4 ms·
Most of the examples of trusting strangers I have seen reduce to some kind of internal notion of tribe and tribal continuity. Conference goers are a great exam
by fatdog 10y ago
Most of the examples of trusting strangers I have seen reduce to some kind of internal notion of tribe and tribal continuity.
Conference goers are a great example population, since they are from everywhere and have no connection other than a shared interest in the conference proceedings, but the degree of trust among them is extremely (if recklessly) high.
Ethnicity, or "race," is a strong indicator of trust, since what is trust but a default line of credit you extend to someone with the belief that it will be reciprocated.
The U.S. has an american tribe, which includes anyone who seems american enough, and it can easily cross ethnic boundaries. A middle class black person, or an ethnic japanese person whose family has been in america for a few generations can become a part of a "white" trust network with only a few words in the right accent, with the right cultural references.
People trust each other based on their shared and demonstrated perceptions of power and authority. Belief in the same god is often enough, but barring that, alignment to the same institutions (rule of law, english "fair play," property, marriage, etc) will make someone initially trustworthy.
Here, being able to code gets you a long way because it has demonstrated a commitment to understanding, work, incremental success, among other things.
Someone who signals alignment to, or directly against those shared perceptions and institutions will make themselves untrustworthy. If you dress like a criminal, people will treat you like one. Similarly, if you dress like an oppressor, people will treat you like one.
There is nothing mysterious about trust. It only becomes complicated when untrustworthy people insist that they deserve your trust and that you are somehow deficient for declining to extend it.
- Wintamute 10y agoGreat insight! I feel like this line of thinking could shed light on many causes of social friction. Edit: and like my comments sibling says, some uncomfortable truths to be unearthed...
- qj4714 10y agoTrust is something that I think is often taken for granted as something that is naturally occurring, but as you say it is based on shared culturual/religious background. The un-pc question, the uncomfortable question, is whether diversity/immigration contributes towards lack of trust and lack of assimilation.
- fatdog 10y agoI'd say diversity and immigration are separate things. America does a good job of assimilating immigrants into the american tribe. Diversity tends to mean giving power to people who have for whatever reason identified as outside that tribe, and the results are predictable. Low trust societies with little immigration could be explained by strong local tribal identities within it, particularly ones which supersede identifying with shared institutions and narratives. Those tribes could be ethnic, class, regional, linguistic, gangs, families, villages, etc. Village identity in places like Italy and Portugal is often stronger than national identity, mainly because their families are larger and more connected, and their national institutions are fairly recent appearances in those older familial narratives. Diversity situations where you mix people from different tribes without a convincingly powerful umbrella narrative is when you get situations like Somalia and Mexico. They are power vacuums in which the violence continues because nobody is able to win. Ironically the colonial history of places like India and South Africa may be what holds them together, as either you have someone take the reins of those colonial institutions and manage a transition to local rule, or fight a bloody semi-permanent conflict to resolve the power vacuum that not having them leaves. Diversity as we know it today, for all its ostensibly noble goals, is just an attempt at resource redistribution from the tribe who inherited it with the institutions that preserve it, to some people smart enough to make off with it without too much violence. Not sure how people will react when they wake up and notice their stuff is missing and they are now debt slaves, but until then, kum-ba-yah.
- qj4714 10y agoIt's interesting that you say America has done a good job of assimilating immigrants in light of the popularity of Trump. It seems to me the opposite is true. To me, America is a collection of states that is fairly cohesive, but is quickly ripped apart when politics comes up. Americans can have pleasent conversations over sports, entertainment, and food, but anything beyond that and the debates can get pretty hairy...