It seems that another global crisis is unfolding before our eyes in the world — a total loss of trust. Meanwhile, a great deal rests on social trust: it was one of the conditions for the survival of homo sapiens as a species. It is worth thinking about its significance and what is happening to us. Anthropologist Matthew Legg talks about how to help yourself overcome a personal crisis of confidence.
Imagine that you are going to the supermarket to buy a pack of gum. As you take money out of your pocket, you look coldly at the cashier. She is tense and alert, looking straight at you. Will she give you gum or not?
The saleswoman tightly grips the wad in one hand, while the other tries to snatch the bill from your fingers. A couple of moments of struggle, but in the end your fingers open, she releases the gum, you are the bill. The deal is done. After exchanging stern looks with the woman, you exit the store.
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? It just doesn’t happen! We are social animals and, whether we like it or not, we depend on each other. None of us can function normally without trusting others, argues Matthew Legg, an anthropologist and active participant in international peacekeeping projects.
Our species’ ability to work together has been the key to human survival. “You would not be reading this text now if other people did not take care of you when you were a small, helpless newborn. To understand what these words mean, you had to learn a lot from different people. All this implies dependence on others. This is how the need for trust arose, ”explains the author.
When stepping on a zebra crossing, we trust drivers to be careful and slow down at the pedestrian crossing. Sitting behind the wheel, we trust pedestrians and other drivers that they will not maliciously violate traffic rules. Taking children to kindergarten and school, we trust their educators and teachers. Entering a university, we trust teachers that the information they are going to acquaint us with will be scientifically reliable. Going on vacation, we trust pilots, taxi drivers, guides and porters. The list can be continued indefinitely, even if you do not touch on the topic of closer, personal relationships.
Suppose, in some cases, our trust is rather conditional — for example, a person with aerophobia doubts whether he can rely on the crew, and when crossing the road, we once again look around. But in many other situations, we do not even think about how much this trust is «sewn» into the mechanisms of our socialization.
But his levels seem to be dropping, according to Matthew Legg.
Credit exhausted?
Today, more and more interactions take place on the Internet, where we lack the information provided by body language and intonation. How to understand if the reviews about the seller were left by real buyers or written for money in order to increase the rating of the store? And the video that hooked us, is it real or fake? Are the comments on social media serious and sincere, or is this person just trolling us? And is it a human?
And in real life, there are more and more reasons for doubt. Is our colleague or neighbor really that friendly or just pretending to be? Do we generally confuse realistic masks with real faces? One study found that when we watch videos, we mistake such masks for human faces about 20% of the time.
Politicians, the media, advertisers, and the entertainment industry invest heavily in testing and learning how to pull the right strings, tricking us into getting strong emotional reactions. The photo, from which we can cry and seethe with indignation, turns out to be staged. The beautiful movie thunder sound is just one of the tracks in the sound engineer’s library.
“The ATM wishes me a happy birthday, and for a second it makes me feel warm. But then I start to resent, because I know: in fact, no one cares about my birthday at all. My confidence in the bank is falling, ”Legg gives an example.
Why is it so destructive?
Some degree of skepticism can be entirely justified and helpful in a world with so many bots and scammers. But too much distrust can cause serious damage to our social structure, the anthropologist believes.
When we don’t trust each other, misunderstanding and hostility, polarization and hatred grow. We can distrust, reject everything we don’t like, just calling it ideological or biased, but what is the bottom line? We seem to put ourselves in boxes and trust opposite sources of information, let them give meaning to our lives. In order to overcome this, it is important that society has a certain level of general trust.
Building trust
In many ways, it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is real and what is fake. That’s why it’s so important to learn and remember bonding skills to build trust, says Legg. These include:
- spending time together,
- entertainment,
- disarmament,
- general activity,
- eye contact,
- active listening,
- an attempt to look at the situation through the eyes of the other side,
- breadth of thought
- disagreements — but constructive and useful for us.
These skills are not easy to acquire, and many of us are not trained in them. But they can change our world.
“Ultimately, to move forward in a world of mistrust, we need to find a delicate balance between faith, criticism and skepticism. You need to overcome your fears and act, but at the same time be careful not to get into a bad situation, ”says Legg. But it seems that each of us still has the skills to find and maintain this balance — otherwise we would be completely lost and could not even buy a pack of chewing gum.
About the author: Matthew Legg is an anthropologist, participant in international peacekeeping projects, and author of the book “Are we done fighting? How to find mutual understanding in a world of division and hatred.