Worse than not being trusted: not being able to trust

The spread and contagiousness of evil, of bad news, of ill intent is, unfortunately, faster than that of good deeds, good news and good intent. Especially when it comes to a rumor about someone who has made a name in society for their good deeds, their charitableness, or this or that virtue, there are more ears eager to hear such a rumor, ready to hear it without asking anything about its front or back. It would be somewhat better if they only heard it; worse is the readiness to whisper it immediately into other ears as well. It does not even occur to us that accepting the news that comes to us without asking or investigating who it came from, and above all trying to spread it, is enough to count as an evil.

Yet as an evil this is enough and more than enough.

This is a potential for evil that everyone, if they examine themselves courageously, will surely find a trace of. We seem to imagine that the possibility of a good person's doing bad deeds lifts the burden of goodness from us. The sin of a priest or an imam comforts ordinary people in this way. Yet it is an unjust and mistaken comfort, but a commonplace psychology, one that justifies evil, strengthens it, and spreads it by feeding it further.

One reason is that we suppose it contains a valid excuse for us not to do the good deeds we do not want to do.

That is why true or false news about the mistakes of those known as good can very easily find takers. However much good opinion we may entertain in response to bad news we hear about a good person, from the moment this news begins to circulate, enough evil has already struck people's hearts. Those who, though there is a mass of rights in the wealth they have accumulated, like the mother's milk of the poor, go on accumulating, who throughout their lives have given no help to any human being and have taken no one's trouble as their own trouble, manage to put every kind of good activity under suspicion and so to hinder the good deeds of others too.

They are not only miserly themselves; they thus instill the idea of miserliness in others as well. Drying up charity, dulling consciences, soiling hearts is not a new style of politics; it is an utterly ancient human character.

The appearance of this ancient style on the political stage in this way also has a heavy social cost. It damages people's trust in one another beyond repair. The level of trust is the strength of a society, even a value that makes possible the very quality of being a society. In modern society trust is regarded as the richest "reserve of social capital."

To have a society made up of people who do not trust each other and who have no respect for each other is the greatest disaster that can befall a country.

Unfortunately we have no serious cultural, even religious, program to establish this trust and to protect what exists. It is consumed recklessly as long as it is seen as the first instrument we resort to in order to destroy our rivals in politics or in trade.

The greatest disaster that can befall a person is not other people's not trusting him. That is bad enough, no doubt, but far worse is his not trusting other people.

The greatest punishment that even liars and thieves suffer is not their losing the trust of others but, on the contrary, their being unable to trust others because they suppose everyone to be like themselves. Being unable to trust is truly a great punishment.

To feel trust, to live among people one can trust, is among the most basic human rights of people. Establishing this trust begins first with oneself, with starting to trust people in one's fields of activity.

Sometimes trusting at the risk of being deceived, even sometimes, knowing that one is being lied to, appearing to believe these lies merely for the sake of not damaging the sense of trust, often costs us no more than we would lose by throwing it in people's faces.

Of course the only way to secure trust is not to be naive or to believe naively in people's naivety. Knowing that abuse cannot be ruled out wherever there are people, the surest way is to take all possible precautions. And in taking these precautions it is also to take care not to awaken a potential discord again by treating people as potential thieves. Being as open as possible in our institutions to transparency and accountability means instilling a high confidence that no step has been taken for which one could not give account.

Charitable organizations have undoubtedly accomplished important and great things, but they also have a responsibility both "so that people may not have an excuse about themselves" and to secure, not to bruise, and to keep alive the trust that can so easily become a target in society. The sensitivity they show in this matter is a much more "beneficial" task, not less so, than the charitable works they are carrying out.

Trust is a friendly feeling, and in fact the very measures that will ensure the spread of this feeling to the whole society bind a society together on the basis of friendship. Friendship, which holds an important place in classical political philosophy as the most important aim of politics, stands out as the most important virtue of a healthy society. Friendship, which has been quite neglected in modern political philosophy, is now knocking persistently on our door to become one of the important subjects of political philosophy again.

The foundation of political friendship too is trustworthiness, that is, being able to feel safe from other people's hand, tongue and loins, but at the same time also being able to trust.

This trust, this entrusted deposit, makes all people potentially friends to one another. When friends hear news about one another, they do not believe it without investigating, without questioning; indeed, their reaction on first hearing it is to avoid ill-suspicion and to respond with good opinion.