Trust alone can leave one a victim of complexity rather than its manager

Evidence

Hence merely trusting in itself obviously need not help in managing complexity well—it could lead to dismal results, including quick destruction. Again, the core of Luhmann’s account of the role of trust must be an account of the importance of trustworthiness. If his account really commends trust in its own right, it elevates Stevens’s culpable stupidity. Trust has led Stevens not to manage complexity so much as to fall victim to it. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 177

Categorization

• XREF: Directly against Luhmann’s ‘trust reduces complexity’ thesis — and structurally parallel to how, in Saramago, absence of verifiable trustworthiness (blindness) precipitates Hobbesian predation rather than complexity being ‘managed.’