Modern society needs non-personal trust beyond what individuals provide

Evidence

Trust is therefore involved in a fundamental way with the institutions of modernity. Trust here is vested, not in individuals, but in abstract capacities. Anyone who uses monetary tokens does so on the presumption that others, whom she or he never meets, honour their value. But it is money as such which is trusted, not only, or even primarily, the persons with whom particular transactions are carried out. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 72 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In the early development of the human individual, basic trust in stable circumstances of self-identity and the surrounding environment—ontological security—does not in the first instance rest upon a sense of the continuity of things or events. Rather, as we have noted, it derives from personal trust and establishes a need for trust in others which no doubt endures, in some form or another, throughout life. Trust in persons, as Erikson emphasises, is built upon mutuality of response and involvement: faith in the integrity of another is a prime source of a feeling of integrity and authenticity of the self. Trust in abstract systems provides for the security of day-to-day reliability, but by its very nature cannot supply either the mutuality or intimacy which personal trust relations offer. In this respect traditional religions are plainly different from modern abstract systems, because their personalised figures allow for a direct transfer of individual trust, with large elements of mutuality. In the case of abstract systems, by contrast, trust presumes faith in impersonal principles, which “answer back” only in a statistical way when they do not deliver the outcomes which the individual seeks. This is one of the main reasons why individuals at access points normally go to great pains to show themselves to be trustworthy: they provide the link between personal and system trust. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modern trust is vested in abstract capacities, not individuals — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 72; System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272; Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity (+6 more)

Related

• Modern trust is vested in abstract capacities, not individuals (similarity 0.91)
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides (similarity 0.90)
• System trust survives individual disappointments that would destroy personal trust (similarity 0.89)
• Personal intermediaries are the default route to new trust (similarity 0.88)
• Modernity’s trust requires the awareness that human activity is socially created, not divinely given. (similarity 0.86)
• Institutionalized money trust replaces countless individual acts of personal trust (similarity 0.86)
• Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity (similarity 0.85)
• Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions (similarity 0.85)
• Trust in experts is trust in impersonal systems, not in individuals (similarity 0.85)
• Reflexive personal trust enables actions impossible by simple trust (similarity 0.84)
• System trust underwrites ontological security but yields no psychological reward (similarity 0.84)
• Modern society still depends on personal trust despite system complexity (similarity 0.83)
• Openly negotiated interdependence undermines trust that existing systems breed silently (similarity 0.83)
• Giddens describes how trust in abstract systems develops as ‘faceless commitments,’ yet notes relations of trust are always ambivalent because confidence is needed amid fundamental ignorance of… (similarity 0.83)
• System trust rests on expectations that most won’t test the system (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Modern trust is vested in abstract capacities, not individuals #corroborates (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 72
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides #qualifies (0.70) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272
• Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity #corroborates (0.50)