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01/10/2005: "Never trust anyone?"

On the community forums at work, the statement came up: "Moral: Never trust ANYONE! Teach it to your kids."

At best this is completely infeasable. I'd go so far as to say ridiculous.

Do you live in a house? Then you trust a whole string of people, all the way from the people in the manufacturing plant that made the nails to the lawyers used to broker the money transfers necessary to purchase.

Do you ever drive? Then you trust the welders at the manufacturing plant to the driver peering over the steering wheel behind you.

Do you ever walk anywhere?

Do you ever talk on the phone?

... bank?

... eat?

What about something really scary like using a credit card or (gasp) a computer?

The fact is, you trust a lot of people every day. It is simply impossible for you to independantly verify every trust issue every time they come up. There are far too many everyday activities that require us to trust people one way or another.

I am not, by any means, saying that you should trust people blindly. People should definitely investigate enter into relationships with other people with some level of incredulity. Purchasing things purely on the basis of what the people promoting it say is foolish at best, as those promoters have a small vested in their promotions being successful (even if they don't have a direct link to the product, nobody wants to hire an unsuccessful promoter). This goes for any relationship other than purchaser/vendor as well.

I think this fallacy is a result of one of the great myths of our time: people believe they can be truely independent. More than that, people believe that being independent is a highly desireable quality. People want to be known as a "self-made man" (or woman). Independent must mean we're free, and freedom must be a good thing.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Independent also means isolated. And that doesn't work any better for individuals as it does for whole countries. We depend on others every day of our lives for any number of things, and believe it or not, it is a good thing. Because good dependent relationships mean unity, not weakness. We don't get weaker by depending on others. As a whole, we get stronger.