No large society can survive without widespread trust. In a nation, such as ours, where most people are strangers to one another, individuals must have a modicum of confidence in folks they have never met. If not, mutual suspicions will prevent them from collaborating on joint projects.
This is true of all mass techno-commercial societies. When millions of people depend on one another for the food on their tables, the clothes on their backs and the roofs over their heads, they need to be sure these will be supplied in good faith.
As crucially, they must not fear for their personal security in everyday transactions. It is one thing to worry about gang violence on some inner city streets; it is quite another to dread a physical assault every time one enters a supermarket. Were the latter the case, it would make no sense to leave one’s home.
But how can we be certain about the intentions of strangers? We do not know them? They might conceal a secret animus toward our persons. What if they are like those militants who shoot random police officers? What if they harbor a hatred of the social category to which we belong; perhaps our race, religion, or gender?
With identity politics rampant and radical partisanship at a fevered pitch, this is not an idle question. Nowadays people with different political loyalties often refuse to talk to one another. Nowadays tortured hypocrisy issuing from the lips of public officials has become commonplace.
Once we believed what we heard from the media. Today we have learned that many journalists are at pains to promote hidden agendas. Once we assumed that schools taught objective facts. Today we realize that countless pedagogues disseminate biased opinions.
When over ninety percent of news coverage of a hated president is negative, we can be certain that it is slanted. When millions of Americans demand the impeachment of a chief executive before he is inaugurated, they cannot be judging his actions. When senators refuse to confirm cabinet officers irrespective of their qualifications, we know that truth and justice count for naught.
Paradoxically, we have also witnessed an upsurge in moral posturing. People violating principles they once held sacred now do so in the name of higher standards. Ordinary folks passionately trashing ideological enemies likewise claim to be defending hallowed traditions. In these cases, their words say one thing, but their conduct screams the opposite.
How can it be that people, who once marched in favor of free speech, currently shout down the speech of folks with whom they disagree? How can government officials, who previously prosecuted perjury, turn around and excuse their own perjury?
Does personal integrity no longer matter? Has the quest for political power become so inordinate that no potentially winning tactic is exempt from consideration? If so, it will not be long before the long knives are out not just metaphorically, but actually.
Today students paint school murals that skewer the head of a sitting president. Does this portend a day when assassination is the preferred mode of political dialogue? Today activists proudly encourage immigrants to flout U.S. law. Does this forecast a time when few laws are respected?
Trust is a fragile thing? It takes years, and frequently centuries, to consolidate. To throw it away for the expediency of the moment is insane. To sacrifice it for a short term victory is long-term madness. Widespread distrust can only end in a society of apprehensive hermits who never venture out of their bomb shelters.
Morality is not dead; it cannot be dead. To convert it into a malleable tool of transitory convenience is to lay the groundwork for utter destruction. When, through our actions, we teach our children that everyone lies and cheats, soon everyone will lie and cheat.
Most Americans are tired of our poisonous political atmosphere. Nonetheless, fat too many participate in spreading the toxins. They may demand that others behave honorably, but are blind to their own indiscretions. On the assumption that they are intrinsically trustworthy, they dismiss their lies as virtuous.
So I say, let’s defend morality. Let us genuinely stand up for principles such as honesty, personal responsibility, and fairness. Let us teach them; let us fight for them; let us condemn their absence. The alternative is a cynical slide into anarchy.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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