Then, we’ll discover some means by which we might overcome this vexing challenge to our personal and social flourishing.

Have we misplaced our meaning in politics?

I see several symptoms of chronically misplaced meaning.

First, a disproportionate response to people with whom we disagree. It often feels like in everyday conversation, we see people go from zero to sixty when a topic about which they are passionate is broached. People have their sacred cow issues, and when someone brings them up or discusses them in ways that don’t perfectly align with their own views, they respond with an inordinate rage, defensiveness, and aggression. They respond as someone would if they were being personally attacked—with the instinctive “fight or flight” response. They see a threat to their identity, their essence, just being exposed to someone who views the world differently. If we’re thrust into survival mode the moment we are exposed to a heterodox view, a romantic relationship—which requires vulnerability and trust—is out of the question. This is the irrational response of someone for whom politics has become the ultimate source of meaning, and spells doom for our democracy, our personal flourishing.

Second, politics is everywhere in unprecedented ways. Today, simple, everyday decisions—such as what newspapers we subscribe to; where we send our children to school; where, whether, and how we worship; what sporting teams we support; and where we get our coffee or buy our running shoes—have divisive, a political dimension. We’ve “overdone” democracy, and the political project in general, by making them too central to our lives. In overdoing democracy, in allowing politics to take up too much of our personal space and mental consciousness, we have undermined it—and undermined any hope of thriving personal relationships. The solution isn’t to convert every single person to our view of the world: it is to instead make politics matter less, a subject we’ll return to shortly.

Third, the number of lifelong friendships, family relationships, even marriages ending over politics. Children cutting their parents off over their vote for Donald Trump. A friend cutting off a lifelong companion because of their view on vaccines. A niece choosing not to attend family Thanksgiving anymore because of her family’s crazy views on the environment. People are allowing politics to come before family and friendships—a symptom of disordered loves, which leads to disordered lives, and misplaced meaning. Inter-political romantic relationships are also ending before they even begin.

People are allowing one aspect of a person—their political views—to stand in for the sum total of the longstanding relationship, or allowing political difference to stop a relationship from happening to begin with. This is unduly reductive and essentializing of the other—we are all infinitely complex and come to our views of the world for many reasons. And it is also a tragedy for our personal lives. When we see the world with the myopia of political issues, through the cheapened simplicity of litmus tests of purity, we hurt others and ourselves.

Churchill said that “a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”

We’re trigger happy, we see threats where threats aren’t, we make everything about our pet issues. We’ve become a society of fanatics, and this is bad for democracy, our souls, and our relationships.

Because people are deriving their meaning from their own political views—as well as assessing the value of others based primarily on their politics—it is becoming impossible to talk rationally about issues in public life.

What can be done?

What can be done to recover our personal flourishing, and our democracy, and be saved from the crisis of this mass misplaced meaning in politics? Is there a way to not let politics dictate how and who we date?

There is.

It’s time to put politics back in its proper place, and recover our mental territory with activities that give us life, and stop inordinately focusing on the culture wars that exhaust and deplete us. When politics is the primary lens through which we view the world—when our own political beliefs are the most important things in our lives—it makes it easier to dehumanize those who disagree with us, and to justify cutting people out of our lives and out of society.

We must desaturate our lives of politics, and then fill in life-giving, soul-enriching pursuits that will make civility, and our politics, both better and possible.

Among these pursuits, I propose three: curiosity, friendship, and a renewed appreciation for beauty.

First, curiosity. Curiosity is a disposition of fundamental wonder about the world around us. It is a zealous interest in questions related to the human condition: Who are we? What is our purpose? What is our position amid the cosmos? Curiosity requires the humility to recognize our natural limits as human beings, and to realize that we never have known, never can or will know all the answers to these and other important questions in life. More than that, curiosity requires the modesty to respect that people will approach and answer these questions differently.

When we’re curious, we see difference in opinion as an opportunity to grow, not as a threat to be quashed. Curiosity opens us up to friendship and romantic relationships that challenge us and make us better—to the end of reclaiming richer personal lives.

Second, friendship. “Friendship is unnecessary,” C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves. “It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” Friendship, like art, can flourish only after our basic needs are met, when we are in a position of relative safety and stability instead of in a state of war against our fellow man, nature, or ourselves. But such goods are what constitute civilization. So the basis of any society, or any romantic relationship for that matter, is friendship.

Friedrich Nietzsche was wrong about many things, but he was right when he wrote, “Marriage is as one long conversation. When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this woman into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time you’re together will be devoted to conversation.” The lifeblood of any relationship, romantic or platonic, is good dialogue—and dialogue is not mutually interesting with two parties who agree on everything. Plus, robust disagreements are best had and tempered when parties fundamentally love, care for, and respect one another. Intentionally cultivating friendship—and even romantic relationships—across differences is therefore an essential ingredient to the life well lived, and to healing our broken world.

Third, we must recover a love of the beautiful and the sublime. Lewis also observes in The Four Loves that we often picture lovers face to face. True love based on friendship, however, more likely entails two friends standing side by side, their eyes looking ahead and outward together. That’s an essential part of friendship and successful romantic relationships.

To better equip us for life together, we must build habits of introducing the sublime into our daily lives. After a long day at the office or an afternoon spent in traffic, we can rejuvenate ourselves by looking up at the stars at night, or reading a poem, or listening to a song, or contemplating a work of art that enriches our interior life. The 20th century philosopher Iris Murdoch made a similar point about the imperative to “unself,” letting the power of beauty and nature displace us from the center of our universe and to instead focus on others and the world around us. The practice of “unselfing” is an essential part of seeing our personal relationships survive, and seeing our society sustained.

Life together is vexing. If we go too long without tending to our interior lives, the frustrations of life with others can make us cruel. Our public life today is led by people who have become miserly because they’ve gone too long without encountering the beautiful to fill their emotional and spiritual well. But we each have more power to elevate our personal lives and heal society in our daily decisions, rituals, and habits.

In our fraught and divided moment, curiosity, friendship, and the sublime and beautiful—including regular exposure to nature and art—have the possibility to fill us up, nourish our hearts and minds, and guide us toward the good, the true, and the just. These pursuits can calm the selfish aspects of our nature, making us gentler, kinder, and more open to doing the hard work of coexisting with others. And who knows: They might even help our romantic prospects, too.

THANK YOU! + notes from the book tour

Here are some stats from the last four months:

• I’ve sold 5000 copies of The Soul of Civility in the four months since the book’s publication Oct 10, 2023. This is a big deal. For context: 99% of books don't sell 2,000 copies in their lifetime.

  • This is thanks to YOU! THANK YOU for buying and reviewing the book.

  • Write to me directly if you’d like to underwrite a book buy for a school, non-profit, corporation, community, or any other organization—this is one of the ways supporters have been getting the book into the hands of new readers.

• This month will mark THIRTY cities that I’ve visited as part of the launch of The Soul of Civility, and that is largely thanks to YOU!

• This is just the beginning! I receive new invitations to speak every day, and I’m currently working on a set of tools to empower local leaders to bring these ideas to their own communities.

The last few weeks have been rich and full.

Last week, I spent a few days in Texas.

In Austin, the Texas Public Policy Foundation hosted a book event for me and some lovely women in their community.

Then, I travelled to Bastrop, Texas, to join Ryan Holiday on The Daily Stoic podcast. This was very fun. I’ve long admired Holiday and his passion for reviving the wisdom of the past to help us lead better lives. We recorded a long and wide ranging conversation over nearly ninety minutes, and then spent another hour going through the bookshop where Ryan piled my arms high with books he thought I’d enjoy! Books are my love language, and it was a wonderful soul nourishing afternoon.

Ryan’s family-centric work approach is admirable and truly represents the art of living. I loved hearing from him about he and his wife’s approach and struggle with their own children’s education—questions that swirl around my mind, too, with our Percival James and Sophia Margaux.

Stay tuned for The Daily Stoic episode forthcoming in the next few weeks!

I was warmly welcomed to Dallas next, first speaking at the Tyler Federalist Society Lawyer’s Chapter Luncheon.

Speaking to 50 judges, lawyers and members of the Tyler, Texas, community.

Then, I was invited to join The Strategerist, the podcast of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, before touring the Bush Museum. I felt right at home in the (replica) Oval Office!

Visiting the Bush Museum in Dallas.

Earlier this week, I was in Seattle delivering a keynote to hundreds of educators as part of the First Year Experience conference, a gathering of people dedicated to ensuring college students thrive in their first year of university.

The Soul of Civility on display at the FYE conference, Seattle, WA.

This week, I’m also speaking at Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA, and University of Idaho School of Law in Boise, ID.

Don’t see your city on the book tour?

Write to me and let me know if you’d like to plan something.

Ah@alexandraohudson.com

Thank you for your support bringing this book to the world!

The Soul of Civility in the news

1. A Bit of Optimism with Simon Sinek. I was thrilled to join bestselling author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek on his wonderful podcast, A Bit of Optimism. Simon is doggedly hopeful, so it was fun to be on the receiving end of his devil's advocacy cynicism. I'm sure he was throwing out criticisms toward me that he hears from the cynics of the world in the face of his optimism, and it was a fruitful and joy-filled conversation.

2. Stay tuned with Preet. I joined Preet Barhara this week to discuss insights from Dr. King that formed my philosophy of civility. Preet had clearly read and engaged deeply with the book, which makes for the best kind of interview. Anyone reading the book at all is the highest honor to me as an author! I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

3. On Valentines Day, The Dispatch featured some of my ideas outlined above, exploring how our idolization of politics is hurting our romantic lives.

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