Apparently there are an awful lot of people out there who still don't believe what they are being told about the current crisis. They listen to neither politicians nor experts - well, colour me surprised!
Trust is something that takes years to build up, and years to erode. I know it is said that trust can be destroyed more quickly than gained, but I disagree. Once trust is solidly established in our minds, it can take quite a lot before we change our opinion. That explains why people can be so comprehensively hoodwinked by a politician once he has established trust - Hitler, anyone? We will explain away a lot of 'incongruous' instances of behaviour, before we finally conclude that someone is not as trustworthy as we once thought. The same goes for friends, spouses, bosses, etc.
It is therefore quite saddening to see how little trust there is left in so many institutions these days. Because there used to be a lot of trust, and people were willing to defer to those that occupied positions of importance. Unfortunately this trust has been eroded over time. Scandal by scandal, lie by lie, manipulation by manipulation, nudge by nudge, we were hoodwinked and deceived - for our own good, it often was claimed.
Our suspicion grew with every establishment scandal, with every abuse of power, with every uncovered lie, until we were hard pressed to trust anyone.
And now, when we sorely need someone we can believe, someone who will not lie to us for their own ends, we trust no one. However, we need this trust - without it society cannot function, and lack of trust may cost us dearly in the current crisis.
I suppose people in power have always abused their position. Politicians have manipulated us to be elected, experts have given us misleading information to achieve a certain result, employers have lied to maximise their share of the economic pie, people have abused their position for personal gain and satisfaction.
What has made things worse recently, is a mixture of
(a) internet disseminated information which makes it easier to find out the truth - we now know more about their lies
(b) a widening gap between the have and have-nots, which makes it increasingly obvious that the top 1% don't care about the rest of us, no matter what they say
(c) a destruction of organisations that used to fight the corner of the 99% - eg unions, the Labour Party - the individual has no one left who fights their corner and has therefore earned their trust
(d) the individualisation and personal greed creed that has been foisted on us for the last 40 years made it positively daft to be the kind of caring individual we are now called upon to be.
We have been encouraged to be go-getting, greedy, and beggar your neighbour - and now, surprise surprise, many of us are!
And those of us who have not succumbed to the creed of selfishness are penalised and ridiculed for our civic mindedness more often than not. Whistleblowers, anyone? Union reps? Volunteers in charity shops? Nurses and carers? Has it really paid off to be decent and honourable these past four decades? Those of us who continued to be kind felt like fools to be so.
Oh, the right noises were made, lip-service was paid - but when you look at who was rewarded, who prospered, who was admired, in our society, it never was the decent folk who did their duty and acted with kindness.
So the conclusion we drew was that those in charge were untrustworthy scoundrels. Why would we listen to them?
Unless we can get some honesty, decency, and equity back into society we are headed for a dystopian future.
