I love to walk.
Walking was how I mostly got around when I was a kid, and I guess it stuck with me. It’s not just good exercise, and it’s more than a way to get from one place to another. For me it’s also a way to let my thoughts sift and a time to let ideas emerge.
I’ve been walking to and from work, and my route takes me through part of downtown Milwaukee. Recently, I’ve been noticing the small interactions I have with other people I encounter on the street.
Yesterday, one of three guys hanging around the entrance to the Central Public Library turned away from his conversation to open the door for me as I approached.
Earlier this week, a woman coming toward me on the sidewalk warned me of an icy patch up ahead.
One morning, the doorman in front of the Hilton called out a cheery greeting as I approached.
More generally, people often look up and say “hello” as we pass. Occasionally, they make a remark about the weather.
I find these brushes of civity – feather-light touches that connect one stranger to another with an “I see you!” signal – hard to reconcile with the prevailing stories about intractable tribalism, innate us-versus-them group dynamics, and inevitably growing distrust. You know the stories I’m talking about…
What I see every day tells a different kind of story.
In this story – let’s call it the civity story – millions of people cooperate in billions of different ways every minute of every day. They are, of course, looking out for themselves and for their loved ones. And, also of course, it is cooperating with everyone else that makes it possible for them to get what they need – what we all need – to survive and thrive.
In the civity story, cooperation is the norm – the default. It doesn’t make the news because it’s the rule rather than the exception. And it is us, all of us, whose interactions make it so.
The civity story is aligned with the story that Rutger Bregman offers in Humankind: A Hopeful History: Bregman says we should take with a huge grain of salt some of the psychological studies that “prove” people are innately and inherently cutthroat and competitive. (Actually, the reverse may be true.)
The civity story resonates with the results of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge that Civity participated in with our Civity Storytelling Intervention: Almost all of the 25 short, virtual interventions tested in this rigorous mega-study effectively reduced partisan animosity. (It really doesn’t take much to reduce “affective polarization” and build trust.)
The civity story is affirmed by psychologist Greg Walton’s work on wise interventions: Tiny, intentional interactions have the capacity to change our stories about ourselves in ways that help us adapt and flourish. (Micro-inclusions matter!)
Even more fundamentally, this story is the story that most of us live every day. Because we live it, we can hold onto its truth – and by holding onto its truth, we can live into it even more.
What I’ve found, having been immersed in civity for a long time now, is that carrying the civity story with me through my day makes it just that little bit more likely that, the next time I’m going into the library, I’ll hold the door open for someone else.
Or I’ll take the initiative in greeting the hotel doorman.
Or I’ll make eye contact with someone who looks like they are in need and say a person-to-person hello.
Walking the civity walk, as it turns out, isn’t that much of a stretch. It’s simply acknowledging a part of who we are that has sometimes gone underground. And it makes a difference.