Confidence can degrade into hope when it no longer tracks one’s own actions

Evidence

Confidence, in the sense defined by Luhmann in this volume, might be described as a kind of blind trust where, given the constraints of the situation, the relationships we engage in depend or are seen to depend very little on our actions and decisions. In other words, confidence may also issue from wishful thinking and the reduction of cognitive dissonance; it would then be more akin to hope than trust. We still know little, though, about how a certain level of trust is or can be achieved and promoted. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2767

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes Luhmann’s ‘confidence’ as blind trust decoupled from one’s own actions, shading into hope — a precise term the reader needs for the Saramago analysis.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s Luhmann ‘familiarity’ baseline — confidence-as-hope is what collapses when sight vanishes in Blindness. — connects to: Powerless hope is the sole precondition for continuing to live — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 149; Beauty’s powerlessness becomes the negative image of redemptive hope — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 250; Hope has two opposites, anxiety and memory, which invert rather than negate it (+4 more)
• QUESTION: Game-theoretic question worth chasing: does the doctor’s wife’s observability convert others’ ‘confidence’ back into active ‘trust’?