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I've often given thought to exactly this problem: trust in all American institutions has been and continues to decline precipitously. I can not name a single c

I've often given thought to exactly this problem: trust in all American institutions has been and continues to decline precipitously. I can not name a single case of trust increasing anywhere within the last decade - religion and the church (catholic/Catholic/et al), government at all levels (SF on up to NASA), academia and the sciences and seemingly all forms of education from elementary school on up to University, unions, the medical establishment from local providers to the CDC/FDA/NIH, the US military, the police (although somehow, we went from the Democratic party regarding the FBI as Hoover's institute to one safeguarding Democracy), Facebook (Big Tech Everyman) went from a beacon of Democracy under the election of Obama to whatever it is considered now, corporations and Capitalism, the courts and even the founding of the country itself. For a more niche subject of personal interest, our furniture has seemingly purposefully declined in quality as we outsourced manufacturing to China via IKEA and forced everyone else to do so. I'd guess that the polarization of our society is self reinforcing, and that as it increases, our institutions follow along for one reason or another whether it be some form of "good business" or internal capture. Its probably some Internet Law that any institution not specifically devoted to staying out of it will eventually succumb, but even then you have the ACLU... and there is non-culture war decline in trust - something more like the financialization of everything or the injection of metrics into all parts of life that can be metered.... We don't value competence and accountability first; maybe this was always the case and only our narrative changed, but that's hard to imagine when we used to do things. At this point, why not Research, too?

effie 5y ago
Interesting observation. Maybe it's a natural evolution of society, that in part it resembles evolution of a person - it starts out young, full of ideals and energy, trusting the people and institutions around them. Then it gets older, loses energy and as perception of corruption blows up, trust becomes rarer. This does not have to be the end of that society like it is for the person, but probably society needs some radical revolution to get things "back on track" again. In research, abolishing the grant system and the business model of universities selling credentials in favour of direct financing of learning and research institutions to teach the best students should be attempted. It probably won't come from the academia, it has to come from the state.
coliveira 5y ago
My view of this is that the pursuit of money is leading America (and the whole western society) to a dead end. Everything now is corrupted by money is a very shocking way (it was always like that, but not in the open). We're back to the 20s of the previous century, where a few people had enormous amounts of money and most people barely survived, even in the richest country in the world.
jkhdigital 5y ago
Shelby Steele does a good job of diagnosing the malady in his book White Guilt: when institutional America had to own up to its sins in the era of civil rights, it surrendered moral authority. Every generation rebels, but usually the kids come back to the same principles that their parents held once they experience the real world for a time. The civil rights era broke this pattern: the adults were wrong, and admitted it, and so an entire generation (Boomers) came of age thinking they had the justified authority to question and possibly overturn any of their elders’ institutions.

effie 5y ago

Interesting observation. Maybe it's a natural evolution of society, that in part it resembles evolution of a person - it starts out young, full of ideals and energy, trusting the people and institutions around them. Then it gets older, loses energy and as perception of corruption blows up, trust becomes rarer. This does not have to be the end of that society like it is for the person, but probably society needs some radical revolution to get things "back on track" again. In research, abolishing the grant system and the business model of universities selling credentials in favour of direct financing of learning and research institutions to teach the best students should be attempted. It probably won't come from the academia, it has to come from the state.

coliveira 5y ago

My view of this is that the pursuit of money is leading America (and the whole western society) to a dead end. Everything now is corrupted by money is a very shocking way (it was always like that, but not in the open). We're back to the 20s of the previous century, where a few people had enormous amounts of money and most people barely survived, even in the richest country in the world.

jkhdigital 5y ago

Shelby Steele does a good job of diagnosing the malady in his book White Guilt: when institutional America had to own up to its sins in the era of civil rights, it surrendered moral authority. Every generation rebels, but usually the kids come back to the same principles that their parents held once they experience the real world for a time. The civil rights era broke this pattern: the adults were wrong, and admitted it, and so an entire generation (Boomers) came of age thinking they had the justified authority to question and possibly overturn any of their elders’ institutions.