Trust in a complex world

I think the conclusion to my book, Trust in a Complex World, written almost two years ago, offers some useful context around the daily drumbeat of news and the accompanying emotions:
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"All things considered, the prospects are troubling. The near-term future is likely to be full of conflict and crisis, as the increasingly urgent systemic problems overwhelm our ability to build trusting, collaborative relations. If we can muddle through this, it will be by developing the possibility of a richer kind of community than the abstractly tolerant model of the modern era – a community where people seek to understand each other more deeply, help each other to learn and develop, and face complex common problems together.

Four basic points in conclusion:

First, the profound shift in sensibility – moving from a view of humans as morally stable and independent actors, towards a view that we are essentially social, continuously shaped by our relations. As the range and density of communication has grown over the past century and a half, more people have been drawn from their tight harmonious circles of family and friends into rich communication with many cultures. Increasingly we embrace the value of learning from diverse experiences.

The interactive perspective is complex: there are few solid touchstones for right and wrong. We expect ourselves and others to learn, to understand, to be open, yet also to be reliable. This complexity is, however, necessary in a world one where we deal frequently with people different from ourselves, and where there is great need to work together on systemic problems.

Second, the deep anxiety, disruption, and conflict implied in this shift. The changes I have pointed to – the widening of communication networks, the mixing of races and ethnicities, the changes in gender roles, the demands for multicultural recognition – are disturbing. They lead to uncertainty: we don’t quite know what to expect from others or what we can count on from them in the future. They lead to insecurity: there is less confidence that if one plays one’s part, the community will be supportive. They destabilize identities, as people get conflicting messages about what is valued and rewarded. Expectations of marriage, of friendship, of employment become more fluid; loyalty is weakened. Walls dividing public from private are constantly breached. People find themselves challenged by others who get up in their faces and demand to be respected for who they are, not merely assimilated to some common template.

The resulting uncertainty may cause anomie, a sense of loss of bearings. Many people are attracted to nostalgic images of smaller, simpler, more personal communities, where we knew who we were dealing with. Some react more strongly – pulling back to narrower communities, seeking certainty in established principles, defending their sense of right and virtue. These reactions can polarize societies, and can lead to violence among those who feel most threatened by the emerging moral claims.

Third, the enormous positive potential of these developments. Humans have for millennia trusted each other within circles of thick, stable relations, with a core expectation of unquestioned loyalty to a strong shared moral view of the world. There was little meaningful interaction among these communities: they either remained separated, or they fought. Now, for essentially the first time in history there are is an expanding realm of relations that cross these walls, with many people seeking enthusiastically to experience diverse cultures, food, art, music, ideas – constructing communities on the fly, piecing together a sense of self flexible enough to travel widely, capable of understanding and working with many kinds of people.

Over the last century or more we have enormously increased the range of communication, so that most people have far more knowledge than before of foreign nations and diverse groups; and we have developed much higher capacity for extended collaboration on complex projects. All this is enormously exciting – an excitement coming not from rallying around a flag, but from learning, stretching, doing more. It gives us a glimpse of community that is not thick, but rich.

Fourth, the work needed. There has been much practical learning about how to encourage understanding and collaboration: I have underlined mechanisms of reflection, sharing, deliberate purpose, process management, platforms, and network orchestration. But these are still in their infancy, not generally understood or applied. We are just beginning to learn about creating effective purposes, as opposed to empty slogans; about building successful platforms that draw energy from the diversity of their members; about processes that can organize around complex tasks without relying on fixed rules and hierarchies. My motivation in this book has been to clarify a bit both the basic sensibility and what is needed to make it work in practice.

Communities are extremely complex, built from interwoven expectations among innumerable people, extending far beyond direct personal relations; supported by institutions that spread, socialize, and enforce those expectations; deeply embedded in identities, so that people gain a sense of meaning and virtue from participation in the community. As these patterns are built there are always profound disagreements and reactive movements. The process of working through the implications of a new sensibility is long and contested.

Meanwhile, crises are brewing. Climate change could easily exacerbate conflicts as groups blame each other – there is plenty of that going on already – and thus spiral into a vicious circle of mistrust. Growing inequality is a major threat to community, but there is no agreement within classes or across them on what to do about it; the resulting cynicism could easily produce not a solution, but a withdrawal that would further erode the sense of shared responsibility. The danger of major harm caused by small groups of fanatics leads to wide anxiety; the more security agencies try to gain control of the Internet, the more legions of hackers perfect means of evading them.

There are plenty of solutions to these and other problems. What we lack is a unified vision of which one we want and how to implement it. But after centuries of avoiding value discussions, we are not very good at sober discourse on issues that touch on deep beliefs. There is more shouting than dialogue.

The task of building a unifying and widely inspiring purpose is just beginning. It has to move towards an image of expanded community, with wide and rich global links. The natural reaction to discomfort is to pull back to narrower thick networks of support and agreement; but this reaction – seen in varied forms on both the Left and the Right – divides us further and exacerbates the problems. Rather than separating, we need to connect more, and to develop further the embryonic mechanisms that coordinate those connections into understanding and collaboration. As in the Christmas gathering with which I began, we need to bring the world in around the hearth, and the family out into the world, if we hope to find our way through the complexities we all face.

Hope

Trump is just the latest and most frightening manifestation of a growing trend. Everywhere we look, narrow, tribalistic movements are growing in power – seeking to build walls and to assert the preeminence of particular moralities. Brexit; separatist movements among Catalans, Scots, Basques, Croats, Bosnians, Walloons - to stay only within Europe; the spread of, anti-immigrant fervor in Europe and the US; and fundamentalist rejections of the whole modern enterprise, including not only the violence of Muslim extremists but also the ideologies of many Christian and Hindu groups – these appear to be signs of a fundamental breakdown in trust and a fragmenting of community.

Some people say that trust is easy to destroy and hard to build; some say it is necessarily undermined by high diversity. Such interpretations lead to deep pessimism. They suggest that we are in for a long winter of mutual suspicion, an accelerating spiral in which everyone withdraws into homogeneous groups and fighting for position.

But the history of trust suggest that this view leaves out at least half the story. This moment is extremely unusual, perhaps unique, in the power of an inclusive counter-movement of people who actively embrace diversity, who believe deeply not only that other people should be tolerated but that they bring something positive – that we can learn from them, develop ourselves, improve the world by actively working to understand others outside our tribe. This basic sensibility has often appeared in the past among small cultural elites of artists and philosophers, but today it has spread quite widely through the general population. The age-old move to exclude is encountering determined resistance.

A few recent reminders:

• After the killing of a Catholic priest near Rouen, Muslims across France and Italy flocked to Catholic masses in a show of solidarity, and were widely welcomed. The leader of Italy's Union of Islamic communities called on his people to "take this historic moment to transform tragedy into a moment of dialogue."
• On the day after the shooting of police officers in Dallas, “Black Lives Matter” marchers confronted a largely White “All Lives Matter” counter-demonstration. There were fears of violence. Then the leaders crossed to the middle of the street to meet; and soon the two groups came together to physically embrace each other. They said, and enacted, “This has to stop. No more walls.”
• While politicians across Europe are paralyzed by conflicts over immigration, a wide network of civil society groups is working actively to accept and integrate those fleeing their homelands. In formal and informal associations, they are building refugee centers, finding homes, developing educational systems, conducting dialogues about their needs and the problems of inclusion.
• In the last decade there has been a sudden shift in a centuries-long battle over the acceptance of gays. Among young people in particular, but quite widely across the population, there has been a dramatic rise in willingness to recognize gay relationships. This has been driven by dramatic movement in public opinion, which has rapidly grown much more tolerant of diverse sexual orientations.

These events, and many others,  are indicators of a deep shift in sensibility developing over the last century or more – a sensibility of “No more walls”, of active embrace of diversity. My own research indicates that in the U.S. about 40% of the population shares this sensibility pretty clearly, while fewer – around 30% – reject it. So there is a strong base for the battle against Trumpism, and LePenism, and Brexitism.

This is a historic change. Since the 17th century we have tried to avoid conflict by  respecting boundaries, tolerating others as long as they don't invade our space.  That is what is brought into question now: the density of relations and ease of interaction have increased so dramatically that the boundaries are always porous. Other groups knock on our doors demanding respect, not just tolerance. We need their cooperation to solve urgent social problems.  Their religion, food, music, art, pictures of their children and cats jostle for our attention.

Those who react by trying to close down – the 30% – can do so only through extreme repression, and at the cost of giving up the richness of a diverse world. They do have the advantage, however, of a strong and unified ideology, referring to clear images of the past rather than hazy images of imagined futures.

The inclusive sensibility lacks such a clear political program or voice. Neither liberalism nor conservatism captures it. The young, who are most open in general to the rapid global exchanges of the internet, have low engagement with traditional national politics, which they see as beside the point. The more politically active of them are working in voluntary associations, from local organic coops to global NGOs.

The challenge now is: How can we develop a politics of inclusion? Its practices are half-formed, just taking shape. They include an explosion of civic organizations aimed at improving relations in local communities, raising consciousness of interdependence, reaching out and understanding others. They have started building a practical foundation for building on the genuine advances of the past century, and permanently overcoming the age-old attraction of tribalism.

Three things for progressives to do during the holidays

For those of us who did not vote for Donald Trump, the holidays ahead will be tinged with sorrow and dread. The best way to deal with that is to do something constructive. It’s hard, especially for us older folk, to break out of established routines;it’s easier to complain and reinforce each other’s feelings than to act. But here are three simple, practical things that we can all do:

1) Listen to your Trumpist relatives and friends.

I have been interested to learn how many people in my circles know people who voted for Trump. The New York Times had a front-page article about the awkwardness this will cause at holiday meals as people try to avoid the subject. The thing to do is: don’t avoid it. Ask them how they feel, why they voted that way. Listen. Try to understand. Don’t argue, don’t judge, don’t try to convince them they are wrong. Listen to them, as the philosopher Gadamer says, “in the belief that they could be right.”

It is very hard to hear views which you find abhorrent. But it’s time for a little humility. And by doing this, you gain at least two advantages. One is that you may actually understand better the dynamics of Trump’s support. At the very least, this will help for the next battle. Sun Tzu’s famous advice has unfortunately been lost in the Democratic party:

"If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. But if you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

But it’s not just a tactic; it’s about helping in this small way to break the vicious dynamic of mistrust that has divided the country. The majority of Trump supporters don’t really agree with his policies, but they feel that something needs to change; and many feel despised and humiliated by the elites of the coasts and the cities. It’s largely up to us to change that – to show that we are willing to listen and engage them.

In this regard, two quotes to ponder, attributed to Abraham Lincoln:

"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”

and

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”

2) Reach out to Muslims

One of the many dangerous aspects of Trump’s world view is that he would isolate Muslims, make them feel like second-class citizens. American has largely avoided terrorist attacks from inside the country in large part because we have been remarkably successful in making Muslims feel at home. In Europe, Muslim ghettos full of hopeless youth have become breeding grounds for destruction.

But despite the power of Trump as President, there is a good deal all of us can do every day to diminish that danger. A young Muslim woman interviewed on This American Life expressed fear that she would no longer be able to wear her hijab, that she would be subjected to increasing discrimination; but she also said:

“"I'm hoping there will be more people who feel like the old woman today who reached out to me just to just kind of make eye contact, to smile. And that's really my hope. Because that's what I feel like America should be. And I feel that despite what the polls show, more people in America are good than are bigoted and awful"

We can all do at least that that - make eye contact, smile.

3) Support civil society groups

In the last fifty years an unprecedented growth in civil society institutions. Americans have always been good, as Tocqueville pointed out, at getting together to do something without waiting for a government mandate. But the recent growth of associations – for civil rights, for the environment, for community action, for mutual aid – has been explosive. The Internet has further accelerated the trend, The extraordinary advance of the gay rights movement was driven almost entirely from civil society, with government coming in mostly to to certify it. It’s a whole arena of action that Trump can’t stop.

So we need to do everything we can to bolster it. Each of us needs to pick a few key associations and engage in supporting them. Give them money – that’s the easiest thing to do during the holidays. Tell people to make donations to them rather than giving you gifts. If you can, do some work for them. Whatever it takes, this is how we can continue to move progressive causes forward while government policies and laws regress.

What do we do now?

In a Trump world, what do we do?

The first thing is, we need to stop focusing so heavily on the political arena. Liberals have an almost reflexive tendency to turn to government as a solution to social problems. But politics has been largely frozen for some decades now – not only in the US but in most of Europe and other industrial nation as as well. Most progressive energy has been spent simply trying to hold off the reactionary tide. Now the dike has been breached, and many progressive political advances are likely to be lost in the flood: health care reform, labor laws, environmental protections, affirmative action, financial regulations, redistributive policies.

But politics is not all there is. There is civil society, and there is the economy; and in both those areas progressive ideas have considerable power and can grow even in a hostile political climate.

Civil society – people’s everyday relationships and values – is now deeply split. About 30% of the country, by my estimates, wants to return to a kind of tribalism. They feel lost in the cultural changes of the last few decades – the internationalization, the influx of immigrants, the emphasis on inclusion for disenfranchised groups such as Blacks to gays, the commercialization and flaunting of sexuality. They have felt at home and comfortable in a culture, largely rural, held together by strong families and churches, racially and ethnically homogeneous. They therefore reject the basic idea of diversity and inclusion. This goes way beyond the few who have turned to explicitly white-supremacist ideology; most are simply trying to preserve the way of life they love.

Against this, and the main source of hope, is about 40% of the country that have embraced an active culture of diversity – who believe that “foreign” people bring something positive, that we should seek to learn from them, develop ourselves, improve the world by actively working to understand them. This large segment thrives on the rich mix of ethnicities and experiences, and on cultural fusions in music, food, and art. This basic sensibility – similar to “cosmopolitanism” of the past – has often appeared among small cultural elites of artists and philosophers, but its spread through the general population since the 1960s is historically unprecedented. It has spawned an ecosystem of associations, media, curricula, and habits that are now deeply embedded for a large part of the population. This forms a basis of visceral resistance to the age-old tribal impulse represented by Trump, a resistance that is likely to last.

The most plausible progressive task for now is to build on those gains in civil society. Many of the “new” progressives have already been going in that direction for some decades – emphasizing mutualism and social entrepreneurship rather than government regulation. They have been somewhat disengaged from politics, which is part of what has allowed the conservative counter-revolution to gain  steam. But the corresponding advantage is that the current political crisis doesn’t much affect them: they can continue many of the things they have been doing. Those of us who have focused more on government policies would do well to turn some of our attention there.

In this task surprising support can sometimes be found in the world of business and markets. The ability to succeed in a market economy can free socially-conscious groups from dependence on government, which is essential now. Furthermore, big corporations can be valuable allies. Many really believe in encouraging diversity because it improves their competitive capabilities: corporations on the whole have resisted conservative efforts to roll back affirmative action regulations. Some have become champions of environmentalism because they genuinely recognize the potential economic costs. They do not support tribalism: their outlook is generally international and  cosmopolitan. And they have been in the forefront of development of techniques for managing collaborative alliances and networks.

Thus social entrepreneurship and corporate alliances – a linking of civil society with the economic sphere – have gradually become important elements of the progressive movement. For example:

• Those of us who have fought for environmental regulations are in despair. But in the meantime a network of social entrepreneurs have created technologies that make many polluting industries obsolete, even without regulations. For instance, in the last few years hundreds of housing units – apartment buildings as well as individual houses – have been built to near-zero emissions standards, at about the same initial cost as standard construction, and with much lower maintenance cost over time. So there is suddenly a huge economic incentive to for an action which could make a major difference in efforts to save the planet.
• The government recently promulgated Obamacare regulations shifting the basis of health care compensation fee-for-service, which encourages multiplication of high-cost procedures, to fee-per-person (capitation). This encourages an approach of maximizing population health, which is much saner from a social point of view. The Republicans may repeal Obamacare, but insurance companies generally support the move to fee-per-person and population health because it works better economically; so they are likely to stick with it even if the government regulation disappears. Civil society groups have already become active in helping build population health through improved nutrition and mutual support. There is a natural alliance here among these groups, care providers, and insurance companies which could make a very positive difference in care provision.

I am not arguing that government is unnecessary in these and many similar cases. In a healthy system effective regulation would also be an important element. What I am arguing is that even in the wasteland that is likely to be the political landscape of the coming years, there is much that we can do to contribute to a better world.