Trust and power are generalized media converting improbable contingencies into stable meaning systems

Evidence

As against this, there is the future orientation of trust. Trust is only possible in a familiar world; it needs history as a reliable background. One cannot confer trust without this essential basis and without all previous experiences. But rather than being just an inference from the past, trust goes beyond the information it derives from the past and takes the risk of defining the future. The complexity of the future world is reduced by the act of trust. In trusting, one engages in action as though there were only certain possibilities in the future. One fixes one’s present future to a future present. In this way one offers other people a determinate future, a common future, which is not readily apparent from the past. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 138 (#expands, via linked claim)

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Generalized media let one person’s selections drive another’s actions without trust in the person.; Binary schematization makes trust and distrust reversible opposites, easing transition between them. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 311; All communication media presuppose double contingent selectivity between partners — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 592 (+20 more)

Related

• Generalized media let one person’s selections drive another’s actions without trust in the person. (similarity 0.86)
• Communication media form only where selection has become contingent and improbable (similarity 0.85)
• Trust functions by pruning the over-complex future to fit the present (similarity 0.84)
• Society results from improbable contingent events, not natural human action (similarity 0.83)
• Trust reduces social complexity by replacing missing information with guaranteed security (similarity 0.82)
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust (similarity 0.82)
• Trust reduces future complexity where instrumental mastery cannot (similarity 0.82)
• All communication media presuppose double contingent selectivity between partners (similarity 0.81)
• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future (similarity 0.81)
• Power as a medium emerges only when contingent selection can be negated (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is regulated through symbol-feedback loops, not direct reality contact (similarity 0.80)
• Binary schematization makes trust and distrust reversible opposites, easing transition between them. (similarity 0.80)
• Trust and law evolved from a common root into differentiated mechanisms (similarity 0.80)
• Trust shifts from persons to the media of money, truth, and power themselves (similarity 0.80)
• Power and truth are symbolically generalized media that regulate motivation for acceptance. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Trust reduces future complexity by committing to a determinate future #expands (0.70) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 138
• Trust functions by pruning the over-complex future to fit the present #expands (0.65)
• Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification #expands (0.60)
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust #expands (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256
• Trust is regulated through symbol-feedback loops, not direct reality contact #expands (0.60)
• Trust forms sequentially by reducing social complexity over discrete steps #expands (0.55)