What do we do about trust?

Do we trust the like-minded few or do we extend trust more broadly?

I have a friend who was a student of mine years ago. Let me call him Rob so as not to embarrass him. He is distrustful of government, educators, the courts, scientists, journalists, vaccines, doctors, experts, pretty much anyone in a position of authority.

Rob is a religious man. I’d guess that he trusts his church, his particular denomination, but I’m not sure he trusts the church in general, particularly its most articulate spokesperson on matters of justice and the environment — Pope Francis. My friend is well grounded in mathematics, chemistry and physics. He’s certainly much more advanced in the sciences than I am. He’s generally much smarter than I am.

I tend to regard science as our pre-eminent authority on most earthly matters; he doesn’t. Why? Is there no common body of fact anymore? Is there no common ground from which both us could move forward in deep, exploratory conversation? Should we both read the former Gov. Gen. David Johnston’s book on trust “Trust: Twenty Ways to Build a Better Country?”

I don’t know where my friend stands on how well governments have done in responding to COVID-19. I haven’t asked him yet. For myself, I think Canadian governments, federal and provincial, have done well given in the words of one commentator that they have had to fly a plane while they were in the process of building it. Kudos to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for clear, calm and consistent public communication, ditto Premier Doug Ford, and thanks to Chief Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and the Minister of Health, Patty Hajdu, for their expert briefings and updates on the virus.

My friend trusts certain websites and online videos, which often echo his own viewpoints and convictions. He often looks for, and finds, conspiracies behind the official version of events. I get my news from newspapers (mostly print) and the CBC, although I also have a digital subscription to The New York Times. He gets his news — the “real” news in his mind — from what you could broadly call social media. For the most part, I trust words; he trusts images. I think he is naive and gullible at times and he thinks the same thing about me.

The one card in my deck I haven’t yet played on trust with my friend is psychologist Jordan Peterson’s article in The National Post, 201908-23 titled “Jordan Peterson: The deep-fake artists must be stopped …” Rob has watched many of Peterson’s online videos. He thinks highly of Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life,” as I do.

In the article, Peterson shares how disturbing it was to discover a complete website devoted to making fake audio clips imitating his voice and delivering “whatever content the user chooses — for serious, comic or malevolent purposes.” Peterson goes on in the article to wonder if we are “entering a future where the only credible source of information will be direct personal contact?”

Given Peterson’s personal experience of video manipulation, Rob may be forced to rethink his bias toward images over words, electronics over print. Yes, words and language can be manipulated — taken out of context, misquoted, etc. But images, it seems to me, are even more easily manipulated.

Peterson worries: “I can’t imagine what the world will be like when we will truly be unable to distinguish the real from the unreal, or exercise any control whatsoever on what videos reveal about behaviours we never engaged in, or audio avatars broadcasting any opinion at all about anything at all.”

So, what do we do about trust? Do we trust the like-minded few or do we extend trust more broadly — given there is always a need for healthy skepticism and questioning about any word that comes down from any high place by any messenger?

Just after the Nazis had invaded Poland and night was about to descend on Europe, poet W.H. Auden wrote in “September 1, 1939,” “We must love one another or die.” That seems too much to ask. But maybe an increased degree of trust is possible in our post-COVID-19 world. Trust in our institutions, trust in our medical workers — nurses, doctors, paramedics, managers, researchers, technicians, professional support workers and caregivers. Trust in our cleaners, cooks, drivers, cashiers, farmers, teachers, journalists, firefighters, police officers, security personnel, sanitation workers, water quality inspectors and public servants. They have, after all, protected our lives, and in some cases, saved them.

Maybe, as in the Auden poem, we creatures who are made of eros and dust can “show an affirming flame.”

Words and language can be manipulated — taken out of context, misquoted, etc. But images are even more easily manipulated