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The US used to stylize itself a high trust society. I’m not sure how much that was a fantasy dependent on horrific repression’s from slavery to Jim Crow, and h

The US used to stylize itself a high trust society. I’m not sure how much that was a fantasy dependent on horrific repression’s from slavery to Jim Crow, and how much it actually adhered even amongst groups of people that weren’t based on racial exclusion. Regardless, I worry for US culture. Trust in institutions seems to be at an all time low; institutions take generations to build, we won’t get them back easily or quickly.

PKop 8y ago
It might have been more high trust because it was less culturally diverse. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  The US was always diverse though. Just maybe not so much culturally. I mean, sure, everyone that a given person was likely to see spoke english, ate chicken, and went to some form of Christian church on Sunday. BUT, some of the people were white, some were native american, some were black, down in Texas area you even had hispanics. So the US was pretty diverse. Unless we're not counting racial diversity?
  - dx87 8y ago
    Yeah, I don't think racial diversity counts for the trust issue. Obviously there are some people that won't trust someone based on their race, but it seems like most groups are willing to accept anyone as long as they follow cultural norms; skin color just seems to be a quick proxy for "they look different, so they're probably culturally different". Just watch the aftermath of a local football team winning a big game. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, black or white, everyone in the city celebrates together.
    - pickleman 8y ago
      That's not exactly a time of stress. Prisons aren't divided by favorite football team. There's also the lunchroom test.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      What if your nation had laws that for a century forcibly excluded one race from the dominant culture? The idea that "acting white" is a "get out of racism free" card is a vicious myth.
  - billner 8y ago
    The US was drastically less racially diverse 50 years ago. It was 90% non hispanic white in 1965 before immigration laws were changed.
    - carry_bit 8y ago
      And effectively segregated, making it even more white in areas.
- bsder 8y ago
  That's almost a hilarious statement. The same rhetoric used against those from Mexico or the Middle East today was used against those from Ireland, Hungary, Poland, etc. 100+ years ago. https://www.jaha.org/attractions/heritage-discovery-center/hdc-features/america-through-immigrant-eyes/ https://www.jaha.org/attractions/heritage-discovery-center/h... Insular, bigoted, ignorant people is not a new phenomenon.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
> Trust in institutions seems to be at an all time low; institutions take generations to build, we won’t get them back easily or quickly. So what? I see nothing wrong with reliance on government being replaced with reliance on more local entities (i.e. one's friends, neighbors, church congregation, local government, etc) which is what happens in the near term when trust in higher level authority collapses. If the state doesn't think the feds will give them money for roads then they'll figure out a way to build it themselves. If the community college doesn't think they'll get federal grant money they'll get the state to give it to them or fund-raise it themselves. Sure, if the federal government just stopped handing out SSI checks, highway dollars and research grands tomorrow it would suck a lot for a lot of people in the short term but in the long term you'd see towns and states running their own programs to compensate. Something always creeps in to fill the vacuum. Edit: JFC people, I'm not advocating for some sort of near-anarchy where the only government is local. I'm saying that government action should always be performed on the most local level possible and I see no problem with an erosion of trust in Federal government as a means to that end.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  What happens when an entire town is poor, or washed over by a hurricane? They pick each other up by each other's bootstraps? What's your theory for the Great Depression, that persisted until WWII's nation-wide economic coordination? The only way I can see to match your theory to experience is to observe that yeah, poverty evaporates when the poverty stricken people nearly all die off.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    > when an entire town is poor, or washed over by a hurricane? They pick each other up by each other's bootstraps? Those are cases when you need higher level help. For unexceptional, routine, stuff there's no reason to make a higher than necessary level of authority deal with it. Doing so is like having a CEO waste his time figuring out what office furniture to buy. Funding a food bank is something that can be done on a local level. Figuring out health insurance is something that can be done on the state level. Etc. >The only way I can see to match your theory to experience is to observe that yeah, poverty evaporates when the poverty stricken people nearly all die off. You know what else tends to evaporate? Tax dollars making the long trip all the way up the stack just to come back down it. Administrative overhead is nonzero. Better to just fund a locally if possible.
slededit 8y ago
There are different America’s depending on where you live and who you are. Some are high trust and some are not. It has always been that way.
- coldtea 8y ago
  The mere fact that pockets of America are high trust and others low trust, is obviously true. But the parent implies that how many and/or where those are has changed. So "It has always been away" doesn't answer the parent's concern, except if you meant to add "and always to the same degree". That would be astounding though. By what mechanism would this eternal (always) balance be achieved, while history marches on and culture changes?
  - slededit 8y ago
    I think the change is people are realizing things are different for other people. Your still going to get treated differently for drunkenly making a scene in an upper class suburban neighborhood vs a white working class one. NYC is as corrupt as it always was. The subway worked for a short while in the 90s but it’s back to its average level of grunge and disrepair. I think the main problem is really that nothing has improved much since the 60s.
pjc50 8y ago
Trust is like a rainforest: a resource that takes years to build up and provides benefit to the world, but can be looted for profit - once. Ultimately the question is "why don't I just wire the contents of the treasury to my bank account, bribing my cronies in the ruling party along the way?" People routinely get away with massive theft from the state in less developed countries, but they rely on being able to move the wealth to somewhere more stable so they can keep it. Most immediately is the question "why don't I just de-register all the opposition voters?" ...
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  > People routinely get away with massive theft from the state in less developed countries, but they rely on being able to move the wealth to somewhere more stable so they can keep it. For those not super tuned-in to international politics, Putin's regime in Russia thrives on exactly the type of behavior, and the Maginitsky Acts passed by the US and several other countries are designed to fetter the kleptocracy by taking away the safe places to keep stolen cash.

PKop 8y ago

It might have been more high trust because it was less culturally diverse. http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...

bilbo0s 8y ago
The US was always diverse though. Just maybe not so much culturally. I mean, sure, everyone that a given person was likely to see spoke english, ate chicken, and went to some form of Christian church on Sunday. BUT, some of the people were white, some were native american, some were black, down in Texas area you even had hispanics. So the US was pretty diverse. Unless we're not counting racial diversity?
- dx87 8y ago
  Yeah, I don't think racial diversity counts for the trust issue. Obviously there are some people that won't trust someone based on their race, but it seems like most groups are willing to accept anyone as long as they follow cultural norms; skin color just seems to be a quick proxy for "they look different, so they're probably culturally different". Just watch the aftermath of a local football team winning a big game. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, black or white, everyone in the city celebrates together.
  - pickleman 8y ago
    That's not exactly a time of stress. Prisons aren't divided by favorite football team. There's also the lunchroom test.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    What if your nation had laws that for a century forcibly excluded one race from the dominant culture? The idea that "acting white" is a "get out of racism free" card is a vicious myth.
- billner 8y ago
  The US was drastically less racially diverse 50 years ago. It was 90% non hispanic white in 1965 before immigration laws were changed.
  - carry_bit 8y ago
    And effectively segregated, making it even more white in areas.
bsder 8y ago
That's almost a hilarious statement. The same rhetoric used against those from Mexico or the Middle East today was used against those from Ireland, Hungary, Poland, etc. 100+ years ago. https://www.jaha.org/attractions/heritage-discovery-center/hdc-features/america-through-immigrant-eyes/ https://www.jaha.org/attractions/heritage-discovery-center/h... Insular, bigoted, ignorant people is not a new phenomenon.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

> Trust in institutions seems to be at an all time low; institutions take generations to build, we won’t get them back easily or quickly. So what? I see nothing wrong with reliance on government being replaced with reliance on more local entities (i.e. one's friends, neighbors, church congregation, local government, etc) which is what happens in the near term when trust in higher level authority collapses. If the state doesn't think the feds will give them money for roads then they'll figure out a way to build it themselves. If the community college doesn't think they'll get federal grant money they'll get the state to give it to them or fund-raise it themselves. Sure, if the federal government just stopped handing out SSI checks, highway dollars and research grands tomorrow it would suck a lot for a lot of people in the short term but in the long term you'd see towns and states running their own programs to compensate. Something always creeps in to fill the vacuum. Edit: JFC people, I'm not advocating for some sort of near-anarchy where the only government is local. I'm saying that government action should always be performed on the most local level possible and I see no problem with an erosion of trust in Federal government as a means to that end.

fjsolwmv 8y ago
What happens when an entire town is poor, or washed over by a hurricane? They pick each other up by each other's bootstraps? What's your theory for the Great Depression, that persisted until WWII's nation-wide economic coordination? The only way I can see to match your theory to experience is to observe that yeah, poverty evaporates when the poverty stricken people nearly all die off.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  > when an entire town is poor, or washed over by a hurricane? They pick each other up by each other's bootstraps? Those are cases when you need higher level help. For unexceptional, routine, stuff there's no reason to make a higher than necessary level of authority deal with it. Doing so is like having a CEO waste his time figuring out what office furniture to buy. Funding a food bank is something that can be done on a local level. Figuring out health insurance is something that can be done on the state level. Etc. >The only way I can see to match your theory to experience is to observe that yeah, poverty evaporates when the poverty stricken people nearly all die off. You know what else tends to evaporate? Tax dollars making the long trip all the way up the stack just to come back down it. Administrative overhead is nonzero. Better to just fund a locally if possible.

slededit 8y ago

There are different America’s depending on where you live and who you are. Some are high trust and some are not. It has always been that way.

coldtea 8y ago
The mere fact that pockets of America are high trust and others low trust, is obviously true. But the parent implies that how many and/or where those are has changed. So "It has always been away" doesn't answer the parent's concern, except if you meant to add "and always to the same degree". That would be astounding though. By what mechanism would this eternal (always) balance be achieved, while history marches on and culture changes?
- slededit 8y ago
  I think the change is people are realizing things are different for other people. Your still going to get treated differently for drunkenly making a scene in an upper class suburban neighborhood vs a white working class one. NYC is as corrupt as it always was. The subway worked for a short while in the 90s but it’s back to its average level of grunge and disrepair. I think the main problem is really that nothing has improved much since the 60s.

pjc50 8y ago

Trust is like a rainforest: a resource that takes years to build up and provides benefit to the world, but can be looted for profit - once. Ultimately the question is "why don't I just wire the contents of the treasury to my bank account, bribing my cronies in the ruling party along the way?" People routinely get away with massive theft from the state in less developed countries, but they rely on being able to move the wealth to somewhere more stable so they can keep it. Most immediately is the question "why don't I just de-register all the opposition voters?" ...

hannasanarion 8y ago
> People routinely get away with massive theft from the state in less developed countries, but they rely on being able to move the wealth to somewhere more stable so they can keep it. For those not super tuned-in to international politics, Putin's regime in Russia thrives on exactly the type of behavior, and the Maginitsky Acts passed by the US and several other countries are designed to fetter the kleptocracy by taking away the safe places to keep stolen cash.