Trust can only be secured and maintained in the present

Evidence

Trust can only be secured and maintained in the present. Neither the uncertain future nor even the past can arouse trust, since what has been does not eliminate the possibility of the future discovery of another past. This present-relatedness and its implications for trust cannot be understood and elaborated if the present is conceived in terms of an event fixed to a point in time, as a moment, as the instant at which the event occurs. Rather, the basis of all trust is the present as an enduring continuum of changing events, as the totality of constancies where events can occur. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 119

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines trust’s temporal basis: the present as enduring continuum, not instant — key for understanding why institutional constancy sustains Stevens’s devotion.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 119
• XREF: connects to: Trust is an attitude transferable to no other objects or people — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 155

Broader Connections

• Trust is an attitude transferable to no other objects or people #expands (0.75) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 155