What does it mean to "trust someone"
Dec. 17th, 2013 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackIf you say you trust someone what does that mean? That you trust their integrity, not to deliberately take advantage of you? Or that you trust their competence? Or that you trust their self-knowledge of their own level of competence?
It seems a common sitcom moment that people take "trust" to mean, "if someone is important in your life, you must automatically believe everything that comes out of their mouth, however ridiculous". Which seems obviously a bad idea.
But I think I'm also worse-than-average at inferring whether or not I _should_ take something on trust, that someone hasn't explicitly stated.
It's like, suppose someone offers to post an important letter for you. I think it's reasonable to assume they wouldn't take it as far as the postbox, then choose to crumple it up and throw it away instead of posting it. But is it reasonable to assume they'll REMEMBER to post it? If they SAY they'll remember, is it reasonable to assume they're right? Do you have the same idea of how important it is that it's posted TODAY? For some people, it goes without saying that DO know how, and doubting that is insulting their competence. But it's also true that basically everyone THINKS they can post a letter, but many of us also assume "oh, I forgot and did it tomorrow" or "yes, but I spilled some beer on it" are equally good. So, I always want to clarify, "do you actually have good evidence for the level of certainty I wanted, or did you just assume that you could do it 'well enough'"? But that always comes across as "don't trust you", because we assume that we SHOULD be competent enough, and someone doubting us is assuming (a) we're untrustworthy or (b) we're so stupid we don't know whether we can perform a common day-to-day action or not :(
It seems a common sitcom moment that people take "trust" to mean, "if someone is important in your life, you must automatically believe everything that comes out of their mouth, however ridiculous". Which seems obviously a bad idea.
But I think I'm also worse-than-average at inferring whether or not I _should_ take something on trust, that someone hasn't explicitly stated.
It's like, suppose someone offers to post an important letter for you. I think it's reasonable to assume they wouldn't take it as far as the postbox, then choose to crumple it up and throw it away instead of posting it. But is it reasonable to assume they'll REMEMBER to post it? If they SAY they'll remember, is it reasonable to assume they're right? Do you have the same idea of how important it is that it's posted TODAY? For some people, it goes without saying that DO know how, and doubting that is insulting their competence. But it's also true that basically everyone THINKS they can post a letter, but many of us also assume "oh, I forgot and did it tomorrow" or "yes, but I spilled some beer on it" are equally good. So, I always want to clarify, "do you actually have good evidence for the level of certainty I wanted, or did you just assume that you could do it 'well enough'"? But that always comes across as "don't trust you", because we assume that we SHOULD be competent enough, and someone doubting us is assuming (a) we're untrustworthy or (b) we're so stupid we don't know whether we can perform a common day-to-day action or not :(
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Date: 2013-12-17 03:33 pm (UTC)So having to inquire whether someone is in fact capable of carrying out the trust-required task you've asked for is in fact a lack of current trust -- you don't have the knowledge that would give you the certainty. However, current lack of trust isn't the same thing as distrust. Distrust is "I am certain in your unreliability on this topic."