Community Starts at Home with author Alexandra Hudson
Feb 13, 2024
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Author Alexandra Hudson researches how to repair societal divisions. She discusses the difference between politeness and civility, the challenges of building trust and friendships, and the power of porching and building community. The resurgence of porches as a response to isolation caused by modern society is explored. Restoring civility through community and communication is emphasized.
Creating community through intentional gatherings can help repair societal divisions.
Civility involves engaging in uncomfortable conversations, telling hard truths, and respecting others amidst disagreements.
Deep dives
The Importance of Pursuing Higher Education with Purdue Global
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The Power of Porching and Building Community
The podcast highlights the significance of creating community as a means to repair societal divisions. Porching, as an example, involves intentionally curating and inviting people from different backgrounds, ideologies, and classes to gather and engage in unstructured conversations, fostering trust, friendship, and understanding. This simple act of coming together on a porch challenges the individualistic and atomized nature of modern society.
From Politeness to Civility: Reshaping Human Interactions
The episode explores the difference between politeness as a superficial etiquette and civility as an internal disposition of the heart. While politeness focuses on external appearances, civility emphasizes respect and recognition of the moral equality and worth of others. The discussion highlights that civility is not about being agreeable or polite at all costs but involves engaging in uncomfortable conversations, telling hard truths, and respecting others even amidst disagreements.
In a divided society, idealists believe we can overcome our differences.
Alexandra Hudson is one of those idealists. Disillusioned by the backstabbing she witnessed in federal government, she began to research how we can repair the divisions keeping us apart.
We discuss what being civil means in a dog-eat-dog culture and why building a more connected community can start on the front porch.
This...is A Bit of Optimism.
To learn more about Alexandra and her work, check out: