Should trust be free or earned?

Free

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by Mark Waybill

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Trust should be free. Should but will not. In an ideal situation trust would be taken for granted because in an ideal situation a person would have no recourse to commit an untrustworthy act against somebody. As such trust should be free. However of course the real situation is different from this ideal one, and within it trust is usually earned.

Trust that is earned is found in many places where you would expect it to be taken for granted. For instance parents often do not trust their children and children do not trust teachers, policemen or even their school friends. Many people do not trust the government, even though it exists for the sole purpose of maintaining and improving the living standards of the majority of society. In these various situations there is much distrust to be seen that should not exist.

It is easy to see how it comes about though. Distrust originates from suspicion or common sense. If one suspects somebody or something one distrusts it, even if the suspicions are unfounded or even ridiculous. This is part of the human superstitious nature, developed from past ages when reason and science were less developed and even the learned humans still believed in souls, spirits and ghosts.

Distrust also originates from common sense. In many places one may have good reason to be suspicious, and many people can not be trusted. As such it is easy to see how, due to the small number of people in society who can not be trusted in common situations, a much larger number suffer being looked upon as being suspect. Distrust thus appears in many places.

But it would take an odd person to argue that trust should not be free. After all if everybody trusted each other there would be far less suspicion and more fair play. Many situations of an undesirable nature would not arise, and many of a desirable nature, prevented from arising by the presence of distrust, would. But in the present situation trust has to be earned in all areas where there is a good degree of doubt involved as to the entities worthiness of trust.

Even a policeman may not be trusted by some people. Somebody as harmless as an old lady may be distrusted by some. An innocent little girl playing with her doll house might be hiding a vendetta against us, or so we might think had we just finished watching television or a movie. The media portrays trust in a very suspicious light, and only the precious family unit, so glorified by the media, retains any amount of it. Even friendships are filled with distrust in the media.

The media of course is not the origin of the phenomenon. But it has served to strengthen its influence upon society, and certainly could be used in the opposite fashion if those backing it were to put pressure on it. After all, as much as one should be aware of the existence of entities unworthy of trust within society, surely one should not be lead to believe that many are like this and that one must abandon normalcy in order to attain safety. Surely it is better to live in slightly more danger and to be polite to one another, than to live sheltered from danger and hateful of society and all about one?

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