Social backing from a whole society makes commitment trustworthy across time

Evidence

Under the social conventions of her time, Ukifune’s was a virtually irrevocable commitment. In our society of radically looser conventions, you and I cannot so readily constrain ourselves as Ukifune did—our shaved heads might be nothing more than a frivolous style of the moment—and we cannot be fully believed if we assert our undying commitment to a particular religious creed or to any other purpose. We can be believed if we say we are committed in this very moment—but we cannot be fully trusted to stay committed into the distant future. The most assertive believers among us are all too often the most fickle. We are like Alberich without magic to control us. We might say, “Love, I curse you forever,” but we cannot be sure we will live the sentiment. Ukifune could and did—because she had a whole society to back her commitment. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 244

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reading purpose: trust requires observable constraints (Hardin) — here the society’s monitoring and sanctioning structure backs the individual commitment, connecting to the blindness-monitoring-collapse theme in Saramago. — connects to: Widespread civility and flourishing civil society reduce to shared personal trust
• DEEPTHINKING: Conventional commitment is credible only when a whole society enforces it; in looser conventions individual sincerity becomes unverifiable — the fickle believer paradox inverts the trust formula.