Over the past few days, since I originally started thinking about and writing that first post on trust, I have had conversations with friends on the topic which have involved some push back and much enrichment, leading to both an enlargement and enrichment of and also a more nuanced and clarified conception of what I think I am getting at when I consider the intrinsic value of trust.
This is a work in progress - so these ideas remain a little hap-hazard... I am working it out as I go. As all these issues are somewhat interrelated, there will be both cross-over and repetition as I proceed here.
To start with there is a concern about naivete, about ill-founded trust, about the propensity to be betrayed. This is critical as regular or repeated evidence that the world, that others, cannot be trusted will surely inhibit trust. One friend was inclined to take the view that 'trust' always has this flawed innocence about it and that it's almost as though it is something childish that we need to shed to function effectively. And indeed my friend Sarah acknowledged that trust is often viewed as 'weak'.
A second friend remembered reading a book on sales and all the tricksy techniques that reps can practice to encourage customers to trust them. She went on to say that scammers, spammers and con artists rely on the inclination to trust. And indeed my friend Sarah acknowledged that trust is often viewed as 'weak'.
Another friend referenced the nuclear disarmament programme between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in which the term 'trust but verify' become current. Now, in this case the friend said he preferred trust and verify, as the word but tends to diminish if not negate the role of the trust, which has to come first - but that it's as though trust is the willingness to open the door, it's just that you keep the chain across until you have seen the identification. A pragmatic view.
My first conversation partner conceded, though, that trust could be psychologically rational as an in-group response. This fits an evolutionary model - one trusts members of one's tribe (but how far, given one is looking out for infractions!) but definitively does not trust out-group members. I think we do see this in the increasing circles of distrust in normal, everyday behaviour. The heuristic that 'people like us' are likely to be OK. It's rather unappealing, but is probably the unconscious norm. With different people having variously larger or smaller circles of 'likeness'.
And of course it is true that there are cheaters, free-riders, thieves and manipulators. So, surely, one would be wise to limit one's trust.
How can one do that? Well, the 'people like us' heuristic offers a category basis.
Moving further out, one could say:
1 I will trust where I am sure there is security, surveillance and the threat of punishment
2 I will trust where there is binding legislation (a similar protocol)
3 I will trust where I have comprehensive evidence on the trustworthiness of the agent
4 I will trust where it is in their interests to be trustworthy (that they want to prove their status, that they want to prove their professional standing)
5 I will trust a person who I know loves me or cares about my interests
But I have two arguments with this: firstly that all these, except 3 and 5, effectively rely on the self-interest (not generosity or intrinsic trustworthiness) of the agent, who seeks to avoid punishment or status-loss of some sort; and secondly that all, even 5, are not matters of trust qua trust but of reasoned decision-making (a kind of cost-benefit analysis).
This leads me to believe that, just as I had to come up with my-concept-of-hope, so too I have to come up with my-concept-of-trust, which I will from now on refer to as trust*.
Whereas in 'real-life' one can have 'too much trust' - because the 'normal' concept of trust as an appropriate, if not to be a 'weak', 'naive', 'childish' reaction to the world, has to entail force, threat, promise, contract, self-interest, evidence or love - trust* is not graduated, limited, qualified or defined.
Further, trust might be irrational if one, say, trusted one's vet to tell one where to buy stocks and shares or trusted one's accountant to tell one what to wear to a yoga retreat. Consequently, trust in normal usage depends on the merits of the person one is trusting in the given domain where one is seeking to have trust in them.
And here I think is where my clarification comes to the fore. Whereas there is something specific in play when one says, 'I have found a lawyer to represent me and I trust her' there is nothing specific about saying 'Elly is my friend. I trust her.' Now, one could say that I have built up evidence about Elly over years of knowing her, but this is not the concept I am pointing at. I would not trust Elly to represent me in court, nor would I trust her advice on stocks and shares nor, even, on appropriate clothing for going to a yoga retreat. Instead of trusting her within the terms of a specific 'game', I am trusting that she is a subject with normal human feelings, a level of insight, the ability to respond to reason and certain assumed socialised qualities inherent in humans in a social context. I am not assuming infallibility, perfection, consistency, ultimate knowledge, selflessness or even complete honesty. I am assuming that she is a person.
Now, it's evident that I chose to pick 'a friend'. I could just as well have said, 'Gary is my brother. I trust him.' I chose a close and personal relationship in order to make the example persuasive. And then I elaborated what that trust* means, because in none of the defining characteristics of trust* that I elucidated was there any need for me to actually like Elly (which I do, greatly) or even to know her well. All the characteristics I chose are characteristics of every human agent, with perhaps the exception of extreme psychopaths.
So, what I insist as an intrinsic good is the simple assumption in dealings with others that they are persons, subjects, with their own thoughts, beliefs and desires, their own interests, needs and dependencies. It is a recognition of the equal dignity of and respect due to the other. The assumption that they are no 'worse' or 'lesser' than the self. The assumption that they are just as capable of acting well as the self - and indeed that the self is just as capable of acting badly as the other. It is a condition of humility and vulnerability and at the same time one of respect and acceptance. It allows for a connection above self-interest and irrespective of world-view (political, religious, ideological dogma).
This trust* is seen in, for example, Martin Buber's 'I and Thou' conception. Buber's view was that when two people open up to each other, recognising each other's separateness, uniqueness and depth (all the thoughts, intentions, fears and desires that you cannot know but that you can acknowledge as existing in the other) while also, simultaneously, being aware of the relatedness, the essential humanity that links them, a 'between' state is created - the relationship is greater than the sum of its parts. This is reminiscent of Winnicott's view, of course, but also of the concepts of harmony and inter-relatedness of East Asian traditions. If one sees this between state as manifest not in between two distinct selves, but as the overlapping of them or indeed like the white dot in the black Yang and the black dot in the white Yin, then the very thought of harming the other is a harming of 'self'. The between or overlap is where self is, not just the private place where we conceive of self.
Trust* is accepting, recognising, manifesting the overlap - and allowing that same acceptance, recognition, manifestation to the other. Trust* thus creates the groundwork for trustworthiness by manifesting the relationship.
While trust may be fragile, require epistemic, legal and contractual support, trust* is a state of mind that is in a sense empty of preconceptions and full of potentials.
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