Necessity excuses renounced control but carelessness invites derision

Evidence

If I ask a stranger to bring my gold watch to a watchmaker who is to repair it, and he violates my trust, I lose thereby not just my watch, but my social standing. It is quite a different matter if l ask strangers to help me clear my house which is on fire, and they make away with some objects. In general, it is possible to see in operation in the attribution of guilt a morality which goes well beyond official law, has a considerable capacity for fine discriminations, is at the same time predictable, and whose verdict primarily depends on whether control over the situation has been renounced out of necessity or by carelessness. The fact that such attributions of guilt are typified and predictable assists the formation of trust, allowing the truster to foresee whether he is risking damage only or derision as well. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 182

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Blaming personal profligacy for the crisis presumes understanding individuals were denied — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 352; Signaling effortlessness requires deliberate, costly errors to seem authentic — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 271