Community Starts at Home with author Alexandra Hudson | A Bit of Optimism

If you have a culture of dog eat dog and the only way you can get ahead is by putting yourself first. How do you teach people like that? With a warped incentive structure? Civility.

When people act with ruthlessness and cruelty and malice to their fellow human beings, yes, they dehumanize the other. They degrade the dignity, but they also hurt themselves. They make themselves a little bit less human. But the inverse is also true. Acts of charity, kindness, compassion, grace, those are mutually ennobling. That is its own reward. And acting unjustly is its own punishment. I can't control who's running for president, who's in the White House, who's tweeting what, what the scandal of the day is. But I can control myself. And I am going to make my community, my sphere of influence, better, stronger and more beautiful.

What restores civility in our nation is our willingness to commune, our willingness to make eye contact, to say, I'd like to hear your ideas. Tell me more.