Trust

This weekend, sad to say, I haven’t had time to do any extensive blogging.  I have found myself obsessed with the goal of finishing my manuscript – or should I say, getting my manuscript to the point where I think it is suitable for publication.   As a result, all other writing efforts, including my obligations to the Empathic Rationalist, have had to fall by the wayside.  Allow me, then, to make only a simple point, in the hope that more is less.   

We are all seeing what life is like when we live in a nation shell-shocked by government scandals.  It seems that every day, another scandal is just around the corner.  And even matters that would not otherwise be scandalous start to get the media fired up and the public concerned.

At bottom, this is about the nation’s trust in its government.  Once that trust is lost, the scandal potential grows logarithmically.  In this day and age, when enemies truly do abound, the government necessarily must do certain things in secret.  But once the public trust is lost, the discovery of these secret activities will inevitably be met with skepticism or downright disgust.  For whenever the government says “we’re only doing X, we would never encroach on Y,” the public will say, “It is just a matter of time before you’ll be snooping into Y if you haven’t started already.”  And the government will be in no position to respond.

I used to think our society’s polarization was our biggest problem, but this lack of trust issue may prove to be even bigger.  Or perhaps it is merely an outgrowth of the other.  Whatever the answer, we must deal with it quickly.  We desperately need to be able to trust in our government, and no time too soon.  Hopefully, this society won’t have to see for ourselves all the reasons why that is a fact.  Lord knows, it is well known in much of the world.