Reflexive personal trust enables actions impossible by simple trust

Evidence

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 (#expands, 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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Once again these analyses illuminate in the clearest possible way what constitutes the background to all trust – the problem of complexity. By means of trust, the truster unburdens himself of complexity which he cannot sustain. Anyone who wishes to abuse his trust must take this complexity upon himself. He will have to burden himself with complex demands on behaviour, to ensure the most wide-ranging command of the relevant information and complete control of the information available to the truster, with the result that he himself will be in danger of collapsing under the pressure of complexity. Among the most important strategies for reducing fraud, therefore, is a time-limit on breach of trust, and also, if possible, on contact with the victim of the fraud. Adulterous relationships, in which this is not possible, require high expectations of behaviour, as is well known, and are seldom the result of balanced consideration. In all long-term relationships justifying trust is easier, even if this does not protect the truster from the exceptional circumstances of a well-secured individual, judiciously planted. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Social mechanisms intensify only when applied reflexively to themselves; Reflexive trust can absorb more uncertainty with less risk; System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272 (+5 more)

Related

• Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust (similarity 0.90)
• Learning to trust is steered by the developing self-identity (similarity 0.87)
• Reflexive trust can absorb more uncertainty with less risk (similarity 0.87)
• Modern self-discovery is intrinsically bound up with reflexive trust-building (similarity 0.86)
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides (similarity 0.86)
• System trust survives individual disappointments that would destroy personal trust (similarity 0.86)
• Personal intermediaries are the default route to new trust (similarity 0.86)
• Personal trust becomes a variant of system trust when it reflects on self-presentation (similarity 0.85)
• Self-identity is now a reflexive project conducted amid abstract systems (similarity 0.84)
• Modern society needs non-personal trust beyond what individuals provide (similarity 0.84)
• Reflexive personal trust becomes trust in tact and disciplined self-presentation (similarity 0.84)
• Familiarity prevents trust from becoming a conscious problem; doubt reopens it. (similarity 0.84)
• Trust in experts is trust in impersonal systems, not in individuals (similarity 0.84)
• Modern intimate trust demands self-revelation that produces permanent psychological tension (similarity 0.84)
• System trust underwrites ontological security but yields no psychological reward (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Modern self-discovery is intrinsically bound up with reflexive trust-building #expands (0.65) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 289
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides #expands (0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272
• Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted #complicates (0.40) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245