Thanks for tuning in to Wit and Wisdom with Tom Green, where we start conversations on the things that really matter. This is episode number 164 of the Wit and Wisdom Podcast, and we're glad you're here. This episode I think captures the way I see the world. Maybe overly optimistic. But regardless, let's see if you agree.

We're told constantly that the world is cruel, and that people are selfish, and civility is a relic of a bygone era. And some days, that feels pretty accurate. Open your phone and you're greeted by a parade of bad behavior. Strangers screaming at each other on airplanes, viral clips of public meltdowns, endless commentary insisting that everything is broken and everyone is awful. Maybe I'm old school, but despite the evidence, I think the world is still full of good and decent people.

Not perfect people or people that we always agree with, but ordinary people quietly doing the right thing when no one is paying attention. As CS Lewis argued years ago, there exists a set of moral principles that all humans seem to know. It's a shared code or a kind of moral grammar that's written into our software. You don't have to be religious or philosophical or particularly reflective to recognize it. I think we instinctively know fairness, and we instinctively know when something is wrong.

We instinctively know when someone deserves consideration or admiration. There's a shared civility rooted deep in our souls. And we know these things the same way that a cat knows it's supposed to hate a dog. No instruction manual is necessary. You see it in the smallest and least traumatic moments of everyday life.

Someone holds the elevator door for a stranger who's clearly in a hurry. They ask what floor you're going to. They step aside and let you exit first. At a four way stop, there's nothing physically stopping you from blasting through the intersection even though you arrived last. No enforcement drone hovering overhead, and yet most of the time, you just wait your turn.

Or the way that people let you merge into traffic when they don't have to, or when they hold a door open when your hands are full, or when they say excuse me as they pass by instead of treating public spaces like a competitive sport. These basic gestures don't require heroism. They don't require money. And they don't earn likes or retweets. We do them without expecting anything in return.

They're reflexive, automatic responses to ordinary life. They emerge naturally, like muscle memory, like the cat chasing the dog. And yet if you listen to our cultural narrative today, you'd think these moments no longer exist. We built an entire ecosystem in the media around outrage because outrage captures attention, and outrage spreads a lot faster than decency. Nobody posts a viral clip of a driver patiently letting three cars merge.

Nobody shares a video of a stranger quietly returning a lost wallet without expecting a reward. There's no algorithmic incentive for calm restraint or quiet consideration. To be sure, the world is full of noise today. It's full of cruelty and a lot of chaos. We forget that what goes viral is not typical and it's often not even the real world.

In 2008, just prior to his death, Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue wrote, there's a kindness that dwells deep down in things. It presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. That line suggests that there's a fundamental benevolence woven into life itself. And it's not just optimism, and it's not denial. It's something structural.

Something quietly holding everything together. And that quiet kindness is what keeps the world from coming apart at the seams. It's the thin line between civilization and chaos. Maintained not by grand gestures, but by millions of small ones. It's the unspoken agreement that will restrain ourselves, that will be considerate of others, and we won't make life harder than it already is.

And here's what can often be challenging. Opportunities for civility are rarely offered when conditions are ideal. Anyone can be polite when they're well rested and well fed and feeling seen. The real test shows up when you're rushed and distracted, irritated, or exhausted. That's when civility stops being a personality trait and becomes a moral choice.

For example, does civility survive when you're late for a meeting and someone cuts you off in traffic? Or when the cashier is slow and you're already behind schedule? Or when the person in front of you seems oblivious to the fact that other people in the world even exist? Do you choose to escalate that or deescalate? To make the situation worse or slightly better?

Those moments don't feel profound when they're happening. They feel mundane, a part of ordinary life. But they're quietly formative. They shape who we're becoming. Civility in the sense is not about manners.

It's about mastery. The ability to resist the impulse to discharge your frustration on the nearest available target. Now, the cynics will say that all this is just social conditioning. That we behave decently because friction is uncomfortable. That politeness is merely a lubricant to keep society running smoothly.

And maybe there's some truth to that, but I don't think it's the whole story. See, I've always felt that courtesy is an outward reflection of an inner state. Polite behavior and more specifically gratitude flows naturally from a calm and untroubled soul. When you're genuinely at peace, courtesy isn't a burden. It's not something you have to remind yourself to perform.

It's simply how you move through the world. When someone is chronically rude or impatient or hostile, it's rarely because they've thought deeply about rejecting civility. More often, it's because they're carrying an invisible load, A load of stress, or resentment, or insecurity, or fear. Incivility is usually a symptom, not a philosophy. And some of this might help explain why smaller towns are quietly bouncing back to life.

There's a renewed appreciation for places where people still recognize each other and still rely on one another, and still feel a sense of mutual obligation. In those smaller environments, civility isn't abstract. It's practical. You can't afford to burn every bridge when you might see that same person tomorrow. See the car you cut off in traffic might just be your kid's little league coach.

And that nasty tweet you just sent out might be read by your pastor. None of the civility or politeness makes headlines. It doesn't trend on social media. It doesn't spark debate panels or viral threads, but it quietly contradicts the story we've been told. That decency is dead, and that selfishness is one, that the social fabric of America has completely unraveled.

The truth actually is more subtle, in some ways, more hopeful. Civility hasn't disappeared. Maybe it's gone underground. And maybe it often today lives in restraint, in patience, in the decision not to react to the cutting remark, in the moment you choose to give someone the benefit of the doubt, in the countless acts of consideration that go unrecorded and unrewarded. See, there's another reason why incivility survives today.

It gives us a villain. It gives us a target. If the world is broken because everyone else is terrible, then we look better and feel better about ourselves. Civility on the other hand requires something of us. It requires restraint when retaliation would feel a lot better.

It asks for patience when impatience would feel justified. And asks us to absorb a little discomfort So the shared space that we all live in remains livable. That's a really hard sell on a culture built on self expression today above all other things. We've confused authenticity with impulse. And we've been told that if we feel something strongly enough, it deserves immediate expression.

But civilization has always depended on the opposite idea, that not every feeling needs to be shared or acted upon. That maturity is actually learning which impulses to indulge and which to restrain. C. S. Lewis understood this tension well.

He wrote about the Tau, universal moral law that he believed applied across all cultures. He wasn't talking about politeness or etiquette. He was pointing to something older and sturdier, a shared understanding that life together requires some limits. That freedom without form collapses into chaos. This is why everyday rituals matter more today than they ever have.

Returning your grocery cart instead of leaving it adrift in the parking lot. Waiting a half second before responding in anger. Letting someone go ahead of you when their need for timeliness is greater than yours. These acts train us and remind us. They reinforce the idea that the world does not orbit around ourselves.

They also remind us that we're not as powerless as the narrative might suggest. You may not be able to fix our politics or our algorithms or our institutions, But you can decide how to behave in the line at the coffee shop. You can decide whether you contribute calm or chaos to the spaces you occupy. Civility is one of the few forms of agency that's still fully within our control. We don't need more declarations about kindness.

What we actually need is more practitioners. More people who still pause, still notice, still choose to not make the day harder than it already is. Because as we know, today really does have enough trouble of its own. Kindness doesn't need defending, it needs practicing. And when we practice it, often without realizing it, we reveal the deeper kindness that O'Donohue spoke of.

The kindness that dwells deep down in things, that presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The one that's always been there, quietly presiding, reminding us how to live alongside one another. Wit and Wisdom is a free weekly podcast for people who are curious about the world. If you learned something today or if this podcast challenged you or it made you think differently about the world, how about sharing it with a few people you care about? Maybe you too can have your own honest conversation about the things that really matter.

So thanks again for tuning in. I hope you'll come back next week for another episode of Wit and Wisdom. And in the meantime, always remember, nothing beats nice.