I agree with this:
For all the talk of trust in political circles right now, there seems
to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of trust. For trust
is not simply a passive relation, in which one side painfully,
excruciatingly exhibits its trustworthiness to the other. Rather it is
an active relation in which both parties assume something of each
other. Trust is not based on knowing, but presuming. Trust, properly
speaking, exists in the absence of guarantees. It is an everyday leap
of faith, a reliance, indeed a belief in others to behave as you would
expect them to.
In this sense, the focus on trust as something to be constructed so as to eliminate the corrupting self-interest of parliamentarians does not seem to have much to do with trust at all. In fact, the attempts to prevent so-called abuses of trust, under the rubric of accountability and transparency, serve only to undermine the conditions of trust. For trust rests on a belief in others, not on their guaranteed compliance. In this sense, trust is something that people actively place in politicians on the basis of a politicians’ vision. Trust cannot simply be created by politicians in lieu of the very thing worth placing trust in them for: namely their politics.
In this sense, the focus on trust as something to be constructed so as to eliminate the corrupting self-interest of parliamentarians does not seem to have much to do with trust at all. In fact, the attempts to prevent so-called abuses of trust, under the rubric of accountability and transparency, serve only to undermine the conditions of trust. For trust rests on a belief in others, not on their guaranteed compliance. In this sense, trust is something that people actively place in politicians on the basis of a politicians’ vision. Trust cannot simply be created by politicians in lieu of the very thing worth placing trust in them for: namely their politics.
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