You can't have trust without taking a risk

We value being trusted; it's a mark of a good relationship. Conversely, we don't like being distrusted, or the sense of suspicion that comes with it, for this strongly undermines a relationship - we become guarded, careful about what we share, less open and more distant.

There is another part of us that wants to be certain about things, to know for sure. We are wary when we don’t know all the details - are we being ‘taken for a ride’, is there something hidden and not being shared, is there something underhand going on?

But there is a paradox involved in holding the above two common characteristics together, which is at root a battle between love, which is willing to take the risk of trusting, and power, which controls and minimises any risk of threat and not knowing.

Think of a close personal relationship: in order to build trust the people in that relationship need to act in trustworthy and consistent ways as trust develops. Even once there is a considerable degree of trust, the people in the relationship do not know everything about the other, or even need to know everything - for there is willingness to trust that the other’s attitude and actions will be loving without our trying to exert any control over them.

Such confidence and trust is not based on full knowledge or on power, but rather on shared values and experience, and a willingness to believe in the other’s benevolence.

Now think of the national security services: their business is not trusting, but gaining all the possible information about others that they can, just in case there is some deception or latent hostility or threat to be uncovered. When this intelligence gathering is aimed at political or military enemies, the mutual distrust may make such intelligence gathering understandable, even necessary for self-protection. But where this takes place between allies, or is directed towards ‘innocent third parties’, then this is not a benign protecting against threat; it destroys trust, builds suspicion and increases the level of threat!

The paradox is that we must take the risk of trusting another in order to get close to them and build a safer world. Where we seek to eliminate that risk, then we inevitably endanger relationships and increase the level of threat.

Those who say they act in our best interest to protect us whilst also spying on us, may or may not be sincere, but either way they are mistaken. For you cannot have trust without taking a risk, and you cannot have security without a good deal of trust.