Trust

Trust is such an integral and yet mostly hidden (at least for me) part of our information processing system. To further complicate things, it doesn’t act by itself—people tend to trust things that fit their view of the world, and tend to be skeptical of things that seem unusual or surprising.

This all makes sense. In everyday life, the last thing I need is to carefully evaluate everything coming in. “Oh, the light is green? I need to double-check what the regulation is on that, just in case it changed since the last traffic light I was at.” That’s silly. We give trust (to borrow a phrase from my friend Jaymes) to the systems we’ve set up to drive around safely.

Further, most of the input we get in everyday life reinforces what we know about the world already. I tripped at the top of the basement stairs recently. True to my expectations, I fell, and it hurt. Everything fit in my worldview. Well, almost everything: I was surprised at my clumsiness. That, naturally, yielded a bunch of questions: am I really that clumsy? is this going to happen more often? am I getting old? I asked questions about the new information that did not fit my existing model. As you might expect, asking questions is a lot of work, so I blithely ignored them and went on with my day.

That’s a lot of talk about trust and worldview. Why does it matter, in a blog about politics?

I go through the same process when reading the news. I quickly accept, without question, news that fits in with my perception of the world. I roll my eyes when it comes from “the other side,” and assume that it must be a propaganda piece. Try it: Imagine a headline that said, “We did ______________ in order to save millions in your taxpayer dollars!” Fill in the “we” with my team and the blank with a cause I support. I accept it without question. But the moment it comes from the “other side”, alarm bells are ringing and I assume it’s just all made-up hogwash.

As I said earlier—our systems are working as intended, the way they work best in everyday life. 

What are we to do, then, in an era where, as my friend Carol said, is full of “24-hour news cycles, infotainment,  sensationalist-driven algorithms, and now AI to tell us all about the world?”

What advice should I give myself?

I’m not sure I know.

I want to remember that my emotions, as much as they are a useful quick-response system, are not reliable in finding what is true.

I want to remember to think the best of others in general, while not forgetting that sober assessments of people’s character often explain their actions well. Bad character produces bad fruit.

I want to remember that my values are not everyone’s values, and they (too often) aren’t even Jesus’ values.

I want to remember that it takes time and effort to think fully through an issue, and to be able to empathize with people who might disagree.

I want to remember to doubt even the things that match my expectations, and to allow my views to change as I learn new things.

I want to remember that my feelings are not truth (though they can be useful!), but that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

More than anything, I want to see through Jesus’ eyes, with His heart, grace, justice, and compassion.