How High Trust Societies Are MADE And DESTROYED

I'm very curious about your comments on

a high trust Society because it's been

my understanding that there actually

isn't any natural resource except trust

like if you have trust then everything

can become a resource because you can

now cooperate or even compete in a

civilized manner that's sustainable and

productive over the long run but it does

require this intrinsic trust and then

then the question would be now what are

the characteristics of a high trust

society and you pointed to some well

there's everyone thinks violence is

wrong that would be one nobody steals no

matter what right and this is something

that's particularly characteristic right

now let's say of Japan that's starting

to disintegrate in the west and we've

seen a lot of that in the United States

for example like the problem with low

trust societies is you have to be

suspicious in a low trust Society

everyone's a potential enemy in a high

trust Society everyone's a potential

friend and collaborator well you're rich

in a society like that and that Japanese

are another good example that Japanese

have no natural resources but they're

rich and their richness their their

wealth is

their ethos their moral ethos the fact

that the default Japanese citizen is

unbelievably law-abiding unbelievably

law- Abiding and the the now you're

your sense your intuition is that you

fragment High trust societies with a

careless immigration policy say a

careless multiculturalism and there's

Robert putam the Harvard professors

shown that quite clearly that more

homogeneous societies let's say tend to

be higher trust and I guess it's partly

because there are just fewer differences

to take into account right there's a

shared set of presumptions about the

nature of proper behavior and of reality

itself and if you diversify that to too

great a degree nobody knows which way is

up nobody can tell the difference

between a man and woman for example but

what do you think's dissolved in what do

you think's dissolved or is dissolving

in the West in the UK more particularly

that is undermining that high trust

reality that was part and parcel of UK

culture I mean the queuing is a good

example of that even and I mean it's

something that people always point to

when they go to the UK but it it really

matters that people will spontaneously

organize themselves without duress in a

civilized manner right it speaks volumes

about the nature of the culture itself

what do you think has undermined that we

still cue by the way I remember I

remember someone showing a video uh

there was a set of riots that happened

about 10 15 years ago and the Luthers

were queuing to get into to get into the

into the shop we still keep good

civilized looters that's a good thing to

see yes we still keep so the question is

what is the thing that is undermining

the high trust nature of our society and

I think it's

complacency and you know you talked

about the careless immigration policy

this is something that I find

unbelievably infuriating how did this

happen because everybody thought someone

else was dealing with it

and you know whether the the ministers

thought the civil service was doing it

or the Civil Service thought that the

borders uh the Border people were doing

it and so on at the end of the day we as

the political party in charge have to

take responsibility for that but it's

one of the things that I find most

frustrating because there is a

complacency in this country that it

doesn't matter uh when something's

happening because everything's going to

be okay we are the UK we are a rich

country and so everything's going to be

fine and it doesn't matter what you do

the UK is the UK it's a civilized

country people Quee and it doesn't

matter how many people come in we're

always going to be the UK and

everything's going to be uh everything's

going to be fine it is complacency and

the complacency comes from my view the

memories of harder times receding almost

fading from living memory and by that I

mean War when people were very alive to

the threat from other people other

countries when you have Generations that

have grown up where everybody is having

a great great time um and and there you

know we're not really at War and you

know I think all of that contributes to

the to the complacency that's that's

number one and complacency means that

people stop looking after things because

they think it's always going to be like

that and there are a large number of

people across our cultural establishment

even the political establishment I would

say in fact it's probably especially the

political establishment who are

suffering from what I call cargo cult

syndrome do you know what I mean by

cargo cult syndrome you should explain

it for people though okay so just to to

summarize and and and

paraphrase in World War II uh there were

there was a plane that would drop

supplies on a Pacific island and the

Islanders saw you know air traffic

control people moving their arms they

saw runways had been drawn and

eventually a plane would come around and

drop the food and after the planes

stopped coming they wanted the Food

Supplies to return so they drew lines on

the ground and they made the hand

signals but they didn't understand why

the why the food was was no longer

coming why were the planes not coming

and it is what happens when people have

a very superficial observation of what

is happening and assume that they

understand it all and they know

everything they don't test themselves

They Don't Really query