Loss of Trust
This was written for the Church Times in January 2008
Issues of trust are cropping up all over the place, mostly involving the lack of it. We fear we may not be able to trust banks with our deposits, or internet firms with our debit card numbers. We’re reluctant to trust world leaders and now it seems our own government cannot be trusted with our personal data. The loss of computer discs containing the entire child benefit records and the personal details of 25 million people is certainly very grave. It is grave because out there are others we cannot trust. They are ready to defraud us, even to steal our identity. All the time we are in danger of being fleeced and attacked. In fact, some kind of cosmic worry is emerging where we’re anxious about everything from the reliability of our health tests and the safety of our children, to the threat of terrorism. It seems that everything and everybody needs securing. This lack of trust is very costly. We’re told we need weapons to defend ourselves against rogue states, and security systems on homes, cars, computers, churches and mobile phones. Hundreds of thousands of employees, from retail security guards to club bouncers are taught to practice professional distrust. Distrust is big money, and of course, there are many people and companies who are happy to talk it up.
The main response seems to be to rely on surveillance and technology to meet the challenge. Lead is being stripped from church roofs, and so a dye will make the stuff unsaleable. Computers needs protecting against viruses, so sophisticated security systems are devised. Identity cards, or more accurately identification cards, are to be high-tech solutions to the problem of identifying one another. And in many ways this technological response seems inevitable; anonymous relations cannot easily be transformed into personal trusting relationships. The process of increasing distrust is inexorable.
Yet, perhaps this does not have to be the case. Actually, trust is a necessary part of human relationships and human economy. We trust the electrician, the surgeon, the mechanic, the teacher, the plumber and the babysitter. Today the vast majority of jobs are professional in the sense that we expect fellow workers to hold to standards for us: to examine our brakes on an MOT or do a breast scan correctly. We trust the postal system, the building society, the sewerage service. Our train and bus systems function on extraordinary levels of trust. In all of these situations what is good for the other is paramount, even when we do not know the person involved. Most of the time we trust that people will operate as good neighbours and we relate to them on the same basis. In fact our society has long absorbed the necessity of the second great commandment; there is no real alternative to neighbour-love. It is the generator and guarantee of trust which we tend to take for granted until it breaks down.
When trust does break down criminal, unlawful or negligent activity must be held to account so that the principle of neighbour-love can be re-established. Institutions should also be trustworthy so government departments must be held to account. People are, in Alister Darling’s words ‘entitled to trust’ the government. Perhaps the greatest weakness of our present situation is not failure of technology, but failure to acknowledge the sheer centrality that trust and trustworthiness is to our lives. Its absence costs us billions, complicates life and destroys peace. Its presence sweetens the soul and allows a complex economy to flourish. Jesus’s summary of our responsibilities towards each other remains the bedrock of human society.
January 2008
