Reflexive personal trust becomes trust in tact and disciplined self-presentation

Evidence

In the light of this reflexivity, personal trust becomes to a significant extent trust in tact and discipline in the way one expresses oneself. In this form, it becomes transparent without its function being lost. Thus, one can see through one’s partner’s presentation, and, seeing it as a presentation, one is able to weigh and react in a balanced way and assess how far it is likely to go. One can estimate what strains personal trust can take without breaking down, in which role-context it belongs and in which it does not, and where its weak points lie, which should not be exposed – except if one does so intentionally and accepts responsibility for the consequences. Conversely, seeing through the tact of one’s partner, particularly where it is socially institutionalized and expected, acts as a guarantee for the security of one’s own self-presentation and thus makes it easier to learn a self-trust which is independent of emotion. Thus the uncovering of tact as a foundation of trust makes possible a reasonably frictionless control of social contact, a way around embarrassment and personal sensitivities, an avoidance of breakdowns or emotional reactions which get out of control, and, moreover, a greater reliability and durability of interaction as a building block for larger, complex, social systems. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 255

Categorization

• XREF: Tact-based trust enabling ‘frictionless control of social contact’ is the anti-facework mode — Stevens embodying precisely this self-trust independent of emotion. — connects to: Self-presentation presumes minimum trust, and trust expands possible actions and accumulates as capital.; 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 (+15 more)
• FICTION: Stevens’s mastery of tact as a defensive self-presentation — his professional self is built exactly on this self-trust independent of emotion.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 255

Broader Connections

• Modern self-discovery is intrinsically bound up with reflexive trust-building #expands (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 289
• Tact replaces real interests as the regulator of pure social interaction #corroborates (0.80) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 375
• Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust #corroborates (0.75)
• Growing complexity forces trust to shift from interpersonal to performance-based system trust #contradicts (0.30) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143