System trust underwrites ontological security but yields no psychological reward

Evidence

Trust in abstract systems is the condition of time-space distanciation and of the large areas of security in day-today life which modern institutions offer as compared to the traditional world. The routines which are integrated with abstract systems are central to ontological security in conditions of modernity. Yet this situation also creates novel forms of psychological vulnerability, and trust in abstract systems is not psychologically rewarding in the way in which trust in persons is. I shall concentrate on the second of these points here, returning to the first later. To begin, I want to advance the following theorems: that there is a direct (although dialectical) connection between the globalising tendencies of modernity and what I shall call the transformation of intimacy in contexts of day-today life; that the transformation of intimacy can be analysed in terms of the building of trust mechanisms; and that personal trust relations, in such circumstances, are closely bound up with a situation in which the construction of the self becomes a reflexive project. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 271

Categorization

• XREF: This is the pivot connecting Giddens to the reader’s thesis: Stevens’s trust in the Darlington institution provides his ontological security, and the transformation of intimacy explains why he never gets the personal reward. — connects to: System trust survives individual disappointments that would destroy personal trust; Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 257; Trust in persons and things sustains ontological security. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 225 (+4 more)

Related

• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides (similarity 0.90)
• System trust survives individual disappointments that would destroy personal trust (similarity 0.88)
• Trust in persons and things sustains ontological security. (similarity 0.88)
• Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions (similarity 0.86)
• Pre-modern trust is anchored in local place rather than abstract systems. (similarity 0.85)
• System trust produces a compulsion to trust a system one cannot correct (similarity 0.85)
• Modern trust is vested in abstract capacities, not individuals (similarity 0.85)
• Modern society needs non-personal trust beyond what individuals provide (similarity 0.84)
• Openly negotiated interdependence undermines trust that existing systems breed silently (similarity 0.84)
• System trust rests on expectations that most won’t test the system (similarity 0.84)
• System trust stays latent and beyond open discussion (similarity 0.84)
• Reflexive personal trust enables actions impossible by simple trust (similarity 0.84)
• Modern intimate trust demands self-revelation that produces permanent psychological tension (similarity 0.83)
• Personal intermediaries are the default route to new trust (similarity 0.83)
• Modern societies increasingly substitute self-presentation for feeling as a basis of trust (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Growing complexity forces trust to shift from interpersonal to performance-based system trust #expands (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 143
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust #responds-to (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256
• Personal trust becomes a variant of system trust when it reflects on self-presentation #expands (0.55) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 239