Emotional grounding in one circle underwrites trust extended beyond that circle.

Evidence

This general structure of emotional relationships shows already that here we have a generalized medium of problem-solving, an equivalent for certainty, of the type which we are seeking as a foundation for readiness to trust. Positive emotional relationships between people can scarcely be maintained in the long run without trust. They lead, as the jealousy complex can illustrate, to an unstable state which reduces the emotion to ruins, but often cannot replace it, and hence cannot get away from it. Moreover, emotions form a foundation for entering into relationships of trust with other people to whom the emotion itself does not extend. Anyone who is emotionally rooted in a circle of people, a home, a role constellation with tasks and duties, is thereby supported in opening up relationships of trust outside this narrow circle. The emotional attachment of the child to his family is, for example, the foundation for the learning of all trust. In this way readiness to trust can survive as a habitual and proven attitude long after the emotions to which it owes its existence have faded. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 289

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Giddens’s ‘facework commitments’ seeding ‘faceless commitments’ — emotional familiarity as the origin of generalized trust; core to the reader’s thesis.
• SEED: Angle: Stevens of ‘The Remains of the Day’ transfers family-anchored devotion onto the institution of Darlington Hall — Luhmann here gives the mechanism for how infant emotional security becomes institutional deference.