A culture of trust is vital to solving the big problems of our age.
Without trust, there can be no hope of real and lasting positive change in the world. Our challenges are too big to solve on our own. We must be able to work together and collaborate on an unprecedented scale to build a stable economy, restore health to our communities, and manage the tremendous global changes unfolding around us.
And yet we live in a world filled with manipulative messages, the very presence of which threatens the foundation of democracy. From a very early age, our hidden motivations (in the form of emotional tendencies and networks of associated knowledge embedded in our unconscious minds) have been exploited to trick us into thinking we need things that we don’t.
And now this pervasiveness of sophisticated commercial marketing has corroded the fabric of political engagement. We no longer trust most of the information we receive. Our skepticism is a cultural pathology – a deeply rooted belief that those in power are trying to trick us. Unfortunately, this distrust is grounded in the truth that we have indeed been tricked many times in the past.
The existence of skepticism is a matter of significance that needs to be addressed in our politics. Lip service is often paid to the need for greater voter turnout, but no solutions are offered that address the malaise of distrust that has stood in the way of progress for decades.
I believe that a culture of trust is desperately needed if we are to address the looming challenges of the modern world. People need to be able to identify deceptive practices and stop them in their tracks, while also having the skills necessary to communicate their real concerns authentically so that others can trust in them.
A starting point in the cultivation of trust is to name the strategy that undermines it. One that has been around for years, but is not in common use, is the acronym “FUD” which stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt – the standard tactics for deceiving and manipulating people. FUD can be found every time that an insecurity is used to push a product (“Use our acne medication or you won’t be attractive”). It is present in misinformation campaigns that undermine legitimate authorities (“Climate has changed in the past, so you can’t trust those who claim it is changing now due to human causes.”). And it is the basic premise of public relations and marketing firms that fill our world with mixed messages throughout the mass media every day.
Where do FUD practitioners learn their trade? Is there a FUD University that teaches the tactics of deception and redirection? Perhaps not. But these skills are widely deployed and are threatening the public confidence that forms the basis of modern democracy.
What we need is an antidote to FUD – a collection of skills and practices that nullify deception and transcend it. As we move into the 21st Century, we must create new tools for countering deception that instill trust in our capacity as a people to govern ourselves. We need to be able to deconstrust spin in the media so that hidden messages are made explicit. This will require us to think differently about truth and perception. We’ll have to understand the psychology of meaning and the nature of our hidden motivations. We need the opposite of FUD, an Open University that teaches the tactics of honesty and authenticity.
The only viable response to FUD is openness and transparency. Our hidden tendencies can only be exploited if they remain hidden. It is vital that we democratize the production of political communications, starting at the most basic level of knowing our own minds. We need a cognitive toolbox – tools for understanding what’s going on inside our heads – to be able to see how communication works within us. Only then can we truly open up the production process and invite the public to participate.
This goes much deeper than merely changing the content of our messages in political communications. Rampant distrust in a culture keeps a populace from being able to discern truth for themselves, regardless of how accurate a message might be. Instead, we have to restructure the methods of communication themselves. For example, most people are well aware that digital media can be modified to make things that are fake seem real. We’ve all experienced this at the movies many times in our lives. So there is a need to make the creation of digital media more transparent – as websites like YouTube do when users typically know what is real because they are making it themselves. This transparency makes it possible for the process of media production to be scrutinized.
The same can be said for other political processes. Currently most legislation is created behind closed doors and under the veil of technocratic language. The obscurity of this process – combined with the fact that bills have been used in the past for purposes different from what we were told (think “Patriot Act” or “No Child Left Behind”) – and you get a recipe for widespread skepticism about the legislative process. No wonder so many people disengage!
It is time to start the difficult work of building a better kind of politics, one that works in the 21st Century. We have to open up the political system and make it more participatory. People have to feel like they can take ownership and engage the political world with a mandate for openness and transparency.
The age of elite democracy is behind us. It doesn’t serve us any longer. In the days ahead, we’ll need a populist politics that recognizes the value of active participation, one that promotes inclusiveness for everyone. Such an open political machine will only work if its “operating system” is visible. We can only trust in the system if we are able to see how it works and make modifications to it when it doesn’t. This is analogous to what software developers call “open source” where the source code of a piece of software is open for others to see. When the source code is hidden, it is impossible to truly know what is going on inside the black box of the machine.
The same is true for our politics. Democracy is only real when the political source code is open for everyone to see. Building a culture of trust will require that we get to the heart of this problem, and make visible the methods of production for all the world to see.
Update: Want to keep up with my work? Follow me on Twitter.
——–
Enjoy this article? Perhaps you’d like to sign up for our newsletter.
——–
Related posts:
Great article, Joe.
In my own experience as an elected precinct representative to my county party, two FUDS that are easy fixes by openness and transparency currently exist. They are (1) the misuse of the quorum at public meetings and (2) not sharing written minutes with all members.
These tools of transparency strengthen the party by taking a necessary, and in this case constitutionally required, step toward accountability, which is necessary not only for trust but also cooperation.
All politics is local, as Tipp Oneil once said, and party member opinions, values, etc. are numerous. Constitutions and by-laws are current tools to facilitate the local dialogue but their usefulness seem directly linked to the amount of FUD. With high FUD the local constitution seems useless.
I recently requested written minutes be provided to all elected and appointed party members either by mail or email. My request was partially granted – I now receive them, but no one else.
Any thoughts.
Hey Chuck,
I think you've hit on some important themes in your comment, especially the significance of (1) local interactions with people in your community and (2) the political importance of merely making information readily available and accessible.
The sharing of information is a political act because it leverages power between the holder of it and anyone else who might benefit from using it. This is why I write my articles on the web for everyone to share – because I want to democratize the political world so that everyone who can surf the web (and ultimately,people who are connected to web users) is able to learn what I learn and do what I do.
It seems in your case that the committee you're on would benefit from having a public record of its minutes, perhaps published on its website (assuming there is one). Makes me wonder why the committee is hesitant to share the information openly. What's your take on it?
Best,
Joe
Hi Joe,
I really enjoyed your article. I read it from Truthout and posted the following comment:
* * *
Your concern is clear, and yup, we've got a big problem here!
However, the problem doesn't start with the politicians, the media, and the marketers. It started with our parents, and our parents' parents, etc. etc. How many of us grew up with "honest parents" who didn't use FUD to "influence us" to do it "their way", who didn't lie to us, who weren't accomplished "spinmeisters" at best, or abusive, dominating "control freaks" at worst?
And many of our parents' lies and FUD's were with the "best of intentions" (eg. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, as well as HellFire and Damnation for a whole multitude of "sins")
* * *
I hope you ARE successful in helping to change our culture in the direction you are suggesting. I too think the need is great.
I wonder if you have read the following books:
NONZERO by Robert Wright
ISHMAEL by Daniel Quinn
If yes to either, I'd be very interested in your take on either or both. If not, I think a thoughtful, open-minded read of each of them would be valuable and provocative for you.
Best Wishes for your success in changing our political discourse.
Tom Huntington
Joe,
I have been told minutes are not posted to a website because they would "tip off" the opposition.
Good stuff. Thank you, Joe. Using the word "trust" adds a new, valuable dimension to the dialogue about how to build a just, sustainable world. Universal values and vision are more commonly used when I discuss spiritual politics. It's most encouraging to see this concept bubbling up in many places. It needs to move into the mainstream.
One of the biggest impediments to transparency is the lack of transparency, and the controlling nature of our monetary system. This system is pivotal, as money is the language of economic activity, and its rules set the tone for all economic life. Until this issue is dealt with, there is little hope of getting transparency in other parts of our lives.
So money legislation and activity is an important area to watch and lobby against the banking interests. Ellen Brown's web sites are a good place to start learning about this issue. They can be found at:
http://www.ellenbrown.com http://www.webofdebt.com
She has done a good job of bringing together all of the pertinent research on the topic.
Hello T-Huntington,
Thank you for mentioning the role of parenting and, by implication, the intergenerational aspect of FUD control. A major discovery in research around political though was George Lakoff's analysis in Moral Politics of family metaphors and their relationship to political worldviews. The socialization process during childhood is very powerful for shaping worldviews for the younger generation.
In response to your questions, yes I have read Ishmael and found it to be an enlightening and provocative read. I haven't gotten to Nonzero so I can't say anything about it.
Best,
Joe
Hello Paul,
Excellent point about a need for transparency (and ultimately, public accountability) with the monetary system. I like to refer people to the video of Money as Debt to help them understand how the financial system works:
<embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2550156453790090544&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
Very important stuff!
Best,
Joe
I understand your view of having an Open Source government. Some tools that I found and use that aim towards this view of trust and transparency:
1) http://www.knowmore.org/ a tool to raise awareness of corporate abuse, and to serve as a catalyst for direct action against corporate power. You can also have it as an extension to the Firefox browser
http://www.knowmore.org/wiki/index.php?title=Know...
2) the other extension is simply a tool to see which are the webs of trust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOT:_Web_of_Trust
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/34...
They help a lot! My idea is to create a similar feedback tool, but not just of websites or corporations, but using the social networks to create a "Karma grade" for government officials and people in general. Anyone who knows of corruption, or shady behaviour can let everyone know. The problem arises in how can you trust the people that make the feedback, but the same is true of other open projects such as wikipedia, but as experience (and moderators!) show, this is not the case. I will say that a consensus will be better than no information at all!
**this already exists for teachers at ratemyprofessors.com , for buyers at ebay.com and at the bank of time kroonos.com
Hello Kaigue,
Sounds like you're doing some interesting work. I'd love to hear more about your ideas around the "karma grade."
Best,
Joe