Trust

Trust

by Marco M. Pardi

“Trust, v. To lay oneself open to deception.” Victor I. Cahn. The Disrespectful Dictionary.

“Trust in God but tie your camel”. Arab saying.

All comments are welcome and will receive a reply. All previous posts are open for comment.

That he was being watched was not surprising. But Tonio had to wonder if the interest was simply routine to detect something or focused to confirm something. If the former, no problem. If the latter, big problem. His assigned interpreter, Kamran, a graduate student at Azerbaijan University of Languages in Baku and undoubtedly an officer in the Dövlət Təhlükəsizlik Xidməti, or State Security Service, came alongside him, smiling as always.

Tonio moved so he could quickly examine the two men who had entered with his mark. Over Kamran’s shoulder he noted these were not the usual types, stacks of muscle topped by a solid round bone; they were lean and built as if from braided steel, one staying near the mark while the other circulated to be ready to respond from an unexpected direction. Professionals. He could not determine their ages in years, but their faces indicated they had lived every day of them.

As he circulated among the guests, drinking his tonic water and lime, smiling and speaking through Kamran, he reviewed the possibilities. To his knowledge only three senior executives knew of the existence of the – maybe – five other specialists and two of those executives refused any and all knowledge of the identities and specific actions of the unit. Plausible deniability. The department which created his legend, complete with rudimentary family tree, birth certificate, schooling, and passport knew nothing about him. They simply erected a phantom. That left only the one executive as a source of a possible leak. Yet, he had known that man for years, and had been personally recruited by him. “You’re like a brother to me, Tonio. But if the order comes I’d kill you in a heartbeat.” Never. No, NEVER trust anyone completely.

Trust is such an amorphous concept. It can be applied to the intangible, the ethereal, such as Fate, the future. Or, it can be applied to the very specific, the minuscule stent placed in a coronary artery. A miscalculation in either case may yield a result with no second chances. When you drive onto the highway at night do you trust in Fate, or in your brake pads? Will you see in time that oncoming wrong-way driver with his headlights out? Speaking of which, I, like so many other children at the time, heard the advice to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Bible. Proverbs 3:5-6. God the traffic cop. We can only hope that also applies to the other guy.

We go to bed at night and let ourselves fall asleep, trusting that we will wake up. Remember that comforting little child’s prayer, “….if I should die before I wake…”? Pleasant dreams.

Apparently trust can be applied fully, partially, or conditionally. Ronald Reagan enshrined this when he confronted the leader of the then Soviet Union and repeatedly said “Trust, but verify” An untold number of Americans seem to still think he dreamed that up. I was amused at the time, when it seemed he was throwing an old Russian proverb, “doveryai, no proveryai”, back at a Russian.

Of course, there can be times when you find yourself working for someone you do not trust at all. It’s possible to do this so long as you remember the saying, le plus on leur baise le cul, le plus ils nous chient sur la tete.

It is interesting to inventory the various things, events, and people we place some degree of trust in every day, and night. Recently I read a column in which a woman was gushing about how her enormous boa constrictor liked to stretch out next to her on the bed at night and sleep. She was so thrilled by its love. A herpetologist responded that it more likely was measuring her for a meal.

I get that physics informs us we humans are 99.99999% empty space (I can think of some that exceed even that) and that even the hardest substance known to us is composed of sub-atomic particles/waves that are further apart relative to their size than the stars in the visible universe. But I still trust that when I sit on a chair I won’t fall through.

So we live in a constellation of trusts, stronger with some, lesser with others, like a multitude of rubber bands of varying strength. I read of a race car driver who said he felt safer on the track than on the road; “At least we’re all driving in the same direction.” But how long do we maintain that uniform direction when in a relationship? Did we initially state and agree upon what we thought was our ultimate destination? Did we factor in side trips along the way? Over the years I’ve known several married couples. A few long term couples are still in their first marriage. Do they seem unusual? Then again there are those couples in which one or both cited marital infidelity as causing the break up of their previous marriage. Yeah, that would be a deal breaker for me, too, either way. And I would be up front about it. Still, how much of our autonomy do we surrender on entering a relationship? And what happens if, during a relationship, we discover we truly want more autonomy? Some of us may have had careers which put potential partners at risk, even severe risk. Do we add that as a footnote to the marriage proposal? *Oh, by the way……that ’til death do us part bit……

Some trust relationships have term limits. We call these “political office”. We agree to place a person in a position of power for a period of time on the condition that they basically maintain the direction we found them in when they gained our trust. But as they ascend to higher and more complicated positions of power are they there on the basis of our trust or on the basis of our ignorance?

In the late 1970’s a B movie actor named Ronald Reagan went from Governor of California to President of the United States largely on a trust winning grandfatherly “Heh, heh” and “There you go again”. He spoke glowingly of America as a “shining city on a hill”. Yet, when he got to Capitol Hill his regime canceled the CSRS (Civil Service Retirement System), a government function, and replaced it with FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System) outsourced to Wall Street. Under his political party protective regulations were rolled back across the board and a doctrine called Citizens United was put in place. This essentially allowed the companies which had benefited enormously from federal retirement money pouring into them largely unfettered ability to repay the favor with enormous contributions to the elections of his political party, ensuring that these companies would continue to benefit long into the future, enriching their stockholders along the way. In short, Reagan’s shining city on a hill was a Potemkin Village built on the architecture of pure and fundamental Fascism. This same political party has devised efforts to do the same with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: Privatize and deregulate.

Not long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union a rising star named Vladimir Putin came to power. An astute student of the United States during his KGB career he copied the strategy of privatizing and deregulating industries and utilities which had been State owned. (I wonder where he got that idea) He and his friends and supporters thus “purchased” these for pennies on the dollar, and siphoned off earnings calculated presently at one trillion dollars. They sheltered their plunder in foreign registered mega-yachts, mansions, and commercial property in other countries. Today we call these people the Oligarchs. What’s interesting is the sparse discussion of these people, and this strategy, in U.S. media. Is there someone here we shouldn’t be trusting? Or are we too busy “streaming” inane television programs?

Most recently, in the run-up to the 2020 Presidential election, this party, fearful that competent voters would avail themselves of Mail-In voting during a deadly pandemic, replaced the Director of the Post Office with a crony who promised to disrupt, delay, and disorganize postal delivery, thereby ensuring that mail-in ballots would arrive too late if they arrived at all. The long term plan, publicly approved by many in that particular political party, was to so erode trust in “the government” that the public would overwhelmingly approve of the privatization and deregulation of the U.S. Postal Service. And the friend of the then President, the crony he put in charge, was first in line to make the purchase. Did it still make sense to use terms such as Russian President and American President when there was no daylight between them?

Having trust in someone or something is certainly comforting. Feeling able to express feelings and concerns openly is a large part of that. Years ago a private four year college asked me to teach some courses in Marriage and the Family. I did so. During the semester we examined marriage from several angles, including the preparatory stage. I discussed the merits of Pre-Nuptial Agreements. These commonly stipulate “who gets what” in the event of a divorce. In each class several students expressed disapproval, their reasoning being that such a concept diluted the romance of the upcoming marriage. So let’s look at this.

If you and your partner to be are strict adherents to a “’til death do us part” group, and you are convinced you both will follow this no matter what may happen, this may not apply. But that pledged was formed when life expectancy was very much lower and opportunities for meeting others and communicating were far fewer. Saying at 20 that you know what your life will be like at 40 is foolish at best. Many people now marry in their twenties and early thirties, with a longer life expectancy and greatly enhanced mobility and social contacts. So, the likelihood of circumstances threatening the continuation of the marriage is greatly increased. Such a commitment, ’til death do us part, thus speaks of what may be the greatest act of trust a person may engage in: trust of the partner, and trust of the self. Divorce statistics indicate that trust is misplaced. Add to that the number of people who remain together “for the sake of the children”, for financial reasons, for social/religious reasons, or just a fear of living alone.

A common perception of a “Pre-Nup” is that it is an instrument of denial, denying the spouse of certain assets and other valuables. In fact, jointly written, it is an instrument of entitlement, committing to contract certain assets and other valuables. Divorce attorneys are on the hourly clock. A hassle over who gets the $1,000 85” flat screen (now depreciated to $300) quickly turns that flat screen into a two or three thousand dollar booby prize. Thus, the Pre-Nup serves as the basis for a final settlement, avoiding possibly many thousands in unnecessary negotiations. Couples may lump items in categories or may itemize them. I know a couple with a 17 page, single spaced Pre-Nup. That’s probably a bit much.

Summer’s coming on, and people will be flocking to the beautiful beaches around the world. Having SCUBA dived off some of these coasts I can tell you of the municipal sanitary sewage pipes running out offshore beneath those picturesque waters. One place put me in mind of Astrud Gilberto’s famous song, but I modified the lyrics: ……the girl from Treponema goes walking, and when she walks you gasp at how thin she is….

Well, all this talk about trust has me wondering if you trust this site. One thing you will not hear me say, or read from me, is: Trust Me.