Trust as chosen policy is wiser than unreflective confidence in institutions

Evidence

Here, especially, we can see how misguided it would be to hope to replace trust as policy (the properly sceptical choice of human political expedients) with trust as passion (in its characteristic modern form, an unreflective confidence in the efficacy and decency of existing institutions: state, party, government, union, or firm). — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1263

Categorization

• DEFINE: Cleanly defines the policy/passion trust distinction — directly usable in the Luhmann/Hardin synthesis as the difference between confidence built on observability and blind familiarity.