An article appeared recently in the newspaper I read, which indicated that, according to the author, we Americans have lost our trust in pretty much everything. My question is, if this is correct, is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
In my writings, I have been advocating the questioning of authority, as well as promoting the idea that what we believe--our Belief Systems--have been Programed and Indoctrinated into us from the earliest years. When advocating the questioning of authority, it has not been my intent to suggest that one should stop trusting everything; the intent has been to encourage the search for that which can be, at least tentatively, trusted.
The article writer begins his thesis discussing the phenomenon, citing political indicators, such as a part of one major group questioning the authenticity of President Obama's Birth Certificate Document, and the opposing political group demanding to have access to Presidential Candidate Romney's Tax Returns, as evidence of this lack of trust.
Much of the current political lack-of-trust, finger-pointing, and questioning, can be attributed to the desire of each side to gain power over the coming four years, no mater how low they have to stoop to obtain that power. It could be claimed that each group truly believes that they are better qualified to lead--if we did trust them, that is, we might believe that. Other factions, such as the Tea Party, the Catholic Church and Fundamentalist Religions, all have an oar in this murky sea which has been created by what has been named, political "mudslinging."
Over the last few days I have come into social contact with a number of people, I did not know. When the subject turned to the current political scene, these individuals were not reserved in expressing their distrust of the current holders of power, as well as little trust in what they are being told as we approach another election in November.
Various precursors, creating the current state-of-mind of the electorate building over relatively recent years are not hard to find: the fall-from-grace of prominent Religious leaders; the betrayal of trust by major Banking Institutions and Corporations; the placing into office, by the Supreme Court, of George W. Bush, for a second term in office, despite the fact that he lost the election--the list can go on, and on.
As indicated above, this is not what is intended by me by encouraging the, "questioning of authority." The above cited aspects of our modern life, and other, "players" are, in fact, a major part of the, "authority" which must be questioned. It is clear, due to this being standard-operating-procedures on the part of the political parties in election years, that the creation a lack-of-trust has been deliberately created. Each year the nastiness sinks to an every lower level.
The flip-side of this ploy. however, is that, once you have lost the trust of anyone, or any collective group, it is very difficult to regain trust. These individuals and collective groups do not, however, have any understanding of, not only the concept of Trust, but of integrity, and honor, let alone value them. They have been playing with proverbial fire, by putting so much emphasis on questioning the integrity of others on such a grand scale that it can no longer be controlled.
Another, and related, leading indicator of our collective state-of-being, is a seeming general lack of honesty currently manifesting in students, as well as students and their parents' inability to even recognize that they were cheating when evidence of it has been presented. Not only are honesty, personal excellence, integrity, and hard work, as well as other such virtues not valued by students, these concepts are not even understood by the general populous.
The Act of Plagiarism, over-the-years, has cropped up regularly, in politics, and on the part of well-known public figures. While generally known to be present, to some degree in the past, it can now be said to be the norm for students, due to their access to the Internet. In fact, it seems to be a growth education-mini-industry. Interestingly, it has been reported that, as an experiment, an educator submitted a subject to a number of these sources; the papers returned were so badly written that they, if submitted by a student, would have received a failing grade!
Another major blow, adding to our collective lack-of-trust has been the number of highly publicized Ponzi schemes, which have been exposed over the recent years. The underlying requirement of these schemes is the Trust of many people in, frequently, one or a few other individuals/friends to invest their money for them. The underlying factor in all of these schemes is the expectation of a, "higher-than-to-be-expected rate of return on money invested." In other words, all of those who lost a great deal of money, due to the exposure of these fraudulent Ponzi schemes, should have suspected that all was not quite right with the investment.
I remember an instance, which occurred a number-of-years-ago. A friend told me about an investment suggestion made to her by a, "church-going friend of hers" which would provide a large return on an investment. It seems this investment had to do with the pornography industry. When my friend said she was not interested, the calling friend couldn't understand; Why not, after-all, it was a great investment?
It all comes down to having a sense of what is moral/honorable behavior, and what is not. In times past, a person's integrity was a matter of pride. To be known as Honest, Trustworthy, Reliable, etc., etc., no longer has any value. Cheating is so commonplace, it is taken-for-granted. In education, this has resulted in Teachers' general lack-of-trust in their students not cheating, or even learning, or desire to learn, what is being taught.
When one's trust has been lost in an individual, frequently the best one can do is to forgive, but few are able to, "forget," (which means to erase the experience from ones memories). As a result, a relationship can continue, but, usually with some reservations. Unfortunately, when one's general ability to trust has been undermined, regaining an ability to trust is very difficult. When trust has been undermined on such a broad scale as it seems to have currently, the only solution would seem to be an entire restructuring of the entire system. Such restructuring has generally been called a, "Revolution."
A number of such revolutions, which have taken place in the past, were intended to bring about changes which would result in a system which could be trusted. Part of our current dilemma is that such previous revolutionary changes, either have resulted is something which turned out to be no better, or actually worse, than the previous system. This, of course, has resulted only in a greater loss of trust.
I cannot say whether I believe this current state of lack-of-trust is a good thing, or a bad thing, in the long run. It has been said that an ancient Chinese Curse was, "May your children live in interesting times." We are all now living in, "interesting times," are we not?
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