System trust reduces complexity through explicit human decision processes, not naive familiarity

Evidence

True seen-through trust has one serious disadvantage in comparison with spontaneous trust. It demands more caution, more consideration from the truster. He does not trust the other person directly, but rather trusts the grounds on which trust ‘still works’. He is thereby continually conscious of other possibilities. What this means can be made clear with regard to the function of trust in reducing complexity. Seen-through trust fulfils this function less well than spontaneous trust. It places a greater burden of complexity on the actor and is thus psychologically more difficult. One would therefore be able to expect it only as a peak performance under particularly secure and continually sustained circumstances – for example, as the kind of behaviour associated with a higher educated class of society, or the upper levels of a bureaucracy, or with particular milieu, like political or economic spheres, where the effects on other areas of life can be relatively well controlled. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

From this general analysis, it appears that, as far as the particular problem of trust is concerned, a change of mode will occur on the way to greater and more consciously articulated complexity. In anticipation of the following chapter, what follows from this suggestion may now be outlined. On the basis of familiarity with the everyday world, trust is principally interpersonal trust (and is therefore limited). It serves to overcome an element of uncertainty in the behaviour of other people which is experienced as the unpredictability of change in an object. In so far as the need for complexity grows, and in so far as the other person enters the picture both as alter ego and as fellow-author of this complexity and of its reduction, trust has to be extended, and the original unquestionable familiarity of the world pushed back, although it cannot be eliminated completely. It becomes as a result a new form of system trust, which implies renouncing as a conscious risk some possible further information and implies as well a wary indifference to and a continuous control of results. System trust is not only applicable to social systems but also to other people as personal systems. This change, if one looks closely at the assumptions which lie within the mode of trusting, corresponds to a change from bases of trust which are defined in primarily emotional terms, to those which are primarily performance based. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143 (#expands, via linked claim)

Whereas in personal trust reflexivity is an exception, system trust builds upon the fact that others also trust and that this common quality of trust becomes conscious. Certainly it is not necessary in each individual case to remember that the ability to function rests on trust in trust. It seems rather that familiarity with money, power and truth is learned as behaviour and that typically the reflexivity of this mechanism remains latent, as does its highly risky character. Such latency can make the creation of trust more simple and act as a safeguard against uncontrollable fears – what would happen if everyone suddenly wanted to cash in all their money, or if everyone appeared armed on the streets. Nevertheless, the rational basis of system trust lies in the trust placed in the trust of other people. The uncovering of this basis through sociological analysis can make the conditions under which this type of trust functions transparent and thus alleviates the type of latent insecurity which typically accompanies a reliance on mechanisms which are not understood. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Growing complexity forces trust to shift from interpersonal to performance-based system trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143; Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256; System trust rests on trusting that others also trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261 (+4 more)

Related

• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust (similarity 0.91)
• Trust expands a system’s complexity potential and buys it time (similarity 0.91)
• Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust. (similarity 0.90)
• Differentiated societies need more trust to reduce their greater complexity (similarity 0.89)
• Trust and law evolved from a common root into differentiated mechanisms (similarity 0.89)
• System trust operates independently of individuals’ personal readiness to trust (similarity 0.88)
• Growing social complexity increases the need for trust in the present (similarity 0.88)
• Trust reduces social complexity by replacing missing information with guaranteed security (similarity 0.86)
• Past-oriented familiarity reduces complexity by assuming established patterns repeat (similarity 0.86)
• Growing complexity forces trust to shift from interpersonal to performance-based system trust (similarity 0.86)
• Luhmann reframed trust as social, not merely psychological (similarity 0.86)
• Modern trust takes the form of trust in specialized information processing (similarity 0.86)
• System trust stays latent and beyond open discussion (similarity 0.86)
• Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust (similarity 0.85)
• Trust increases experiential possibilities by reducing system complexity (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust #contradicts (0.65) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256
• Growing complexity forces trust to shift from interpersonal to performance-based system trust #expands (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143
• System trust rests on trusting that others also trust #expands (0.50) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261