intro (i): in trust we trust

Many of us labour under the presumption that are our desires will be fulfilled in relation to others. We believe that we can rely on others to meet our expectations which first develop in our biological need to be fed and clothed. The jury is still out in relation to the necessity of affection, although we are often informed of the importance of being regarded and treated with fondness by others. We lead lives that are chock full of anticipation as we dance to the rhythms of distant premonitions about the coming of days of contentment. The quest for reassurance animates our days and is our mainstay as we languish in glimmers of grace, confident and eager to grasp at good omens under the auspices of despair. We convince ourselves of the objectivity of our wishful thinking and fail to question whence these wishes came. We are always already the outcome of environmental and biological impulses that inform our aspirations to find acceptance in the bosom of our fellow human beings. Yet, it is a requirement of one’s clarity of mind to wonder about the necessity of community and of aspiring to living in communion with others. Were it not for the exchange basis of many societies and the need to cooperate to secure various social goods, then one could reasonably imagine a world full of atomistic individuals fending for themselves. The seeming requirement of cooperation may not even be quite as necessary as contemporary societies would have us believe, for it is entirely possible for people to congregate to produce goods and services and then retreat into their own individual lives. However, regardless of the society one inhabits, the reigning lesson is that one cannot survive without reliance on others. And so, the clock chimes and ticks to the billowing wind as we attempt to proceed undiscouraged in our imaginative efforts to live in harmony with those we deem deserving of our company and those who are imposed upon us through our participation in wage labour, for example. Time unfolds and we arise each morning hopeful that each day will be auspicious as we pray for providence to vindicate our mandated trust in humanity. Tick, tick, tick, and dusk arrives again and again. Trust remains elusive and a negative value that we are forced to observe.

Upon further examination, however, trust and hope are revealed to be intertwined, always already punctuated by a sanguine confidence in the realisability of individual beliefs in the fundamental good of the machinations of the social field. Individuals buy into the unpromised promise of safety, security, and stability that is wrought out of social life, defining themselves in relation or opposition to others. Still, the preoccupation with community, friendship, and Eros buttresses the illusion that one will be accepted and nourished, desired for how one presents herself to the world at large. By and large, trust is built upon reciprocity, for where it is absent, fear would reign. One can imagine the terror with which those living in war zones contend with every day as they cannot extend their trust to anyone other than those in their immediate communities, however one defines the term ‘community’. Each moment of being is punctuated by dread as the social contract that holds between most people is revealed to be fragile. Thou shalt not kill, the barest minimum of what can and should be expected as one moves through the world engaging with and encountering other persons grappling with the business of self-definition, cultivation, and realisation. Still, fear and trust are not bedfellows. They negate each other, although it may be possible for one to trust one person and not another. In these circumstances whatever trust exists in the other is always already tenuous because one will wonder about the extent to which their trusted companion is deserving of being so regarded. The underbelly of social relations is that they are undergirded by the possibility that trust will be broken, whereas the test of time is supposed to prove one way or the other that trust is warranted. Nevertheless, this possibility of fracturing does not do away with trust completely, for one cannot sustainably live in fear, perpetually horrified by the punishing spectre of possibility. To wit, fear is mediated by hope as we sashay into the withering horizon, seeing doubt written on expectant faces, but unable to fully extricate ourselves from the daily demands of trust. Trust is finite, yes, but it is also endless.

In truth, belief is not necessarily a component of trust. One need not harbour any convictions about the trustworthiness of their fellows. She need not be assured of their deservingness of her trust. Belief and trust are not opposed, but the former strengthens the latter. Still, trust does not require belief and that one have faith that disappointment will not knock on their door if they choose it. In fact, trust is not about choice at all. If it is socially and biologically mandated as we have supposed thus far, then it is a principle that we practice and enact and is not primarily an individual disposition that one wilfully cultivates. The sociality of our species persuades and even coerces one into participating in relations of trust with others lest one lead a life on the margins and encumbered by a lack of access to the various social and economic goods that are characteristic of contemporary societies. While we are indoctrinated in the ways of trust which, to some extent, implies belief; we need not believe that someone will not harm us to comfortably walk past them in the street. Nor must we believe in the power of the law and the arms of the state to shield us, for laws can be broken regardless of the attendant consequences which serve as stately threats for those would seek to undermine the social contract. From the moment we are born, the world is evangelising us in the ways of trust, mandating certain behaviours and actions over others in an effort to discourage ‘anti-social’ behaviours. This is despite the fact that what is considered ‘anti-social’ may well be necessary for the reformation of society in ways that would ease the lives of many, although there are certain elements of humanity that seek to wreak havoc for the sake of disruption. The shackles of trust dangle in the sunlight as it caresses the moon and we are driven to observe social norms we neither chose nor created but enact so as to ensure the ongoing governance of ours and other individuals’ lives. To be a heretic and flaunt one’s irreverence for the trust on which society is built would invite the displeasure of others who are similarly caught in the cycle of sanctioned trustworthiness. Belief, therefore, is like a shimmering star. It brightens the skies of trust, but it is far too distant for its light to be felt.

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On the other hand, desire has much to do with trust. Even those who experience suicide ideation and are weary of the business of living desire safety, security, and stability, whatever form these may take for individual persons. The desiderium of unfulfilled hopes and yearnings leads them to believe in the impossibility of the realisation of their desires and needs. They cease to trust that the world and others can fulfill these hopes and are unconvinced of their own agency and capacity to change their circumstances and so, they seek death whereas their true desire is neither death nor oblivion but safety, security, and stability. These are desires we all harbour and contemporary Western societies promise these goods, but their attainment is sorely difficult even for those who trust that sufficient self-motivation and discipline in observing societal norms will yield these goods. Our appetite for the promises that underlie the social norms we observe is voracious as many of us hasten to make desiderata of each other. Relationships become mere means to unending ends, towards romantic and sexual gratification, the validating gaze of friendship, the disciplinary arm of familial relations, and the financial soothsaying of employment. A certain graspingness and libidinous insatiability for the services others provide and perform shapes the social world. Therein lies the utility of mandated trust. Those who recognise the promise of contemporary Western societies of the dignified life reduce others to utilitarian tools on their way to realising the maximal possible good for themselves. This often unrecognised cynicism is germane to the vagaries of mandated trust. It is the antidote to withdrawing from society and ideating suicide. Here, one chooses to trust entirely that if she performs the right tricks and observes the strictures of society, then safety, security, and stability will be attained. While many are not quite so cynical, the desire for these goods animates every life, human or otherwise. When we cannot find these goods, we despair and the grip of trust falls by the wayside. Still, even in these circumstances and to the extent that we still interact with the world, a foundational, objective trust that is external to the individual reigns and underwrites the human experience. Trust is an objective, rather than subjective reality.

Trust permeates each waking moment. It requires neither cultivation nor invitation. It is a fundamental and abiding principle of the metaphysics of being. One might say that we are mere cogs in the machinery of trust. Trust sanctions good relations and goodwill among persons of different hues, sizes, sexes, genders, interests, and proclivities. It is both enduring as a governing principle that yields quite consistent results that foster civility. While one may be lacking in trust as an individual attitude and disposition, she is always already practicing and observing the external mandate to trust through the continued exercise of agency in the world, a world that is basically relational. Still, when the lack of individual trust as an interior disposition prevails, the results can be undeniably disastrous, as in the cases of war, rape, and other forms of physical and psychic violence. The seeming fragility of trust is borne out of a more general desire to ultimately cultivate a sense of belonging in the world and with others. Always, we are searching for that mystical place we call ‘home’. Neither of us approaches the world with indifference, even those who are prone to nihilism. They too are engaged in an effort to make the world sensible and to imbue it with meaning. They struggle with this because of the apparent purposelessness of living. By focusing on the ambivalence of existence, they blind themselves to the underlying imperative to propagate and live in harmony with each other and the natural world. Humanity’s collective failure to construct institutions and cultivate pacifistic norms and economic realities that do not exact punishment on others while a few flourish, holds in spite of the trust-based logics that fundamentally shape this world. Trust prevails in spite of individual disillusionment. In fact, it is immune to destruction through its internalisation by individuals in their efforts to assimilate it as an interior principle with which to approach their relationship to/with the world. Therein lies the hope. However grim the world may appear and however disaffected we may be, trust is abiding as an organising principle of the world and being. This is our predicament; how to assimilate trust into ourselves and interiorly breathe life to what is always present in the external world.

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It is a natural imperative that we are invested in the machinations of the world and all it houses. We cannot help but approach it with care. That is, we care about the outcomes that stem from our action or inaction and the choices we make. From the refusal to make one’s bed to the decision to end a relationship, we care deeply about what happens to us and those who are close to us or, at the very least, those who are consistently in our lives. We exercise our mandate to trust and open ourselves up to the world and, in doing so, we become invested in the outcomes of those relationships. Indeed, trust as the world’s governing principle reveals that life is principally about relationships. Trust is relational and drives each of us to invest in the maintenance of a wide range of relationships. The external reality of trust enables us to live in a world where social trust is not conditional upon the whims of individuals. It is reassuring to know and understand that trust is sovereign. This reality reveals yet another truth, which is that the external and objective reality of trust further sanctions that we live in a state of wonder and stupefaction. It causes us to be fascinated by each encounter with people, animals, the natural environment, inventions, news, art, and so much more. For to wonder about the intentions of another is to express interest in the interior life and attitudes of another as well as how they dispose themselves to others. The socio-biological mandate to trust sanctions our curiosity as we make both conscious and unconscious efforts to comprehend our world and its inhabitants. Without this mandate to trust which is not threatened by individual failures to fully assimilate it into their interior worlds, we would be unable to enjoy the fruits of knowledge, including of ourselves in relation to others who are similarly positioned to us. Therefore, while individual resistance to assimilating trust may result in violence (psychic, physical, economic), the reality of trust still infuses beautiful predispositions into our experience of ourselves and the world. After all, without curiosity and wonder, art and science, romance and friendship, lovemaking and sweet somethings whispered, visits, bittersweet departures, tears shed for striking sunsets, and so much more, would be lacking in colour and serve only as sources of fear and discomfort or worse, apathy. Trust enables our experience and recognition of beauty. And so, our investment in the world and others is propelled. Hence bafflement at those who transgress sanctioned behaviours and attitudes that arise from mandated trust, which can alternately be termed ‘trust in common’. It is wise to remember that bright days are always lurking on the horizon, dancing and swaying to the common good.

Uncertainty militates against the assimilation of trust by individuals. We convince ourselves that others’ observance of the superstructure of trust is unverifiable and dubious. This seeming indeterminate nature of others’ participation in trust-based relations is not enough for many to suspend their disbelief in the purported tenuousness of individual attitudes and dispositions. Many of us move through the world convinced of the unreliability of our fellows. We fancy that we are walking on eggshells and are faced with precarity every step of the way in our efforts to navigate human relationships. Furthermore, we fancy that people are fickle which lends itself to speculation about the extent to which they are capable of assimilating trust. Doubt is never too far away. It lurks in the ever-present shadows of a kind of corrupted wonder that corrodes one’s ability to uphold trust. However, the indecisiveness of doubt also reinforces the edifying kind of wonder that demands one’s observance of our collective mandate to trust. Still, many of us are always awaiting confirmation of the trustworthiness of others. Here, there is opportunity to assimilate and practice trust. There is also the danger of retreating from such a practice and succumbing to paranoia and fear or driving oneself to speak and act in antisocial ways. The supposition that trust is apocryphal unless proven true through the passage of time, is as fallacious as the belief that the earth is flat, one that ensnared many people for far too long. As it is, many believe that trust must be ‘earned’ and that this can be done through a series of encounters which are events that invite others to demonstrate the consistency of their actions and promises. Accordingly, each individual becomes an adjudicator judging the veracity of claims made by others. If others’ actions remain consistent, then this is taken to be the fulfilment of promises made, which subsequently warrants the continuation of the relationship. This understanding of trust is a great danger to humanity. It reduces trust to a transactional encounter where people trade in promises and consistency is the currency. This false belief may well be humanity’s present and future downfall. Warring selves, warring communities, and warring ideals leaving bloodstained feet on well-trodden gravel and bitumen. No future as today weeps for the many departed.