Anonymously constituted meaning needs no interpersonal trust

Evidence

Meaning and world are, in the main, constituted anonymously. Everybody is presupposed and co-experienced as sharing the same formal, empty entity of another ego, as being another ‘I’, an impersonal ‘one’. This constitution remains undifferentiated and is, in a diffuse way, shared by everybody. Up to this point, no special need for trust in one’s fellow human being arises. Anyone who does not concur does not shatter the commonly held world view, but in fact cuts himself off from reasonable humanity. This anonymous form of constitution corresponds to the communication medium, truth, as the form of acquaintanceship to familiarity and the self-evident quality of being. In interpersonal communication only part of this familiarity is verbalized; the rest is presupposed as the basis for understanding, being well and truly guaranteed as self-evident by moral approval. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 133

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the crucial distinction: anonymous-constitution (no trust needed) vs. person-to-person acquaintance/familiarity (trust territory) — the pivot of Luhmann’s whole argument.
• XREF: This maps onto Giddens’s contrast between faceless commitments to abstract systems (anonymous constitution) and facework commitments between individuals.