The Whole World is Whining
Edelman’s Trust Barometer and the airing of grievances
For 25 years now, the Edelman PR company has issued its Trust Barometer. This year, it’s all about grievances. It’s Festivus every day, the world around.
Six in 10 people in the survey “hold grievances against business, government, and the rich.” Only 36% worldwide — 30% in the US, 14% in Germany, 17% in the UK — believe the next generation will be better off than today.
A majority of people surveyed are frightened of losing their jobs — which, upon reflection, boggles sense, for that would imply that half the world’s jobs are in imminent jeopardy. Unless you believe the fantastical ravings of the most hubristic AI boys, that’s simply illogical. This leads me to think this pall on the world might be more about perception than reality.
Where does that perception come from? In this chicken-and-rotten-egg cycle, I wonder whether the complaints came first or whether the political and media exploitation of fear and worry are what fabricated the evident dark vibe. This survey of 33,000 people in 28 countries will not answer that question. But it does paint an enlightening picture of the world’s dark mood. And it almost doesn’t matter whether perception or reality lead, for the survey presents a picture of a world ready to blow — on its own or under the encouragement of both extremist movements and media looking to stir things up for attention.
So here’s the really chilling bit: A majority — 53% — of young adults aged 18 to 34 “see hostile activism as a viable means to drive change.” The percentages are lessened for older people, averaging 40% overall. This is how many respondents approve of “hostile action” to “engage in online personal attacks against individuals who you see as standing in the way of the change you want to see” (27%), to “create or share exaggerated or even false online content to influence public opinion” (25%), to “threaten or engage in physical violence against the institutions or groups that you see as standing in the way of change you want to see” (23%) [my emphasis], or to “damage or destroy public and/or private property to bring attention to the change you want to see” (23%). This on the day that America’s old and new president pardons and releases 1,500 angry, violent insurgents from prison. Hostile activism is in charge.
As we know, it’s not just younger people but poorer people who are angry. Edelman’s trust index — an averaging of attitudes toward business, government, NGOs, and media — is 61% for the top quarter of earners but 48% for the bottom quarter, a gap of 13 points. Trust in employers “to do the right thing” fell three points in a year to 75% (surprisingly high). But among those with a high sense of grievance only 30% of people trust CEOs. Overall, two-thirds of people believe the wealthy don’t pay their fair share of taxes and their “selfishness causes many of our problems.” Yet in America, the oligarchs are now fully in charge — and it’s these voters who put them there.
At moments such as this, I always feel compelled to point to the lessons Hannah Arendt teaches us. This from The Gutenberg Parenthesis:
Arendt found in Nazi and Soviet history “such unexpected and unpredicted
phenomena as the radical loss of self-interest, the cynical or bored indifference in the face of death or other personal catastrophes, the passionate inclination toward the most abstract notions as guides for life, and the general contempt for even the most obvious rules of common sense.” … Arendt was careful to observe that it wasn’t just the “masses” who followed Hitler and Stalin but also elites — as with present-day senators, judges, and business titans — who “did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced their way into it.” Both sectors of society did not so much belong to a movement as they had nothing else to belong to, so they could devote all their loyalties to the leader.
It is disturbing that a worldwide average of 63% of people “worry about experiencing prejudice, discrimination, or racism.” But here’s the revealing piece about America under Trump: 40% of whites say they worry about experiencing racism.
Illustrative of that widespread mistrust, more than half of people with high grievance also have a zero-sum mindset — i.e., “What helps people who don’t share my politics comes at a cost to me.” This what is instilled in the right wing. And it has taken hold.
I can hear the journalists puffing up their chests, ready to volunteer that this is why journalism is needed. Not so fast, Clark Kent. Well more than half of people — up to three-quarters of those with high grievance — say that news organizations “would rather attract a big audience than tell people what they need to know.” Thus the attention economy invented by mass media and imported online to corrupt the internet has come home to roost in our distrustful society.
It gets worse. Seventy percent of people believe that journalists and reporters “purposely mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations’ — that is, lie — just beating out government and business leaders.
This is to say that no one believes anyone.
And before the tech bros think they have the solution, you can step back from your chatbots. Only a third of people with high grievance trust AI.
On the other hand, at least Google is compartively well-trusted.
As for the rest of us, I have but one bit of hopeful news to offer: Scientists and teachers are (still) trusted. But the right-wing is working hard to undercut them, too.
What is to be done? Edelman has various prescriptions. I focus on one. More than two thirds of people across the grievance spectrum say “you will earn legitimate influence with me if you understand what people like me need and want.” Listen.
