Blind role-conformity blocks trust as surely as complete withdrawal does

Evidence

It must not, however, be confused with mere conformity – anything but! We have already seen that role-conformity offers little opportunity for the presentation of oneself. Anyone who merely conforms will not be seen as a ‘self’ at all, and therefore can be trusted as little as the person who hurries past. The path to trust is through a transformative response to the expectations of others. One can fulfil them better than expected, or in a different way. Where indifference was expected, a certain outgoing quality can convince, provided it is not overdone. Where careful, reserved remarks are the norm, one can win out by being cautiously incautious. Even superiors, who are accustomed to be treated respectfully and by a restraint of criticism from their underlings, rarely appear put off by a carefree and brisk approach to business, as long as the approach is not overdone and does not degenerate either into pointlessness or into presumptuous familiarity. … To acquire personal trust means withdrawing standardized expectations, as it were, from one’s partner, and replacing them with those that only he, as a distinctive personality, with a unique style, can guarantee to fulfil. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 241

Categorization

• XREF: Devastating for the reader’s thesis: Stevens’s total role-conformity means he is seen as no ‘self’ at all — exactly the dynamic the reader wants to trace from Luhmann to Ishiguro.
• QUESTION: If role conformity yields no ‘self,’ does Stevens’s devotion to butlerhood constitute a pathological or absent self in Luhmann’s terms? Worth chasing.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the graft metaphor in ‘Grafting & Growth’: authenticity here is grown through transformative interaction, not mere adherence to a standard role.