Opinion: Civility has never meant avoiding conflict

It feels as though we have forgotten something important.

Not our convictions. Those seem as strong as ever. If anything, we hold them more tightly than we once did. What seems to have slipped away is our ability to disagree without assuming the worst about one another.

It wasn’t always this way. Neighbors could debate politics over a backyard fence and still borrow a ladder the next day. Families could argue around the dinner table, laugh over dessert, and gather again the following Sunday. People worshipped in different churches, voted for different candidates, and held different opinions, yet still understood themselves to be part of the same community.

Today, disagreement often feels different. Too quickly, it becomes suspicion. Suspicion hardens into contempt. Before long, we are no longer debating ideas; we are questioning the character of the person holding them.

That concerns me.

Not because I believe we should avoid difficult conversations. Quite the opposite. Healthy communities need honest disagreement. Democracies depend upon citizens who think critically, ask difficult questions, and challenge one another. Families grow stronger when hard conversations are met with patience rather than silence. Friendships deepen when honesty is welcomed instead of feared.

Civility has never meant avoiding conflict. It means remembering that the person across from us deserves to be treated with dignity, even when we are convinced they are wrong.

Somewhere along the way, we have confused conviction with contempt.

The two are not the same.

One can hold deeply held beliefs without humiliating another person. One can challenge an idea without attacking the dignity of the person expressing it. In fact, I would argue that our convictions are tested not by how we treat those who agree with us, but by how we treat those who do not.

It doesn’t take much to discover how fragile our conversations have become. A family gathering can become tense with a single political comment. Lifelong friendships quietly fade. Social media rewards quick reactions rather than careful reflection. We have become remarkably efficient at reducing people to labels while becoming increasingly reluctant to learn their stories.

History suggests that communities begin to fray when contempt becomes their common language. Trust slowly erodes. Institutions weaken. Neighbors become strangers. Democracy itself depends not upon unanimous agreement but upon our willingness to disagree without denying one another’s humanity.

What we need today is not less passion but more humility.

Humility does not require us to abandon our convictions. It simply reminds us that none of us possesses the whole truth. It invites us to ask another question before making another accusation. It encourages us to listen not merely long enough to prepare our response, but long enough to understand.

That kind of listening has become surprisingly rare.

Perhaps that is why simple acts of kindness now seem almost revolutionary.

Learning the name of the person who serves your morning coffee. Greeting the neighbor whose campaign sign differs from your own. Choosing curiosity instead of assumption. Refusing to believe that a single opinion tells you everything worth knowing about another human being.

These are not dramatic acts.

They are ordinary ones.

Yet history has always been shaped by ordinary people making ordinary choices with extraordinary consistency.

I remain hopeful.

Not because I think our divisions will suddenly disappear. They won’t. Every generation has wrestled with disagreement in one form or another. Hope comes from believing that we can choose a better way forward.

That choice will not begin in Washington. It will not begin on television or social media. It will begin much closer to home.

It begins in the conversations we have around our dinner tables.

It begins in the way we speak to our neighbors.

It begins in the small, everyday decisions that determine whether another person leaves our presence feeling diminished or valued.

Perhaps the measure of a healthy society is not whether we always agree.

Perhaps it is whether we remember, even in our deepest disagreements, that we still belong to one another.

That seems like a good place to begin.

Peter Preble, of Hull, is an author, public theologian, and hospice chaplain whose work explores the places where faith, grief, history, ethics, and community meet everyday life.