This Is Civity

In this episode, we talk with Mónica Guzmán, Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, and author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times.

Mónica at first dedicated her career to connecting people across differences through journalism… but then moved into the bridging space to find a more effective way to bring people together in relationship.

Through it all, she has been driven by a deep curiosity about others and the stories that shape our lives and perspectives.

In this episode, we talk with David Brooks, New York Times Columnist, and author of How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.

We explore David’s journey to find ways to know other people better and learn how to share his own stories and experiences as part of the knowing process. He shares the lessons and strategies he’s learned to cultivate relationships, big and small, as a way to weave community.

In this episode, we chat with Alexandra Hudson about her new book -The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves. Hudson explores the difference between politeness and what Hudson calls civility – and we call CIVITY – truly seeing an OTHER and recognizing their humanity and dignity.

Alexandra is also founder of Civic Renaissance, an online space dedicated to elevating our public discourse.

In this episode, we explore the importance of strong neighborhood and community relationships to the health of nations, and we discuss the fact that many neighborhoods in the U.S. don’t have strong local ties and need structural and systemic help.

My guest is Seth Kaplan - Author of Fragile Neighborhoods Repairing American Society One Zip Code at a Time. Seth is also an international relations expert whose job is to help fragile states around the world. He consults with organizations such as the World Bank and U.S. State Department, and he teaches international relations at Johns Hopkins University.

In this episode, we talk with Riaz Patel, executive producer and director focusing on reality shows that depict people connecting and having positive transformations. Riaz created what he calls the EPIC system - with EPIC standing for Equalization, Personalization, Information Gathering, and Collaboration - something very in line with Civity’s approach to helping people connect across differences.

Riaz has used the EPIC System to create a show called ConnectEffect, in which he has people learn about and connect with each other face-to-face - breaking through labels and getting to each other’s humanity.

In this episode, we explore how "othering" has led to increased marginalization and vilification of people who are un-housed - and how civity can help counter this trend by helping people who are housed see the humanity of those without housing. My guest is Eric Tars, Legal Director of National Homelessness Law Center, who reminds us that housing is a human right. Tars hopes that helping people see each other's humanity can bring this back into focus.

In this episode, we explore how engaging across our racial and class divides and cultivating solidarity can help bring us together to care for and nurture our democracy.

My guest is Ian Haney López, professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, and author of several books, including Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism & Wrecked the Middle Class, and Merge Left: Fusing Race & Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America.

López says strategic racism is a deeply corrosive force, he’s exploring how to counter its effects by encouraging people to come together across racial divides, so we can focus on our commonalities, develop shared understandings of what we want from democracy and our elected officials, and work together to improve society.

López developed the Race-Class Narrative Project and the Race-Class Academy to counter dog-whistle politics and build cross-racial and cross-class solidarity.

In this episode, we explore a massive new study on improving the health of democracy. The Strengthening Democracy Challenge invited more than 30,000 people to engage with 25 interventions. The goal was to find ways to reduce things like partisan animosity, partisan violence, and anti-democratic attitudes, and increase social trust and a willingness to engage with people across socially salient differences.

Civity’s intervention was one of 25 chosen from a pool of 250-plus… and it was number 1 at increasing social trust, number 2 in decreasing social distance and opposition to bipartisanship, and number 4 in reducing partisan animosity.

Civity’s relational, story-based intervention also reduced support for un-democratic practices and helped people accept others from across the political divide.

We talk with researcher Robb Willer, professor of sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior at Stanford University; as well as Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab, and Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Jacqueline Font-Guzmán, vice president for diversity, equity, & inclusion at Eastern Mennonite University; and strategic vision director for the Center of Justice & Peace Building at EMU.

Civity has been privileged to support EMU on its Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) journey with workshops for the President and her Cabinet and the Board of Trustees.

Together, we explore how to make DEI work transformative, including the importance of making it relational, and building trust and partnership among groups in a community to forge strong connections.

In this episode, we welcome Graham Bodie, professor of integrated marketing communication at the University of Mississippi, and chief listening officer with the Listen First Project.

As with Civity, the Listen First Project supports the creation of bridging relationships - focusing its efforts on elevating the impact, visibility, and voice of organizations doing bridging work.

We explore how Listen First brings bridging organizations together and works to bring more people to the experience of connecting across differences. 

We also discuss the act of listening itself, the importance of learning how to listen, and what listening looks like in different contexts.