Trust, Respect, America, and Choice

With the official start of the 2018–19 academic year, it is vital that one be thinking critically about fundamental issues in regards to one’s interpersonal and intrapersonal affairs AND integrating those issues with the society in which one lives; hence I offer this post.

Before proceeding further, I offer my standard disclaimer and these words: I have long held Trust and Respect as the foundations upon which ANY interpersonal relationship, of any type, must be built. I have discussed the reasons why the surrounding culture in which one lives can serve to delimit and confine one’s ability to trust and respect others; however, this discussion will be focused on the specific nature of what it means to trust and to respect. Lastly, I will emphatically state that this post is, in many ways, a continuation and a culmination of many many years of extrospection and introspection; while true that certain recent events have helped to further solidify my views on the matter, it should NOT be taken as an indictment of any particular individual(s) with whom I was/am/might-be acquainted with [in any capacity!]. Thank you

Let us begin with dictionary definitions of Trust and Respect:

Trust- “reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.”

Respect- “esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability.”

How, one might wonder, does one acquire these values? This is especially important to be aware of given the state of the world around oneself, including the individuals whom inhabit it.

Earning both Trust and Respect is a difficult task, while losing them is a trivial thing.

The general approach to earning an individual’s trust and/or respect [which is the same as recognizing whether or not an individual is worthy of one’s own trust/respect] involves a careful observation of the words the individual speaks and the actions they take.

Specifically, the words an individual speaks must be evaluated according to two different, but related, contexts: the literal truth or falsehood of what they say AND the consistency of what they say; similarly, the actions an individual takes must be evaluated according to a moral standard i.e. are those actions good or bad AND how consistent are the person’s actions in relation to what they say/hold as good or bad.

Going a bit deeper, if an individual is committed [in their own mind] to telling the truth and the words they speak are, in reality, true, then this is a positive indicator that they are respectable and trustworthy. One can determine whether or not they are committed to honesty and the truth and the truth-value of their statements by simple observation and a bit of Reason about the actual words spoken as measured against the knowledge one holds and the facts of reality. As the person speaks more and more about a variety of things, one will notice the basic principles and premises that the individual is operating from, and, from these, one will be able to take a measure of the rationality and consistency of the person’s character. The more rational [meaning: pro-human life] the person’s principles and premises are, then it follows that the more respectable and trustworthy that individual is [technically, I suppose it is possible that individuals who share anti-human life premises/principles will come to respect and/or trust one another too, but the evil and irrationality of their premises will, necessarily, limit their ability to find others to respect/trust]. To the extent that they say one thing one day and something completely opposite or contradictory the next is a measure of their irrationality, and, hence, a measure of their non-respectability and non-trustworthiness.

The trend continues when evaluating a person’s actions to determine if they are trustworthy and/or respectable.

To the extent that an individual’s actions are just, right, and consistent, one gains further evidence that that individual is worthy of trust and respect. For instance, a hard-working, honest, individualist, and self-confident person will conduct themselves in a rational manner by upholding their virtues and pursuing their values (it is possible that this type of person will be prevented [by means of physical force or threats] from pursuing their values, this doesn’t change their fundamental character or their pro-value approach to life). This is, at some level, the essence of what looking for and finding a hero is all about.

At this point, the trend for what trust and respect are and how one gains/evaluates them has been established; however, there is a premise that has been underlying this entire conversation that must be checked.

That premise is: Trust and Respect are of value to oneself.

Put differently, one must recognize that Trust and Respect are responses, both emotional and intellectual, to various character traits, virtues, etc. that other individuals display, with the key being that they rely on other individuals operating in a specific context i.e. in a socio-cultural atmosphere with its prevailing philosophical trends as expressed in every facet of existence in that civilization.

To re-rephrase the premise, living in a human civilization in which one can obtain the values of Respect and Trust is a value to oneself.

On its face, the premise seems to be true, but notice on what that premise relies upon: a human civilization. Simply put, the more a civilization is hospitable for individual human flourishing, then the more that civilization will foster, amongst its inhabitants, an atmosphere of genuine Trust and Respect amongst its people [with a general low-level of Trust and Respect held by most for most others present, and with one’s own likelihood to find others who earn higher levels of one’s Trust and Respect being high].

The requirements for that civilization are simple, and I will assert them here without proof {if one desires proof of why that civilization is conducive to generating Respect and Trust amongst its inhabitants, then I refer you to the writings of Ayn Rand}. That civilization needs a political-social-economic system that leaves the individual free to pursue that individual’s rational values i.e. it needs laissez-faire capitalism; underlying that is the cultural acceptance of a [hu]man’s right to exist, to take whatever actions required to pursue and obtain his/her values, AND the right of every individual to keep and use the property they have/earn in whatever manner they choose (obviously no individual can claim the right to act in a manner that violates the rights of another individual). Simply stated, the civilization must recognize the right to life, right to liberty, and the right to property. Underlying this ethical standard is the supremacy of Reason as the individual’s sole guide to advancing their own knowledge and that Reality is Real and Singular and Absolute. Sounds simple, right?

Contrast this with the state of America now, in September 2018.

This country has seen a steady rise in irrationality and rampant emotionalism; from the streets of major cities to the most rural corners of this country, the tenets of mysticism, collectivism, and self-sacrifice ring out and surge into the lunacy that has unfolded on the socio-political landscape in this decade. While the material growth of this country, due in large part to the tech sector, has helped revolutionize the way in which humanity conducts itself; the fact remains that the fundamental ideas driving the species harken back to a time when this species was beginning to stand upright and spread across the planet. The concrete examples of this are endless and have been talked about ad nausieum; hence I would rather focus in on the sharp contrast between the cultural atmosphere that dominates America in 2018 vs. the atmosphere I projected above.

Are Respect and Trust the dominant evaluations and conclusions one has when examining the various individuals around oneself in this time? Does one feel as though one can achieve one’s values without fear of interference? that life is wonderful and worth living to its fullest? That one doesn’t have to worry about losing that which one has earned or being forced to do with oneself that which one doesn’t wish to do? Does one feel that one’s life is theirs by right?

OR…

Is it the case that, instead of Trust and Respect, one feels a simmering hostility, fear, and loathing towards those around oneself, both near and far? Does one have a looming dread that one’s hard earned rewards will be stolen away by nameless and faceless powers in a far away place without rhyme or reason? Does one feel resentment and despair at the prospect of living with the knowledge that that which is gained one moment is lost the next? Does one give up pursuing values and merely druge through the daily monotony of life with only the embrace of sleep and death to look forward to at the end? Does one feel resignation to a life of sheep-dom and slavery?

I shall not answer these questions, for that is up to you to answer for oneself.

At this point, I submit that the case surrounding Trust and Respect has been made and their relationship to America and their [potential] value to oneself has been established. Before finishing this post, I would like to discuss one final, vital matter that can never be restated too many times.

Between one individual and all other individuals, there are exactly four cases of interaction or non-interaction that must be understood:

1. Those that can and do choose to interact with the indivdiual;
2. Those that can and choose to not interact with the indivdiual;
3. Those that cannot and would like to interact with the individual;
4. Those that cannot and don’t want to interact with the individual

(1) and (2) are both proper and moral for the same reason: free choice and freedom to associate are go hand in hand. Those that make the choice to interact with one another do so of their own free will in response to whatever actual or potential value is open to them and interact in whatever way and to whatever extent they can and choose to do so.

(4) is straightforward because those that cannot and don’t want to interact with one another are of no concern to any party involved; being both unable and unwilling to do something are completely legitimate states of existence.

(3) is where matters become tricky and one of evil’s many facets is revealed in all its ugliness.

(3) can only occur if some force prevents two parties from interacting on mutually agreeable terms. That is to say, two individuals have the right to interact and no force is being initiated by one of the individuals against the other to generate the interaction, yet some 3rd party is intervening and interfering/preventing those two parties from interacting. This is the essence and naked evil of what it means to initiate force. What is even more vile is that, in most situations that fall under this case, the intervention is done out of some ‘higher good’ or ‘in the interest of one [or both] parties’. That level of pretentiousness is something even I couldn’t achieve. Let me make this as clear as possible: the only entity in all of Existence that can, ultimately, determine what is in an individual’s interest is that specific individual. Any attempt to dictate what is and is not in that individual’s interest is, at best, a mistaken endeavor to be helpful.

One might wonder, do interactions like these apply to any individuals irrespective of various facts of reality like: age, geographic location, etc.? Obviously not, to deny those things is to engage in a denial of reality, which is the height of irrationality. That being said, the specific limitations of interactions are beyond the scope of this post.

On this note, I think my points have all been made.

I thank you for taking your valuable time to read this post. I hope you found value in what I have written. Please like, comment, share, ask questions, etc. as you so choose. Thank you.

As Always,

Choices=Reality