Weaponized Trust

The key to the success of America in the 20th century was pretty simple: we were a high trust society.

Robert Putnam wrote a great book about this called Bowling Alone. The thesis of the book, which sadly has proven to be true, is that America’s success economically and socially has been largely driven by the high level of trust that facilitated both economic growth and social comity. An obvious example, of course, is that the legitimacy of elections is largely based upon the trust everybody has in the fairness of the outcome.

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If people believe that they were cheated, the election and hence the willingness to submit to the lawful power of the elected government goes down. Sound familiar?

Similar issues come up when you think of trade. Most trade post-medieval times takes place over long distances, and before government got deeply involved in regulating trade there was little to ensure that a long distance deal was a good bet. You had to trust a person on the other side of the world; if you sent gold, you wanted to ensure you got the product you were buying at the quality and quantity you ordered. Trust made that possible.

This is one of the reasons why people often stick to brand names: they trust they are getting what they are paying for, even if it is more expensive. Think of your Amazon purchases: how often are you squeamish about buying a product from Chinese company Xarviee? It could be the same as the brand name, but maybe not.

Societies that are low trust also tend to be very tribalistic; families and then small communities could be self-policing, but once you expand the circle everybody is screwing everybody else because nobody trusts anybody else.

Over the past several decades trust levels have plummeted in the United States, and with them so has social acceptance of the elites. For good reason. The elites at some point began to weaponize the trust we placed in them, turning us all into chumps.

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Bill Whittle produced a video about precisely this phenomenon that I thought worth sharing. It is long–about 25 minutes–but makes some good points. At base his argument is that our high levels of trust have made us fall prey to con men. As a corollary the massive difference between some people who have lost trust and those who still have faith in our betters is that they haven’t yet gotten the joke.

You and I know the joke is on us; a lot of people still have a reservoir of trust in the people at the top of the social food chain. It’s why we wind up screaming at them “don’t you SEE?!” It’s not that the evidence is not there before their eyes; it’s that they are simply like the Americans of 50 years ago. They are being forced to choose between “crazy conspiracy theorists” like us and the people they have always trusted.

If somebody had told your parents that vast numbers of people at the top of our society either were or at least tolerated pedophiles they would have recoiled at the idea. Many people still do. But it is true. I have written several articles about it.

So people who still trust the Establishment aren’t crazy or even willfully ignorant. They have to choose between you–some random guy–and the authorities. They still trust the MSM and the Elites.  It is that very trust we all had not that long ago that made America great.

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Putnam’s original work was studying the vast differences in wealth and politics between Northern Italy, whose economy and culture are more like Germany, and Southern Italy, whose culture is more like The Godfather. Northern Italy is much wealthier and modern than Southern Italy, and Putnam argued the difference was social trust. It is a very compelling argument.

Back when I was a college teacher I used Putnam’s work to illustrate this important point: culture matters a lot in what kind of societal outcomes you can expect. That is one reason why contemporary “multiculturalism” is bull crap. Different cultures lead to different outcomes. And many of those outcomes suck. So get people who immigrate here to abandon the awful parts of their home cultures.

The American Melting Pot idea was a good one, and we have abandoned it. Millions of immigrants flock to America because their home countries suck. The last thing we need is to import the cultures that makes them suck. Doing so has led us to be a much lower trust society, and the Left is doing everything they can to reduce levels of trust to rock bottom. Hence all the intersectional oppression nonsense.

Whittle is really on to something in his video. The secret to fooling people who are inclined to trust is very simple: lie without remorse, and keep doing it until it stops working.

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And by that time the liars have all the power.

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