From all the artificial intelligence systems that are purported to be able to read human emotion from a digital scan of the human face, you’ll never see a system that even makes the claim to be able to detect the feeling of trust. How could it? Machine intelligence follows whatever works, without any commitment to lasting values or relationships, while trust requires a connection that won’t easily be swayed.
The ancestors of Indo-European cultures believed that trust was like a tree.
A tree stands firm, rooted to the ground. It may sway in the wind a bit, but it does not change its fundamental position in search of new opportunities. A tree endures.
In fact, the words “tree” and “endure” come from the same Proto Indo-European root word, “deru”, which was used long ago to refer to the quality of things that are steadfast. Other words that come from this root word are “durable” and “truth”, as well as “trust”.
From this perspective, trust doesn’t have to do with whether something is factually correct. Instead, it’s something that holds truth even as circumstances change. It’s not something that can be established with data analysis, because trust is not a matter of simple reality.
There are things that are tougher than trees, of course. Stone can last billions of years. In choosing trees as the model for trust and truth, ancient people chose something that was strong, but pliant. A tree isn’t unchanging. It’s alive, and is able to adapt to changing conditions. It bends with the wind, and even breaks in places, while remaining true at its core. A tree regrows where its branches have broken, to restore its original shape.
Trust is dynamic, like a tree. It isn’t an absolute law that must never be violated in the slightest. It’s a general shape of understanding that holds on the whole in spite of minor fractures.
Trees endure because, though in slow motion, they strive to hold their space. Stones, on the other hand, have never been alive. They don’t change, and they can’t endure. They simply remain.
Trust is a metaphor. It’s not a tree in a literal sense. Nonetheless, ancient wisdom holds that yes, trust is a tree.
Is that the truth about trust?
Of course, ancient wisdom is just one perspective on truth. Another perspective holds that truth is something that is determined by rigorous scientific experiments to validate a successive series of hypotheses that become more accurate over time.
Which version of the truth is true? Nobody has the power to settle the dispute. There is no central authority over language and ideas that can proclaim what words mean, not even the people at the Oxford English Dictionary. Linguists record the meanings that people give to words. They aren’t the language police.
That a steadfast word like “truth” has multiple meanings isn’t a flaw of language. It’s a function of human culture. People love the idea of double meanings. It’s one of the most common ingredients in the joy of humor. People take delight in uncertainty, when the context is right.
When humans speak, they say more than one thing at a time. When humans act, they always have more than one motive, with more than one outcome. Every word worth knowing has at least a double meaning. There is always more than just the way it is. There are always alternative representations.
While working with data requires accuracy, symbols require an embrace of ambiguity, showing us what is at once true and not true. Human truth is always more than just one thing. When we speak in symbols, we honor that ambiguity. When we reduce those symbols to bits of data, the clarity we create does not hold true.
Trust isn’t a contract that we must comply with. Trust is a subjective emotional judgment that the relationships we’ve relied upon will continue to be there for us, when we need them.
Of course, sometimes, even the oldest and strongest trees fall and die. We see the evidence of this all around us whenever we take a walk in the woods, with great trunks lying horizontal on the ground, filling with fungal mycelia to decompose their colossal structures.
Yet, we walk forward, believing on the whole that the forest will endure. Trust is a choice, a commitment to act as if the relationships we have grown into will persist, even though we know that nothing is permanent.
This article is adapted from part of an episode of Beyond Back to Normal, a podcast reviewing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 on business culture.
