The loss of trust in the world seems to have reached crisis proportions—apparently large numbers of people don’t trust anything or anyone. Whether it’s scientific research, the government, schools, journalists, teachers, doctors, lawyers, judges and certainly not politicians none of it can be trusted. Given the sheer number of scams in the world today, I’d be the first to argue that a healthy dose of skepticism is probably a good thing.
What worries me is when “you can’t trust anyone or anything” becomes it’s no longer important to seek the truth—or to tell the truth. Everyone lies so what’s the point? Trust and the truth are no longer important.
The problem is that we cannot make our way through the world without some level of trust in organizations and each other. For example, I trust that you’ll stop at the stop sign and you won’t drive if you’re intoxicated. I trust the mechanic to fix my car and charge me a fair price for doing so. I trust my doctor to give me the best advice about my health that she can.
That said, trust is generally not an either or proposition. It’s based on circumstance and context. For example, I trust the mechanic to fix my car and the doctor to give me health advice. But generally speaking, I don’t trust my mechanic to give me health advice or the doctor to tell me what’s wrong with my car. It’s the old saying that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not all opinions are of equal weight.
So how do we decide who and what to trust? Research tells us most of us end up believing only what matches the biases we already hold. In other words, if it matches what we believe about the world already, we tend to believe it’s true. While our biases make it quicker and simpler to decide what’s true, they also blind us to anything that runs counter to that bias.
Overcoming one’s biases requires some reflection to figure out what you don’t know—we’ve all met the person who is never wrong about anything, and can’t be convinced otherwise. They “read it on the internet” or “heard it on a podcast.” They don’t know what they don’t know.
Just based on my experience in school, there are very few people who get 100% right on every test (given declining test scores, it’s likely that problem is getting worse). Unfortunately, in addition to people only believing what confirms their biases and thus no longer seeking what’s true, the world is full of people unwilling to change their mind regardless of the evidence.
For example, the evidence is overwhelming that seatbelts save lives (just ask any emergency responder). But it’s likely we all know someone who refuses to wear a seatbelt. In fact, there’s currently a push in the SD legislature to repeal the law requiring seatbelt use. The argument is that people should have the freedom to wear or not wear a seatbelt.
On the other hand, when your body becomes a missile in a head on crash and you injure or kill someone as a result, it not only injures you, it infringes on the life of others. In the same way, if you decide to ignore the speed limit and drive 100 mph, it impacts everyone else on the road. Our society depends on people generally following agreed upon norms and laws. We trust in that fact and assume the law applies to everyone.
So if it’s so hard to know what is true and to form trusting relationships, is it worth the effort? I think anyone who has ever been a part of a relationship based on trust or an organization where people trusted each other (be that a marriage or your best friend or an athletic team or some place you worked) they know it’s not just more efficient and effective, it’s more satisfying to be a part of that community. Again, healthy skepticism seems like a good approach, but no one wants to be in a relationship or live or work in a community where there is no trust.
So in spite of the difficulty in determining who and what to trust, knowing none of us are perfect or all-knowing or immune from self-interest, giving up on seeking what’s true or worse yet contributing to the destruction of trust by joining the ranks of people who deliberately spread misinformation, is a path we cannot take. If our communities, and indeed our country, hope to survive it’s a path none of us can take. Trust. What is it good for? Absolutely everything!
Dr. Douglas Allen was born and raised in Watertown and, after a career in higher education, has returned to spend time with family. He’s optimistic that Watertown will continue to be a healthy and growing and civil community.