Trust

A post in which I ramble about trust, lies, and forgiveness.

Inspired by a post by Hanny, I have been pondering the topic of trust for the past day. While he writes about his personal issues with trust, the decline of trust in our society is what has dominated my thinking. There have been two eras in my life where trust has disintegrated within our society with the first being the Watergate fallout. The second is harder for me to figure out when it started and for good reason. I will get back to that in a bit.

It would be good for me to write a disclaimer of sorts.

A year and half ago, I went through a pain therapy course involving meditation to relieve chronic pain. In order to join the course, I had to take the multiphasic personality test that professionals belief reveal all about you. According to it, I trust too easily.

Anybody who knows me in any kind of depth knows I do not trust people one whit. My favorite mental phrase is “I don’t trust them any further than I can shoot them.” Seriously, I am not joking. When I was very young, I was trusting. It was interactions with other humans that completely destroyed that. Betrayal is something I learned about early and repeatedly.

So you can imagine how hysterically funny a skeptic like me found that analysis. There was a question that went something like this: Do you believe most people are honest? My answer was yes, after some dithering. Why? Because I believe that most people try to be, but have no clue what the truth really is. Many of their lies are regurgitated from what they have been taught. Because I take the Godly commandment to forgive seriously, my perspective has become this. Frankly, I would not be able to tolerate other people if I did not.

Back to the main point of this post, which is about how trust has evaporated in the United States. I would say it is a world wide problem, but I have expanded the scope of the topic enough already. It is a problem too big to handle easily as it is.

Being a child of the 1970s, I was raised in a very cynical time where trust in government had been completely broken. That distrust swept into office a complete failure of a President, Jimmy Carter. Kids I grew up with called the town police officers “pigs” and respect for law was absent. Morals went out the window too and Carter’s “malaise” took hold in a declining nation. It would not be until Ronald Reagan was elected that things would improve.

But the poison still remained in the body public and never was completely flushed out. Trust in the federal government would never reach the heights it had been before. Oh some of the older folks still hung on to their faith that had been instilled into them by FDR and company. But by and large, government was no longer the father figure. Yet other institutions still held the public trust.

Decades later, we have more distrust of a vastly larger federal government, but there is an even bigger problem of trust. That is the fact no public institution has maintained the trust of the majority of the people. Public education is an abysmal disaster, higher education is failing to guarantee employment on graduation, and the once revered news media is so biased that only 20% have a favorable opinion of the self appointed guardians of truth. Organized religion has taken a huge hit and is not trusted like it had been for centuries. One bastion of trust after another has fallen, with the latest being the replacement for religion by some: science. It too has become incredibly corrupt.

When all this happened is impossible to quantify, since it has been a gradual process. Yet there is one iconic moment in the pop culture that stands out: the debut of The X-Files. Paranoia became heroic instead of dangerous, attractive rather than repellent, and cool not crazy. While mainly aimed at the government and conspiracies, there was plenty of attacks on everything in the show. I do not believe the series created the attitude, but that it merely reflected what was beginning to happen in America.

It is a very unhealthy thing and is causing societal order to break down. But what can you do when so many people lie to gain money and power? What can you do when the average student cheats on tests, the normal Joe lies to get insurance money, and people commit adultery to the point where a paternity testing company estimated 30% of children are not the biological child of their purported father?

How can anybody trust anyone?

When your fellow man cannot be trusted, only God can be. This is my conclusion, though I will confess that I do not do so well in this category of faith. I do not doubt His abilities or power, I just have problems believing any promises made to me will be kept. That is the damage done by others in my life showing, unfortunately.

Psalm 146 reads:

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

That has been rattling around in my head for most of the year. I am afraid it is all too true, since the “princes” of our time have proven to be both corrupt and hopelessly inept at dealing with the ills of our time. When they rarely try to deal with serious problems, I should say.

In 2 Nephi it is written:

Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost.

That tells me this problem is nothing new and that we should be skeptical of mortal men. I do not seem to have a problem with that.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote of ancient Israel, but chapter nine of his book fits today all too well. Rather than post the entire chapter, here are a few excerpts:

And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

The rest is a warning of consequences and a call to repentance.

It is the latter that has me personally concerned, though the overall state of things should concern all. Calling people to repent is not an easy thing to do, despite the fact there are many ways to do so including some subtle ways. I have felt impressed that this is the only way to deal with the decay in society, though I do not know if it is for my personal salvation or is something that will actually improve things for all. I suspect the former, alas. But if enough people were to do it…

Yes, that is not likely to happen, I know. So I will place my trust in God, not man and deal with it from there.

So how to deal with lies and liars personally?

Calling out lies and putting forth the truth is an important ingredient in dealing with trust issues. I would submit that doing it a loving way without anger is the best, and perhaps only, approach. The other important thing is to forgive others.

What is often called the Lord’s Prayer can be found in Matthew Chapter 6, verses 10-13. But how many people remember the next two verses?

14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This is key to so very many things, so I will limit to dealing with liars. Lies vary be degree and everyone is guilty of telling at least one in their lives. So we are not spotless, are we? But what of the big whoppers, the ones that do damage whether it be emotional, economic, or life changing?

Forgiveness is more for our well being than for the person who wronged us. It does not require us to be blind fools that set ourselves to be taken in again. What it does require of us is letting go of the anger. After all, it only damages us, especially if we are dealing with a serial liar.

In Matthew 18 we read:

21 ¶Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

That is a tough thing to do. But we are never commanded to ratify that sin or approve of it. We are never told not to speak of it or remonstrate the wrong doer. In fact the parable that follows illustrates two different confrontations and two different outcomes. Go read it, it is a good lesson.

This is how I deal with those who have lied to me. I forgive them, but I do not trust them unless they make some kind of recompense or change to their behavior. It is very difficult for me and it is something I am still working on.

One thing is certain and that is I refuse to let the liars of the world change who I am. I will not cede that power to them and I will not descend to their level. If it makes enemies, so be it. I would rather keep loving my neighbor and trying my best to do right.

Well, I never thought this would turn out to be a 1700+ ramble, but I knew it would be prudent not to reply as a comment to Hanny’s post!