Once Trust Has Been Lost, There’s No Going Back

Now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.

The erosion of trust doesn’t require intent, it only requires the blind pursuit of self-interest above all else. Trust is fundamentally reciprocity and honesty: to build trust, we must each perform our agreed-upon responsibilities and be truthful about our performance and actions.

Lies, obfuscation, misdirection and the sins of omission are all Kryptonite to trust. Those who put the pursuit of self-interest above all else like to think they can finesse their greed by omitting the truth rather than presenting a fabrication / lie. But being social animals whose survival ultimately rests on trust, humans are keenly sensitive to the difference between the truth / honesty and self-serving prevarications such as the sins of omission.

America’s elites and those living large in protected fiefdoms have persuaded themselves that their relentless pursuit of self-interest has no cost or consequence. Conveniently ignoring Adam Smith’s volume on the moral foundations needed to support capitalism, they think “the invisible hand” of the market is nothing more than a feeding frenzy of self-serving greed, and so their relentless pursuit of self-interest will somehow magically transform their looting and free-riding into a stable economy and society.

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Of Two Minds – Once Trust Has Been Lost, There’s No Going Back