Personal trust only develops where personal risk exists

Evidence

In completely risk-free role relationships (for example, if the participants are shielded from all personal consequences by their membership of an organization) there are hardly any available starting points for the development and stabilization of personal trust. In this regard even establishing acquaintanceship is severely limited. Although trust is even then an inescapable basis for the conduct of existence, it is not primarily in the form of personal trust. It seems that personal trust is only formed where it is needed. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 204

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to Luhmann’s system trust — the organizational shielding that suppresses personal trust is precisely the ‘faceless commitments’ Giddens describes.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that personal trust forms only where needed — and that organizational shielding precludes it — is dense and counterintuitive, the kind of thing to sit with.