Trust
I had a lengthy and edifying email conversation with another Bear Blog poster. We touched on some poignant topics, and I wanted to turn one of them into a post here.
He made a really solid point:
Trust is the fundamental piece needed to build any healthy relationship on any level. Interpersonal, societal, or cosmological (mainly meaning the relationship between God and man, [...] broadly meaning man's relationship with his place in the universe), it all requires trust.
I posed to him a scenario where someone buys a paper by just leaving the money on the counter while the clerk is away; both parties exhibit high trust. The clerk is away, trusting that someone won't ransack the place while he's gone. And the customer trusts that the money will make it to the clerk when he returns. But how easily can another man enter, take the money the first man left, and with it, the trust of all those involved. Trust isn't a one-way street. It relies upon the reciprocation of others. And one untrustworthy man leaves low trust society in his wake. 'Fool me once...'
A more trusting, less exploitative world is a better one. Until untrustworthy actors realise this. In a sick twist, the trustworthiness of OTHERS is their greatest weapon.
Consider that there are people who should not be trusted to do certain things. I wouldn't trust my six year old cousin to fix my car. I wouldn't trust the teller at my bank to perform my root canal. Trust must be tempered by a realistic accounting for what people are truly capable of. Maybe some people cannot be trusted with weapons. Should we allow them to wield them, simply on the virtue of radical trust in our fellow man? 'Sure, he's killed before, but we should practice forgiveness and trust him with this rifle.'
I deny the notion that everyone is the same. I don't think anyone truly believes this. No one trusts everyone the same amount. In some hypo-theoretical universe, would maximum trust between all people be optimal? Probably. But we don't live there. We can hardly even pretend to imagine that kind of world. And so I don't concern myself with impossibilities.
So when it comes to trust, well... who can you trust?
Yours Truly,
[Redacted]