On Trust

Trust in Daily Life

Trust is always happening everyday. We trust persons; like we trust a friend or a teacher. We trust organizations and institutions like schools and shops and offices. When we drink a fruit juice that we buy we “trust” that it will refresh and will not kill us. When we use a computer we trust that it will function.

A minimum of trust 

Now we think a lot about the future. Modern life is so future oriented. We think of careers, savings, security, etc. So many things happen around us. Prices go up. Political leadership make decisions we do not comprehend. We navigate through a complex life. Our trust would rely less and less on what is predictable. Motives are hidden and yet they can influence institutions. Values, moral norms, religious beliefs...they are all changing. We are exposed to so many forms of information and to so many possible alternative life-styles. Even our local languages and dialects are filled with new foreign words and phrases--proof of the fusion of information and cultures. 
When we trust we often do not know all the details—we do not have full information. We might say, “I trust my teacher”. Yet do we have all information about the teacher? Do we know the extent of the teacher's competence? Not completely. We might say that as we drink a juice from the store, “I trust this drink”. Do we know everything in that drink? How often do we look at the ingredients?

When we trust we are a bit in the middle between complete knowledge and complete ignorance. We do not have full control of everything happening around us; we do not know everything that is going on around us. We rely a lot on trust. We trust the doctor and we think that the doctor knows much about an illness.

Imagine if we have to know everything before we trust. This is impossible. If we rely on full information all the time we might not trust anyone or anything. Imagine that we have to know details about the doctor in the emergency room before we allow medical attention. Imagine that we need to get all information about electricity before we switch on a lamp. Imagine that we have to know all information about someone before making friends with that person. 

At times trust may need time, ok. Before becoming full friends we might want to take time to know each other. But somewhere along the way we make a jump—a leap. We need to accept limits and decide. Just think of the many jumps we have done in life—the different commitments we have done. We have been “leaping” very often. We might want to use the word “risk”. We take risks in trust although we are not always aware of this.

We might feel risk when, for example, getting into a "life commitment"; let us say one is thinking of getting married. One gets in touch with his or her own proper decisions. Perhaps when commitments are less personal we feel less risk-taking. We might experience this during political elections. Still, we make leaps on a personal or an impersonal level. 

In the routine of daily life we might not give this much notice. We might not notice how often we leap and jump and make risks. But then consider a moment of  disappointed and deception.   

One may have been expecting a good relationship with a friend but then later realizes that the friend is cheating and deceiving. Noticing a deception does one not feel like withdrawing trust? 

Ok, let us say that it is possible to give a “second chance”. But somewhere along the way trust is already strained. One might take note of a possible danger to a future dealing with the friend. 

If we insist on trusting only to be later so disappointed do we not feel regret? We might say, “I took the risk and it was a mistake”.

One might trust his or her parents. One might trust an elder in the family. One might trust ateacher or a priest. We might admit that trust for these people are unconditional. Fine. Can trust be really unconditional? We trust as far as we are not deceived. Yes, we might trust some people unconditionally. We give full confidence and we cannot see how they can deceive us. We experience this, maybe, in the family. We experience this in ordinary daily life. Trust seems to be so routine. We do not have to calculate the risks. In routine we experience our expectations consistently met. We have friends who behave faithfully towards us, we use the electricity that is consistently charged, we drink juices and coffee that refresh us, we read the newspapers that inform us, we visit websites that entertain us, we have political leaders who are so honest (cough cough ubo ubo....), etc. 
Our trust is so routine we do not think that we make risks. We accept what our experiences tell us. We think that we are not being fooled by our experiences. Routine everyday life is like this. 

But what happens when we see the possibility of deception? We might then start calculating our trust. This is when we notice uncertainty, when we see that we are deceived. We might want to continue trusting but we are careful—we set limits. Trust becomes "conditional".

Conditional trust happens when we know that a deception can take place. If we go into business even with a friend we might want to set a contract and we place our signatures on legal documents. It is a strategy of trust that is conditional. We trust that we will not fool each other but if we do fool each other we have a contract to penalize that. Framing a contract is a strategy to protect trust and avoid cheating, deception and disappointment. When we are really deceived then we can withdraw the trust and be protected by the contract.

Trust therefore is the confidence we make in our lives towards people and things and institutions. It can be routine trust or it can be very calculated trust filled with conditions, depending on the risks we notice.

A "minimum" in society

Now, trust is very important for us to live properly in society. We need a minimum of trust in society to have a sense of security. We want to live in a world that is not fooling us, a world in which we are “at home”. We are not always anguished and we do not live in constant fear. Just imagine if we are always afraid of everything around us—we trust nothing and nobody—we might not want to leave our rooms. We will feel paralyzed in life. Imagine if every person we meet cannot be trusted! Imagine if all members of society mis-trust everyone, how can there be a social life? Trust is really a necessary part of social life. Let us see how trust is important in society. 

In our modern life each of us lives more or less independently of others. Each of us pursues personal plans and goals. Each has his or her interests. Somehow we are different from each other and we have different activities and goals. 

Now if each member of society lives so privately and deviant without considering what others think and feel social life will be chaotic and disordered. Somehow members of a social group need to have common values and norms. A social group needs a minimum of common norms and values. There are norms for dress wear, for food preparation, for music, for relationships between ages or sex, etc. Let us say that a solidarity has to be found among social members. What is this solidarity? 

From a social-scientific (sociological) point of view solidarity is what happens when social members accept the following of social norms. Every member of society behaves in such a way that there is cooperation, order and harmony. Every social member feels somehow responsible for the unity of the social group. Everyone accepts that there are “approved” ways of living together. Social members do not feel life to be at constant risk because everyone feels that others obey the common approved ways.

Trust here is the belief that each member of society is willing to comply with the approved social norms. In trust we believe that others are willing to live as members of the social group and not just as private and deviant individuals. When we ride the transport system we trust that there are people who act responsibly to maintain well the transport system. We trust that they will not fool us and allow the trains or buses to fall off rails and cliffs. We trust that they will follow the expected norm of maintaining a correct transport system. When we use money to buy in a store we trust that persons will recognize that money and its value; we trust that the cashier of the store and the producers selling accept the value of that money. We trust that, more or less, we get our money's worth. We are not duped.

Notice that while we live within common norms and values we avoid deviancy. We trust that we all behave within the parameters of our social norms. We trust that nobody conducts himself or herself deviant in disobedience to the norms. Any social group has its norms and will penalize deviant behavior. Trust presupposes “normalcy”.

The world today is quite complex. We are not so well informed about so many things. There are many developments happening and they can be so fast we might not keep up. There are many things going on in different parts of society we do not know what is going on there. With all this complexity we know we cannot do all and we cannot know all. We have to select relevant information. Others do the same.

In fact in society there are degrees of knowledge and ignorance. A doctor may be very good in the medical field but might be zero in, say, the legal field. It is the lawyer who is expert in the legal field. Social knowledge is distributed (Schutz). In a social world like our societies we need trust. We trust that our actions are coordinated. There are people we believe can take care of things we are ignorant of. There are people who will be responsible enough to handle things that we cannot handle. A patient who can do nothing with his or her illness trusts the doctor, believing that the doctor knows what to do with the illness. A client ignorant of property deals trusts the real estate broker and believes that the broker will process well the tax and other legal documents. Those who are on the side of precariousness and depend on authorities rely on the importance of trust.

Notice that here trust gives us the chance to reduce complexity; it helps simplify life. In other words we trust that others can take care of matters that we do not know of. We do not need to worry about it. Imagine if, during a moment of illness, we have to study anatomy and physiology; we have to study medicine to take care of our damaged health. That will be a very complex situation. Imagine if, during a moment when we sell a land property we have to first study the economics of supply and demand and be licensed real estate brokers. No, we do not need to do this. We can focus on an area of interest and trust that there are others who will be experts in other areas. We trust that those experts will take care of the areas we are handicapped in. We stop worrying too much; there are experts in different areas of our lives. We can focus on matters relevant to our interests and put trust in experts of other fields. 

This has a strong influence in the routine of social life. If we run into problems and difficulties we do not disrupt our routine. Part of the routine is to seek experts. We do not have to risk actions because we know that there are experts who can do things we cannot do. We trust the competence of others. We have a coherent and structured social life.

Thanks to trust we can relate with others. We can do things we want to do knowing that others will respect what we do. Think of a case in which we can leave our properties on our desk and take coffee outside and we trust that others in the room will not steal our things. If we do not have that trust we will never have that cup of coffee outside and we will stay at our desk. In trust we perceive each other mutually and freely; we behave according to what is the best for all of us. We cannot live together as thieves, for example. We trust that others will not steal from us; we trust that they will cheat. We--they and us--know it is best to respect each other’s dignity and properties.

We trust others when we have confidence that what they do will correspond to what we expect of them. When we live this way notice how freely we can move about without fear and anguish. Social life is coordinated. We trust others and we do not have to be always on the watch expecting cheating and misconduct now and then.

We feel more and more that we have to “work for" the future. We have to “make it happen”. We make risks. We do not just apply traditional ways to our future. We need to experiment and seek new ways. Yes, we take risks. What about trust? 

Trust cannot be simply a re-assurance of tradition, not anymore nowadays. We cannot anymore just trust based on what tradition tells us. Tradition may have emphasized, for example, the role of elders and priests. This does not work all the time today. Tradition may have emphasized the central role of the priest or shaman. Today this is not so strong. We do not just rely on what elders say. Is it not true, in fact, that we prefer young and new ideas? Because today we tend to be more risky in our choices and decisions, we need to calculate and discern what we must do.

Can we rely on “institutions”? Can we trust them? We say that we enter into modernity and this implies the "rational" functioning of institutions. We refer to money, contracts, measuring devices, technological instruments to come in-between our relationships. But do take less risks when dealing with institutions?

The use of money can be a good example here. We rely on the stability of money so we trust the “economic system”. Is it not true that if we have so much money we do not have to worry about trusting many others. We can “pay” our way through life. No matter how other people feel and think, we let money take care of our relationships. In money we trust, however. 

We get what we want and people do what we expect them to do thanks to money. It is all about money. We trust each other under the calculation of money. Trust does not have to be personal—it can be “functional” and certainly “economical”. We can rely on institutions to resolve many of our difficulties in life.