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🪵 The Threshold

Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust

Properties2
tagsja-picks, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, category/causal-relationships
aliases@luhmann_trust_2017, loc. 143

4 min read

Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust

Evidence

From this general analysis, it appears that, as far as the particular problem of trust is concerned, a change of mode will occur on the way to greater and more consciously articulated complexity. In anticipation of the following chapter, what follows from this suggestion may now be outlined. On the basis of familiarity with the everyday world, trust is principally interpersonal trust (and is therefore limited). It serves to overcome an element of uncertainty in the behaviour of other people which is experienced as the unpredictability of change in an object. In so far as the need for complexity grows, and in so far as the other person enters the picture both as alter ego and as fellow-author of this complexity and of its reduction, trust has to be extended, and the original unquestionable familiarity of the world pushed back, although it cannot be eliminated completely. It becomes as a result a new form of system trust, which implies renouncing as a conscious risk some possible further information and implies as well a wary indifference to and a continuous control of results. System trust is not only applicable to social systems but also to other people as personal systems. This change, if one looks closely at the assumptions which lie within the mode of trusting, corresponds to a change from bases of trust which are defined in primarily emotional terms, to those which are primarily performance based. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143 (#expands, via linked claim)

Personal trust, therefore, has to be established through the process of self-enquiry: the discovery of oneself becomes a project directly involved with the reflexivity of modernity. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 289 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Whereas in personal trust reflexivity is an exception, system trust builds upon the fact that others also trust and that this common quality of trust becomes conscious. Certainly it is not necessary in each individual case to remember that the ability to function rests on trust in trust. It seems rather that familiarity with money, power and truth is learned as behaviour and that typically the reflexivity of this mechanism remains latent, as does its highly risky character. Such latency can make the creation of trust more simple and act as a safeguard against uncontrollable fears – what would happen if everyone suddenly wanted to cash in all their money, or if everyone appeared armed on the streets. Nevertheless, the rational basis of system trust lies in the trust placed in the trust of other people. The uncovering of this basis through sociological analysis can make the conditions under which this type of trust functions transparent and thus alleviates the type of latent insecurity which typically accompanies a reliance on mechanisms which are not understood. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: Trust stems from societal self-presentation conditions, not only individual strategies as Goffman holds.; Personal trust becomes a variant of system trust when it reflects on self-presentation — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 239; Winning trust requires participating socially and absorbing others’ expectations into one’s self-presentation (+9 more)

Broader Connections

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