Dear Joe,
I appreciate the work that you do, but I’m having trouble with the idea of civility. I’m tired of being civil with people who aren’t. I have a number of friends who say that civility is a useless strategy to deal with the problems of our times. I’m beginning to believe them. But there’s a part of me that still wants to believe that there are peaceful and nonviolent ways to deal with what’s going on. I’ve had enough of the fighting and aggressive ways we are relating to one another. Any ideas?
Split
Hey Split,
I appreciate your dilemma. The issues you raise have been at the core of my work for decades. How do you confront a bully without becoming a bully? How can you respond with courage instead of becoming passive? How do you speak your truth in a public forum when you know you risk getting “canceled” or having your life threatened? How do you confront incivility without becoming uncivil?
It seems that the lack of civility has become mainstream worldwide. Whether it be at a family dinner, in political town halls, at protests or at work, the loud-and-crass approach appears increasingly to get the most attention. But, when I read between the lines in your question, I suspect that you have insight into a deeper set of truths: that a loud voice may not be a strong voice, that both sides can win at the same time, and that the need to be right may not be the best path toward finding common ground and new solutions to our current problems.
Why is being civil not working? I believe we are working with an outdated operating definition of civility; we need an approach to civility that invites powers like strength, confidence, skill, courage, resilience and assertiveness. These powers, when used in a respectful, balanced way, could help neutralize the aggression, lack of listening, othering, breaking and polarization that hampers our interactions. So, in order to confront the level of animosity and distress we are facing, we all need to revise and “upgrade” our current skills, strategies, fortitude and resilience.
The first step in this process is to let go of a condition I call “chronic niceness.” Chronic niceness happens when we hold an archaic notion of civility, complete with a “big smile mask,” refined niceties, and where our messages of charity, mercy, and inclusivity, may not be in alignment with our actions. For example, when you say yes but you should have said no, or when you say no but you should have said yes, you may suffer from this chronic need to be nice. And, when it comes to chronic niceness, we all pay the price.
Consider this: When you witness friends marginalizing others, your place of worship or political party justifying violence for their cause, or your social media groups and friends destroying someone’s reputation before considering all the facts – and you say nothing – you are contributing to the debilitating effects of chronic niceness.
When you let go of chronic niceness and the false sense of civility, you open to the fierce power of kindness. Let’s distinguish the difference between kindness and niceness. Niceness is an external façade that creates distance and gives us permission to justify our harms; kindness is a quality of the heart that requires courage, empathy and compassion, respects the dignity and value of self and others, and leads to actions of nurturing and protecting others. Kindness transcends our limited views of each other and has the potential to bring about peace, healing and reconciliation.
What if we let go of our chronic niceness, stepped into our highest qualities of openhearted fierceness, and called ourselves and those we encounter to our highest values?. We step into our fierceness when we stand face to face with our challenges, bullies and aggression with empowered vulnerability. We become both nurturers and protectors for ourselves and others.
Fierce Civility is the approach I use to learn these upgraded skills. It trains you to shift your viewpoints, habits and behavior so that you can:
- Stay regulated in times of high tension so you don’t fall into patterns of aggression or passivity.
- Determine your level of safety in every moment and set clear boundaries.
- Treat others as you would like to be treated.
- Hold yourself and others accountable to our highest values.
- Seek out results that honors the dignity of all involved.
- Collaborate to find solutions that include the needs of all involved.
Success may not be guaranteed, but pursuing this course of action may support you in cultivating the resilience, grace, patience, skill and courage needed to stay in the challenges, and grapple with the twists and turns of these encounters, with a higher probability of a successful outcome. This upgraded form of civility may be what’s needed to shift from volatility to lasting peace.
With fierce respect for you and your exasperation,
Joe Learn more about Joe Weston and his work here. Make sure to c heck out Joe’s bestselling book Fierce Civility: Transforming our Global Culture from Polarization to Lasting Peace, published March 2023.
To Ask Joe, please submit questions to: AskJoe@Fulcrum.us.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.