The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves by Alexandra Hudson

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves by Alexandra Hudson https://amzn.to/3tGNRYu Alexandra Hudson, daughter of the "Manners Lady," was raised to respect others. But as she grew up, Hudson discovered a difference between politeness―a superficial appearance of good manners―and true civility. In this timely book, Hudson sheds light on how civility can help bridge our political divide. From classical philosophers like Epictetus, to great twentieth-century thinkers like Martin Luther King Jr., to her own experience working in the federal government during one of the most politically fraught eras in our nation's history, Hudson examines how civility―a respect for the personhood and dignity of others―transcends political disagreements. Respecting someone means valuing them enough to tell them when you think they are wrong. It’s easy to look at the divided state of the world and blame our leaders, the media, or our education system. Instead, we should focus on what we can control: ourselves. The Soul of Civility empowers readers to live tolerantly with others despite deep differences, and to rigorously protest wrongs and debate issues rather than silencing disagreements. A robust public discourse is essential to a truly civil society, and respecting others means telling hard truths. If enough of us decide to change ourselves, we might be able to change the world we live in, too. Provocative, personal, and acutely relevant, The Soul of Civility is an essential book for our era. Here are some key points from the podcast transcript: Guest Alexandra Hudson has a new book called "The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves" about restoring civil discourse. Civility is about seeing others as moral equals and respecting their humanity, which can sometimes require breaking politeness norms. Incivility is a timeless human problem going back to ancient Egyptian teachings. We have a natural tension between self-interest and community. We need to move beyond surface-level politeness to have the hard, honest conversations required in a democracy. But with respect, not aggression. Local efforts like porching (sitting on porches together) can help rebuild community and trust across differences. Shared spaces and meals are powerful. Technology and busyness have made us more isolated. We need to rediscover the value of spontaneous interactions and getting to know our neighbors. Small everyday decisions to see the humanity in each person we encounter helps support human flourishing and civilization. Feelings of helplessness globally should inspire us to be more gracious locally. We have the power to be part of the solution through our daily actions. In summary, we can all contribute to healing society's divisions by focusing on true civil discourse, community-building, and respecting the equal dignity of every person we interact with daily. Small acts of graciousness and connection matter. About the author Alexandra Hudson is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master’s degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition, available for streaming as of May 2023. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband and two children restoring their historic Italian renaissance style home, enjoying classic films, putting a new spin on old recipes in the kitchen, dabbling in water color, or reading a Platonic dialogue.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to Chris Voss Show, my ladies and gentlemen, my friends, neighbors, relatives, all of you. As always, the Chris Voss Show family that loves you, but doesn't judge you.

At least not as harshly as your mother-in-law, because you still owe her that $5 and you never paid her back. And you shouldn't have broke her fine china anyway. So please see if you can work on that, because you're going to have to see her over Christmas. Anyway, she sent that message in the show, so you know who you can work on that because you're gonna have to see her uh over christmas uh anyways she sent that message in the show so you know who you are and you're in the audience the christmas show folks welcome to another episode i hope you're strapped in ready to go ready for the big brain bleed roller coaster of education we're going to be talking about being a more civil society and how we can be nicer and better to each other. Because we need some more of that in this world.

There's a lot of ugly things going on if you turn on the news lately. And it seems like it's been going on that way for all my life. So anyway, we can improve each other's lives. And that's, of course, what the Chris Voss Show is about. Educating people, telling life stories. As I always say, stories are the owner's best life. And for 15 years, three to four shows a day, 10 to 15 shows a week, 20 shows a week. I'm bad at math. We've been bringing you the billionaires, the CEOs, the U.S. ambassadors, the White House president's advisors, Justice Department, astronauts, TV, print, Pulitzer Prize winner, journalists, and everything else.

And we have another amazing journalist on the show with her hottest new book that just came out August 10th, 2023. It's called The Soul of Civility, Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves by Alexandra Hudson. And if you've seen me, I need a lot of healing. My audience right now is going, he needs a lot of healing and maybe a lobotomy. Alexandra Hudson is a writer, popular speaker, and founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness, and truth. Or me on Fridays, pretty much. Beauty, goodness, and truth. Or me on Fridays, pretty much. Beauty, goodness, and truth.

What? No, that's not possible. I'm not. I'm just more of a silver fox than a beauty thing. But I don't know about the goodness part. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time Magazine, Political Magazine, and Newsweek.

She earned a master's degree in public policy from the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also a creator of a series for the teaching company called storytelling and the human condition her first book just came out the one we aforementioned and she lives in indianapolis indiana indiana with her husband and children welcome to the show alexandra how are you i'm great chris thanks for having me thanks for coming it's wonderful to have you are you an indiana colts fan by chance or your husband i'm so sorry chris if this offends you or your um audience sport sport is not my language it is not asking about almost anything else and i can be conversant

but you have to choose i feel there you go well there you go uh so uh give us a dot coms where do you want people to find you on the interwebs to get to know you better? Oh, please go to Amazon.com and buy my book. No, I'm joking. But like, you know, I'm on the platforms. I'm on social media. I have a publication, a newsletter, intellectual community called Civic Renaissance. It's about beauty, good as truth and reviving the wisdom of the past to help us lead better

lives. And would be thrilled to have you over there learning with us and, and reflecting on the highest and best questions in life. So thanks for asking. There you go. Better questions lead to a better life and better outcomes. Yeah. So give us a 30,000 overview of the book and what it entails

in your words. Well, I love what you said a moment ago about better questions help us lead a better life because as I learned while writing this book, this question of how we might flourish across deep difference, which is what my book explores, is the most important question of our day in this very divided moment that we find ourselves in. But it's also a timeless question. It's the defining question of the human species. How do we flourish across different competing interests and priorities? We've been trying to do this thing called society for a very long time. And it's always been hard. It's always been hard it's always been hard so i i approach this question of civility and the role of social norms um uh you kind of universally like across exploring across

history and cross culture uh and it gives it gave me a lot of humility while approaching this question this topic and i hope that readers come away with a humility of how hard this problem is, that no single public leader, no policy, that this is an intractable problem. It's a timeless problem, this question of incivility and social life. And yet we each have a role to play in being part of the solution and in supporting or detracting our civilization, our democracy, and how we choose to respect and be gracious and kind, hospitable to our fellow human beings, our fellow citizens in our every day. So we have to be nice to each other is what you're saying? So let's unpack that. So being nice and polite is different from being civil.

That's a core argument. I learned this in government firsthand. So I was raised by Judy, the manners lady. And while I wrote this book, so I was raising this home that's very attentive to pleasantries and niceties and social norms. While I wrote the book, Chris, I realized that there are no fewer than four women who are internationally renowned experts on etiquette and manners who are named Judy. My mother is just one of four, I guess it's like a generational thing. Like I don't know, but I was raised in this home, very mindful of the rules of propriety

and etiquette, as well as the fact that my mother was exemplar when it came to just being gracious and kind and hospitable to others. My home was this revolving door of strangers and international students and homestays and newcomers to our community. But she was very confident that the rules of etiquette would help me succeed and get along in school and in life. And I rebelled against them. I'm constitutionally allergic to authority.

I hate being told what to do. But she was right. I obeyed them for the most part. And she was right until, and they worked for me until I got to government. I was at the United States Department of Education from 2017 to 2018. And that experience made me question everything about what I thought I knew to be true and the

principles of thriving in the world. On one hand, I saw people with sharp elbows, people who were hostile and aggressive and willing to step on anyone to get ahead. And on the other hand, I saw people who were polite and suave and polished and poised. And at first I thought, these are my people. Then I realized that these are the ones that would smile at me one moment and stab me and others back the next.

And so that experience clarified to me this essential distinction between civility and politeness. It was possible to have the external trappings of niceness and polish, but not actually be good. One thing my mother had said to me growing up was that manners mattered because they were an outward extension of our inward character. And yet here I was surrounded by people who were polite, but ruthless and cruel. So politeness is etiquette, manners, technique, it's external behavior. Civility is a disposition of the heart that sees others as our moral equals. And crucially, sometimes actually respecting others requires being impolite. It requires breaking the

rules of etiquette and propriety, engaging in robust debate, telling a hard truth. Those are having an uncomfortable conversation. Those are things that politeness wants to sweep under the rug to polish over. But that's what civility, actually respecting someone, demands. So we need less politeness in the world today and a little bit more civility, I think, actually respecting others. And let's dive into that some more. What is the definition of civility in your mind? You've kind of laid some of it out, but it seems like there's a balance there between what you talked about, between being civil or like a civil in our politics or civil in our nature in society where we can still debate but is this empathy a part of it is what what is wrapped up in in this it's a great question so i love etymology

etymology etymology the history of the stories of words they're little anecdotes to help us remember different ideas i love i love et love etymologies all throughout my book. So the, and it's also often very clarifying about what words, how words have evolved over time. So the etymology of these two words, civility and politeness supports this distinction. Civility is the root Latin root is kivitas,

the Latin word for city and for citizenship and the citizen. And that's what civility is. It's the habits and the duties of citizenship. The Latin root of politeness is polier, which means to smooth or to polish. And that's what politeness does. It polishes over, it papers over difference as opposed to giving us the tools to grapple with difference head on. So civility is necessary, not just to survive in a democracy, like we have to be able to navigate competing interests, we have to talk about controversial things like politics and religion. Those are the kind of topics that politeness says, you know, don't talk about. So we have to, we need stability, the basic respect

for others that allows us to have these hard conversations. We need that to survive. We also need it to thrive. And one story I love to tell is about, and it really flourished in community. One story I love to tell is about the time when Queen Victoria, you know, literally the queen of Victorian manners and the most arcane you know arbitrary intricate system of manners that that maybe maybe has ever existed in human history and she was at a state dinner she was hosting the queen of persia to dinner and the queen of persia did the unthinkable she took the bowl in front of her and sipped it to her lips tipped it to her lips and sipped it like soup.

Wait, is that bad? Yeah, everyone was scandalized. I'm going to start doing that in Nice Restaurant. Because it was a finger bowl. It was meant to wash your hands in. She had sipped the finger bowl. And what did Queen Victoria do? The exact same thing.

She tipped the bowl to her lips and sipped it. Why? same thing she tipped the bowl to her lips and said why she broke this very common commonly known for her era for her culture norm of propriety and etiquette and politeness for the sake of graciousness for the sake of hospitality for the sake of of friendship and trust for the sake of making her you know guest feel welcome and at ease not embarrassing her so we need to break the we'll be willing to break the rules of politeness sometimes to survive in a democracy and to thrive as a species but also to thrive um for the sake of friendship and flourishing and hospitality there you go uh yeah i do that at fine restaurants and always get thrown out they're like what are you doing and i'm like you know but

part of it is because i'm in the kitchen and i'm drinking out of the big pot. And evidently that's bad. So the judge says I can't do that anymore. But civility, it's part of this seeing each other as valid human beings. You know, America is kind of built on what's supposed to be this culture of where we can debate each other, where we can have free speech, but where it kind of seems like we used to respect each other maybe a little bit more in the older days. Maybe, I don't know, I wasn't there, so I heard it was maybe better, but I don't know. Somebody could be lying to me. How do we overcome, get back to a civil world? Where are we going off the rails right now and uh why are we so polarized yeah it's a great question it's really actually remarkably common uh remarkable how common it is

rather for every era i feel like they're in the most on civil era and why it's because it's the era that we're in that we're viscerally experiencing and observing the, you know, hostility, the violence, the division, the fraying of our social fabric all around us. But Chris, you're in good company to feel like your era is the most uncivil, or at least among the most. But in fact, as I mentioned, that this is a remarkably timeless issue. Did you know, for example, Chris, that the oldest book in the world is a civility book? It's given to us from ancient Egypt, 2350 BC. It's called The Teachings of Tahotep. Tahotep was the Egyptian advisor.

He had been in the room where it happens his entire life. And he'd reached the pinnacle of earthly and worldly success. And he was even offered the chance to be Pharaoh. So be, you know, king of all of Egypt. And he turned it down to lead a quiet life and seclusion and just pastoral peace. And he, um, set when, when, once he had retired, he set pen to paper and like thought deeply, like, what are the, what are the timeless principles of human flourishing? What's the stuff of the good life? And he wrote this, this book as a gift to Pharaoh's son in hopes that his son might be a good and wise leader. But that the teachings of Tahitap had been, were widely consumed across Egyptian culture and across history, even making it over to the West, probably in ancient Greece, that the Greeks were very influenced by the Egyptians. And what's interesting is that the teachings of Tahotep are remarkably timeless. They could be

a mismanagers column today. There are things like, you know, if you're in a position of power, don't abuse people whom you have power over if you you know don't just ask your friends and your neighbors for stuff when you want something you know for don't just go to them don't be nice don't be nice to them just when you need stuff like be good to them all the time um don't gossip tahotep says he has three to five different teachings different maxims about why we shouldn't gossip, that it's corrosive to human trust and human flourishing. And so it was all this conventional wisdom that again was written almost 5,000 years ago in a very different time and a very different place to us.

But I mean, it gets to this idea that it's a timeless human problem that we, that this, because we're defined, we're deeply social as a species. We thrive in relationship and community, but we're also fallen. We're defined by self-love, morally and biologically. And we are driven to meet our own needs before others. And those two aspects in our nature are in tension today as they were 5,000 years ago, the dawn of our species. Isn't it amazing how so many of these old, original Stoics and people who wrote books years ago, you kind of assume that they're in the modern times, but they write these things that are just

so timeless and epic across the things. Usually, I study the teachings uh when it comes to civility of uh of the great rodney king like why can't we all just get along eh so there you go uh it's it's uh it's so how do we how do we how do we get down this road of doing better what are some tools that you outline in your book that we can start using? You talked about self-accountability, which needs to be a challenge in today's world. What are some tools that we could use when we interact with each other and

maybe think about our approach to other people? I hope my book leaves readers with a profound sense of empowerment. This question is incredibly, this, this question is incredibly hard and it's incredibly intractable and incredibly timeless because it's in our nature, but it literally begins and ends with each of us and civilization, society, democracy itself depends on our everyday tiny interactions. And I think we insufficiently appreciate that the way the power we each have to be a part of the solution, or as it may be the part of the problem that we have incredible power to heal our social fabric and our everyday. So part of my story is that I was in Washington

and I experienced this division, that extreme aggression and extreme politeness that I realized there are actually two sides of the same coin that both want to instrumentalize others, both see other people as means to their selfish ends, as opposed to human beings who are worthy of respect in and of themselves. And I fled. I fled Washington. I was so in despair, so naive, so young. And I moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where my husband's from. And we've been here five years now. And one day a woman came up to me. She said, hi, I'm Joanna. Would you like to porch with us sometime? And I never heard the word porch used as a verb before, but I was curious and we didn't

know how many friends yet. So we went to her home to porch that afternoon. And there I saw this quiet revolution, this quiet rebellion happening on Joanna's front porch. She had curated on her front porch, people across race, across politics, across geography, across socioeconomic strata and status, and to just inhabit a shared space. Like, you know, to some extent, my book argues like human nature doesn't change. This is a timeless problem. It's the defining, you know, human problem of how to do life together across difference. And yet there are many things about our moment that are different that make this challenge particularly difficult and unique to our moment. For example, it's very easy to just go through life, not really encountering people we don't want to encounter. We can have our food

delivered. We have Netflix. We go from our car to our office and then back home again. If we have Netflix, we go from our car to our office and then back home again, if we have to leave our home at all, like so many people are remote these days. And so it's really easy to be siloed and just like really insulated from people who are different from us, people we don't want to be around. And that is why, you know, that's part of the problem of why we're uniquely lonely and isolated and in despair and divided as a country at a local micro level, but also at a national level. These two things are very much related. And Joanna from her front porch is staging this revolution. She's saying, I can't control what is happening in Washington, what's happening in the Middle East. I can't control the scandal

of the day. I can't control the divisions of the world, but I can change myself. I can make my community better and more beautiful and stronger. And so she opens up her porch as an oasis away from the harried and divided nature of modern life. It's just a place to be and be seen and known and loved, which is all we ever really want in life. Anyone, it doesn't matter where you are or what era we're in. which is all we ever really want in life. Anyone doesn't matter where you are or what era we're in. That's all we ever really want. And what I learned from Joanna is that you don't even need a front porch to be a part of the solution as she is. It's about a disposition. It's a way of approaching others. It's a way of wanting to see, know, and love people where they're at, to bring them into your fold, to transform the

stranger into a friend, the outsider into an insider. This may sound trite and platitudinal and kindergarten type stuff, but it's powerful. It is profoundly powerful. And I've seen it firsthand. I've experienced it firsthand. And there are things that is something that we can each do to be a part of the solution in our deeply broken and divided world. I love the idea that getting together as people once more. I think COVID has made it worse. We're separated. I know social media has made it worse where everyone's walking around, you know, looking at their screens.

I'm even guilty of that when I go to the grocery store and, you know, I'm listening to like an audio book the whole time or something instead of interacting with people. And then, uh, uh, you know, it's, it's, uh, I think, I think social media has alienated us more at the screens of alienating us more. Like you mentioned the Netflix and stuff. When I grew up in the seventies, um, it was, it was a bit of a different time and you know we knew who our neighbors were like and we would go have dinner with them like you know we

go across the street I don't remember their names Bob or whatever and they would cook and I remember there was a great Irish family that lived kind of kitty corner diagonal off the street from us they would make just wonderful food from their culture. We knew almost everybody on the street.

We kind of knew maybe a little too much, you know, the women would gossip. But they'd be like, yeah, that one family. But, you know, we'd go and have dinners together and do things together. When we'd have our family get-togethers for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'd have all the families there. Everybody was, you know, just these huge spreads. And nowadays, like, no one knows almost, it seems, who their neighbors are, even next door or across the street.

You're like, I don't know, who are those people? And, oh, you know, you're peeking out at the thing in them. And I think that's a big problem. When we had Eddie Glaude Jr. on the show, his book about James Baldwin, we talked about that, how one of the problems we have with our racial issues is so much redlining took place

and even the freeways cut us off into different neighborhoods. And so we don't see each other's different cultures and different ways of life. And so things are foreign to us and we don't get along. We don't mix well. You know, things stick out like a sore thumb as opposed to being normal. So I love this porching idea or just getting together and breaking bread with people and getting to know people. I remember somebody introduced me to the concept of breaking bread once and how important that used to be as a culture for our country

and getting to know strangers and getting to know each other and seeing each other as human beings, I suppose. Correct? That's exactly correct. And when we cease to dine together, cease to know one another, we cease exist. And we are increasingly dining alone. You know, we, we, we, we, the snackification of our culture where we have to go meals and, and that have been blended, like, Oh my gosh, this disgusting substance called Soylent. I'd like just repulses me. Like I read a whole like deep,

like I think it was a New Yorker piece about Soylent and it's like, they molecular engineered like the perfect meal. Right. It was just so perfect. Like the perfect ratio of fat and carbohydrates and protein. And of course, it's like not very high quality ingredients. It's like, you know, corn oil. Like, right. That's the kind of fats and proteins are putting in there. And the whole point is like you never have to sit down and have a meal again. You know, you're optimized, you're efficient, right? Like drink your breakfast on the, on the road, drink your, drink your lunch or your dinner.

You never have to sit down and just like do something that's not utilitarian. Like enjoy a glass of wine and a meal with a friend. And this is part of the problem that we're so utilitarian in our culture. We, everything has to have a purpose. Everything, you know, we, we invest our time or money or energy. everything has to have a purpose everything you know we invest our time or money or energy we have to have a roi we want to return on that investment and we've lost an appreciation of just like the the beauty of the spontaneous everyday exchanges um or just spontaneous you know dropping it on a neighbor we don't do that anymore we don't just like you know

can you can you everything has to be scheduled and, and, and, and ritualized. And like, that's a problem. It's a problem because it makes the more barriers to entry you have to just inhabiting a shared space, the less it happens. And the less we have it shared space over meals, over a cocktail on the front porch, the less we know each other. And the less we know, the less we trust, less we trust and love like that. That's we've lost society. We've lost the stuff of the good life that is one thing i hope readers take away when they buy my book and i hope all your listeners do buy my book that society is fragile friendship is fragile at its at its core it is incredible civilization is incredibly precarious it is not a foregone conclusion and it literally lives and dies by how we live our

lives every day and so if you choose to make the time for it and and invest the time in others like that's that that is the stuff of the good life but as you yeah and as you've talked about in your book politics as well i mean democracies are fragile yes um they can live and die and disappear i love the concept and and i it's so important that people think about this because, you know, it makes all the difference in our world. And getting, you know, I've got this thing. I love, I'm an old world person, so I like calling and talking to people. It's really weird, I know. You know, I lived in the day where you, you know, you pick up a phone and go beep, beep, beep.

You actually go around the thing. Right. And you talk to people. And I love talking to people, spending time with them. That's half the reason we do this show. I get to talk to brilliant minds, people who've done millions of hours of research or whatever into their topics. They come from all walks of life on the show. And hopefully my audience appreciates it as well.

And you just never know. We go from the gambit of one subject to another across the thing, but it's things where everyone can learn. But on Facebook, one of my favorite things to do with people that I like, they'll message me on the Facebook messenger there or something. And I don't like typing stuff. I'm just kind of old world that way and so i'll leave a voicemail message not on the phone call because people get weird about that too

nowadays it's really weird but i'll leave them a messenger thing where you you do the voice thing you go hey hey it's good to talk to you how's it going hey and there's some people that really freak out about it they're like you left me a voice message i know i know it's like we're different generations chris and i'm like text first don't just call i want to know i want to be emotionally prepared there are these funny tiktoks about like someone coming to the front door and then like the first you know knocking and like you know the our grandparents generation gets up and goes to the door right like no big deal the second generation like you know they hear the knock and they're like who's gonna get it like it's like kind of like you know i'm back and and and like find the the gen the gen zers like they hear the

knock of the door and they just like slowly slink and they hide the blanket overhead they're like oh my gosh let's go away i don't want to see another human intimacy right but you know what's funny is it happens to people my age that are that are my age like i've i've i actually got into a i had one guy he like lost his mind in it i'm like you're 55 like i am you're not a gen z you're not a millennial you're 55 you grew up in the same era i did with phones and to me i like the intimacy of talking to people. So I'll leave that, you know, I don't call them and leave a voicemail message, but I'll do it on the messenger thing on Facebook. And so, but I like that.

It's personal. And I like to hear their voice too. If they, if they someone back, I don't sit there and go, oh my God, but I've had some people that just are my age that I'm just really surprised and like well this is where we've gotten when it comes to intimacy and civility and and just talking to each other as human beings like oh my god i have to and i remember the one guy who freaked out on me was my age he goes he goes i have to actually sit and listen to this for like two minutes and i'm like dude, dude, I see your life on Facebook. You spend more time jerking around on so many stupid things all day long.

Oh, my God, two minutes. I'm going to end your whole life. Right. Right. Exactly. So there's that. Well, I think there's no coincidence that three of the great religious traditions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, they all revolve around shared meals together. coincidence that the you know three of the great religious traditions islam judaism and christianity

they all revolve around shared meals together so the um the islamic tradition the iftar is the fast-breaking meal that breaks ramadan uh passover in the jewish tradition and the eucharist that's like the central ritual in the christ tradition is like, you know, consuming the metaphorical body and blood of Christ. That's symbolic and representative of Christ's last supper with his disciples. But there is a power. Oh,

and you probably know this, that our root word of our word companion, you know, friend comes from the Latin root pain, which is bread. And like in French today, pain is still a word for bread. So companion literally comes from this tradition of breaking bread with someone. You probably learned that from your former guest who informed you about the breaking bread tradition.

But I mean, there is something that we're losing as we increasingly become utilitarian as a society, as we dine alone, as we, you know, when we respond in fear when someone calls us or comes to our door, right? Like it's a serial killer and not just a neighbor, you know, checking in because that's just such a foreign occurrence. Like it would only be a crazy person who's calling us, Chris, or showing up at our doorstep unannounced that they must want to kill us. That's the problem. That's the problem because social trust is what makes society tick. We have to be able to trust that there are more good people and bad people around us and that there aren't people out to get us and want to harm us. That's essential to a free society,

a functioning society where we're not, yeah, in fear and trepidation, just doing everyday things. Yeah. What I have on my front door to keep that from happening is I have no marketing calls and no serial killers. You put a sign out there and the serial killers, when they come out the door, they go, oh, okay, this is what I want. I've heard that.

It's better than a security system. Just like a gracious, like, please, no serial killers. Yeah, no serial killers. I think it's the please that really gets them. They're like, okay, well, if you said please, well, let's go to the next house then. I feel bad when they hit the neighbors up, but that's not my problem. They should have had the sign.

They should have known. But you know, the Mormons will still knock, so there's that. Oh, boy, the seven-day event on Saturday morning um but no i'm glad you've written this book and i'm glad you're educating people on how to be nice to each other we need to get back to a better place uh we need to get it back to a better place in politics you know one thing you gave me an epiphany uh mid-show as we were talking is how we live apart and i was thinking, it suddenly hit me

about the blue states and the red states, the flyover county, middle part of this country. And, you know, we have segmented ourselves kind of in our own ways in that way with the blue states and the red states, if you really think about it, it's kind of interesting. It's, yeah, yeah. It's so true. And I mean, Chris, what you just said warms my soul because I live to give people epiphanies. I just hope people reading my book just go from epiphany to epiphany. So I'm delighted to hear that that was the effect. There you go.

And a great book to give away coming up here with christmas and stuff and of course we we all probably need this book and you should probably pre-send it to all the members of your family before you show up for thanksgiving dinner christmas dinner because we know how those can be uh give us your final thoughts alexander as we go out and pitch on the book to be able to pick it up well you know we it's it's really easy to feel helpless, especially with the conflict happening in the Middle East, just like the senseless loss of life, like women and children. It's just devastating to observe that. And it's really easy to feel overwhelmed by that. history and culture that encourages us to care for mankind, to care for the suffering of humanity across the world by caring for humanity at home, right where we are in our everyday.

And so we ought not despair and say, okay, that suffering's over there. There's nothing we can do, but how can being sensitized to that grievous injustice abroad, how can that make us all the more committed to the project of respecting the dignity and humanity of the other in our everyday and wanting to be more gracious, gentle, and kind to the people who are not like us, who will never see again, who can do nothing for us in return. Those are the anonymous, countless exchanges we have in this globalized,ized you know wealthy western world that we live in it's a privilege to live in this this this era this world that we're in

but it's really easy to be as we've been talking about very utilitarian and how we walk through our lives and it's like you know i'm just i'm just going to show up where where i definitely get something i'm going to take my needs get my needs met and then move on but but what does it look like to validate and affirm the dignity and humanity of every single person we encounter? And that in doing that, we're affirming personhood and humanity and humaneness around the world as well. Like that, every single day, every decision we make either supports or detracts from this joint project of human flourishing and civilization. That the stuff of of the good life and we've we've we've actually had neuroscientists that are on the show to say we're actually designed to do this face to

face to see each other's body language to sit uh you know get rid of the cell phones i remember when cell phones really became popular i would go into a restaurant i would see a family of four two children mother mother and father, and they'd all be doing this. And no one's talking to each other. No one's interacting. I'm like, Jesus, we're really screwed here. But put down the cell phones.

Get to know people. Because we're actually designed for it. The neurosurgeon or neuro folks that we've had on the thing, they've actually talked about how we're not really designed to deal with this 2G sort of format of a screen. We're designed to see each other's faces, to see each other's movements and the gestures that we make. And that actually gives us feedback and information to our brains that help

us and help each other. So there you go. Thank you very much, Alexandra, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Give us your.com so someone can, people can reach out to you on the interwebs. my newsletter and publication dedicated to, um, bringing a little bit more grace and beauty and goodness into your life. But I mean,

that's a, that's a Tuesday morning for Chris. So you can just show up here as well. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Chris. There you go.

Thanks for being here. And as always, we bring you the greatest stories. The stories, uh, are the, uh, owner's manual to life.

Be civil to each other. Uh, go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, youtube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Stories are the owner's manual to life. Be civil to each other. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress Christmas, youtube.com, Fortress Christmas, linkedin.com, Fortress Christmas, and Christmas One on the tickety-tockety for the kids. As always, stay safe, be good to each other, and we'll see you guys next time.