Who Do You Trust?

I ask this in all honesty especially after reading this article by Ron Fournier in the National Journal.

From the article:

Seven in 10 Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track; eight in 10 are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed. Only 23 percent have confidence in banks, and just 19 percent have confidence in big business. Less than half the population expresses “a great deal” of confidence in the public-school system or organized religion. “We have lost our gods,” says Laura Hansen, an assistant professor of sociology at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass. “We lost [faith] in the media: Remember Walter Cronkite? We lost it in our culture: You can’t point to a movie star who might inspire us, because we know too much about them. We lost it in politics, because we know too much about politicians’ lives. We’ve lost it—that basic sense of trust and confidence—in everything.”

I wish I could argue the point, but I cannot.  I personally do not see much trust given to any institution in the public sphere today, and I'll offer my non-scientific analysis of why.

1. The 1960's.  I wasn't around during this period of time, so everything I say is based upon reading history and the anecdotal stories I've heard.  This was a time of monumental upheaval in our nation.  Some of it was good.  I'd hate to think what my daughters would be having to go through without the Civil Right's Movement.  Some of it was not so good.  Folks were taught to question every institution out there from Government to Religion.   This is where things began.

2. Questioning led to anger as it was discovered that institutions were less than honest.  Scandals rocked government and churches and all places in between. 

3. The rise of postmodern thought began to have its effect right about this time as well.  Truth became relative, based only in my point of view.

4. Technology gave us the ability to monitor everything (and everyone?) on a constant basis.  No longer were people able to slip by without fear of being discovered.  Everyone was on watch, and God help you if they caught you.

5. Since everyone is a flawed human being, technology enabled us to emphasize those flaws.

6. The decline in religion has also coincided with a decline in religious values particularly the value of forgiveness.  Try to trust someone if you are unable or unwilling to forgive him/her.

7. The media.  Need I say more.  It is my belief they purposely drive conflict and distrust.  Machiavelli, "Divide and conquer."

Of course, there may be a few more things to include.  I'm not a sociologist (obviously).  But I personally think these things have much to do with it.

So what can be done about it? 

That's an even more difficult question.  Personally, I believe it will take a monumental shift in society to accomplish such a thing.  A monumental shift which includes the following things:

1. The recapturing of the notion of Universal Truth.  Not that we can perfectly know it, but that there are some values which everyone should ascribe toward.

2. One of those values being the knowledge that all people, organizations, and societies are fundamentally flawed.  There is no perfection, and we should not expect perfection.  Therefore we must incorporate some way of understanding this, dealing with this appropriately (see forgiveness and repentance), and allowing folks to get past it with one another (humility).

3. Emphasizing the strengths someone has instead of focusing on his/her/its weaknesses. 

4. Finding a narrative which unites us.  We have no such thing today.  There is nothing out there which gives us the opportunity to say, "I need to care about what happens to this person because..."

It is my belief the Church can be instrumental in this process.