Attending Torrington Rotary Club meetings has become one of my favorite community activities, and Monday’s gathering reminded me exactly why. The speakers who grace the podium at the Cottonwood County Club consistently deliver presentations to challenge my thinking and send me home with fresh perspectives on issues I thought I understood. This week’s speaker was no exception.
Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Bridget Hill spoke about civility, but what she really offered was a blueprint for being a better human being in an increasingly hostile world. Her words have been rattling around in my head for days now, forcing me to confront some uncomfortable truths about how I move through the world and interact with others.
The truth she shared – civility costs you nothing – hit me like a revelation, though it shouldn’t have. How many times have I chosen to be sharp with someone when kindness would have been just as easy? How often do we all mistake cruelty for strength or rudeness for honesty? I’ve caught myself doing this more times than I care to admit, especially when discussing politics or social issues I feel passionate about.
We’ve created a culture where being decent to each other feels almost naive. We reward the loudest voices and the harshest critics and the most cutting comebacks. Social media gives us dopamine hits for dunking on strangers. Cable news makes heroes of those who can destroy opponents with the most devastating soundbites. Politicians rise to power by promising to “own” their opponents rather than solve problems. We’ve somehow convinced ourselves being mean is the same as being strong or cruelty equals authenticity.
But what are we actually accomplishing? The statistics shared Monday were stark: hostile people die younger and angrier people suffer more heart attacks and our entire political system has ground to a halt because we’ve forgotten how to disagree without declaring war. Nearly 20% of the most hostile lawyers were dead by age 50, compared to only 4% of their more civil counterparts. These aren’t just numbers – they represent real human costs of choosing anger over understanding.
The personal stories shared reminded me of something I’d lost sight of – behind every political position and every frustrating viewpoint and every infuriating opinion is a human being with their own struggles and hopes and fears. This doesn’t make their ideas automatically valid, but it should make us pause before we attack the person holding them. When I think about the most heated arguments I’ve had recently, how many were really about changing minds versus proving I was right? How many were about solving problems versus winning points?
I think about my own conversations lately, and I don’t always like what I see. How often do I listen to understand versus listening to find ammunition for my rebuttal? When someone disagrees with me, do I see an opportunity to learn something or just another person who needs to be corrected? Am I treating political disagreement like a zero-sum war where the only victory is total defeat of the other side?
The honest answer is I’ve been guilty of all of these things. I’ve rolled my eyes at family gatherings when certain topics come up. I’ve dismissed neighbors’ concerns because they didn’t align with my worldview. I’ve participated in social media pile-ons and felt righteous in the moment but probably changed no one’s mind and certainly didn’t make the world a better place.
This behavior has real consequences beyond just hurt feelings. When we dehumanize people we disagree with, we make it impossible to find common ground on issues where compromise might actually be possible. When we assume the worst about others’ motivations, we shut down conversations before they can begin. When we respond to different perspectives with mockery or contempt, we push people further into their corners and make productive dialogue nearly impossible.
The challenge isn’t to become passive or abandon our convictions. Some ideas deserve vigorous opposition. Some policies would genuinely harm people and should be fought with every tool at our disposal. But we can fight bad ideas without dehumanizing the people who hold them. We can be passionate about our beliefs without being cruel to those who don’t share them. We can stand firm on our principles while still treating opponents with basic human dignity.
This matters because democracy literally depends on our ability to live together despite our differences. When we can’t disagree respectfully, we stop being fellow citizens working toward solutions and become enemies in an endless battle. At this point, democracy becomes impossible because it requires us to accept sometimes, we’ll lose and sometimes others will have power and sometimes we’ll need to compromise. If we see our political opponents as enemies rather than fellow Americans with different ideas, none of this becomes possible.
I’ve been thinking about what civility actually looks like in practice, because it’s not just about saying “please” and “thank you.” Real civility requires us to separate people from their positions. It means acknowledging some very good people can hold very bad ideas, and some very bad people can occasionally make good points. It means asking genuine questions about why someone believes what they do, rather than immediately trying to prove them wrong. It means being willing to say “I don’t know” or “I hadn’t thought of this” when confronted with new information.
The path forward isn’t complicated, though it requires daily discipline. It means catching ourselves before we launch into personal attacks. It means focusing on specific policies or behaviors rather than making sweeping judgments about someone’s character. It means acknowledging when opponents make valid points, even in heated disagreements. It means using “I” statements rather than “you” accusations. It means being willing to admit when we’ve made mistakes or when our understanding of an issue has evolved.
Most importantly, it means being stubborn about our commitment to treating others with dignity, even when they don’t return the favor. Especially when they don’t return the favor. This is perhaps the hardest part because our natural instinct is to respond to hostility with hostility or to match the energy we’re receiving. But someone has to break the cycle, and it might as well be us.
I’ve been thinking about this since Monday’s meeting: What if we each made a personal commitment to be the kind of person who elevates every conversation we’re part of? What if we refused to participate in the daily degradation of our public discourse? What if we chose to be better humans, one interaction at a time?
The beauty of this approach is it’s entirely within our control. We can’t fix Washington overnight or heal our national divisions with a single speech. We can’t force others to treat us with respect or kindness. But we can control how we respond to the cashier having a bad day and how we talk about neighbors with different yard signs and how we engage with family members who see the world differently than we do.
Every day, we have countless opportunities to choose kindness over cruelty and respect over ridicule and understanding over judgment. The person who cuts us off in traffic is probably not evil – maybe they’re rushing to see a sick parent. The coworker with different political views isn’t necessarily an idiot – maybe they’ve had experiences to shape their perspective in ways we can’t understand. The family member who shares articles we find offensive might not be trying to provoke us – maybe they genuinely believe they’re sharing important information.
This doesn’t mean we have to agree with everyone or pretend all opinions are equally valid. It doesn’t mean we can’t push back against ideas we find harmful or wrong. But it does mean we can disagree without assuming malicious intent. We can oppose policies without demonizing the people who support them. We can hold strong convictions while remaining open to new information and might challenge or refine our thinking.
I’m reminded of the example shared Monday about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Antonin Scalia, who disagreed on virtually every legal issue but maintained a deep friendship based on mutual respect and shared love of opera. They proved it’s possible to be intellectual opponents without being personal enemies. They showed we can fight vigorously for our beliefs while still treating those who disagree with us as worthy human beings.
This isn’t about being weak or naive. It’s about being strong enough to maintain our humanity in a world to constantly pressure us to abandon it. It’s about remembering the person on the other side of every argument is someone’s child and parent and sibling and friend. It’s about recognizing we all have blind spots and we all make mistakes and we all have something to learn from others – even those we disagree with most strongly.
The ripple effects of choosing civility extend far beyond any single conversation. When we model respectful disagreement, we give others permission to do the same. When we refuse to participate in character assassination, we make it a little less acceptable for others to do so. When we choose to see the humanity in those we disagree with, we make it easier for them to see ours in return.
Justice Hill reminded us, civility costs nothing, but I’d go further: choosing to be a better human being is the best investment we can make. It creates ripple effects we may never see and changes conversations in ways we may never know and preserves the possibility we can still find our way back to each other.
The choice is ours, and it starts with the very next person we encounter. We can continue down the path of mutual destruction, or we can choose to be the change we want to see in the world. The future of our democracy – and our humanity – may well depend on which path we choose.
