In the US there is an ever-present mistrust of the government, this is a long standing cultural element that dates back to the founding of the country.The Founding Fathers created a government with three branches, checks, balances and the Bill of Rights because they mistrusted the power of government. This line of thought has perpetuated over the centuries and effects all Americans to some extent or another. Despite the mistrust for the government most people see the government as a protector; we expect the government to deal with crime, foreign threats, domestic threats and general public safety.
But trust and mistrust are not static; in many ways trust is a comparative process. When faced with conflicting information we must decide which source we trust. When faced with a choice between products we decide how much we trust each company when choosing which to purchase. Government is no different. If we hear a report from North Korea and one from the US government that contradict each other most of us would choose to believe the report from the US government because we trust them more than North Korea. Evaluations of trust and mistrust depend on the options available; each option is compared to the others and that influences the level of trust and mistrust we have for each option.
Furthermore depending on the circumstances we may trust a specific person or institution more or less. Normally we may not trust strangers but in a time of need we may trust strangers more easily. When we are desperate or emotional or insecure we may trust a solution more than if we were comfortably situated. When we are safe, secure and calm then we have the convenience of being more distrustful. The situation we find ourselves in can significantly impact our level of trust or mistrust for different people and institutions.
We may overall mistrust the government and believe that it will abuse any power that it is granted. But the generalized mistrust Americans have for government may shift toward greater trust or distrust based on the circumstance. We may trust the government with one task but not another. Or we may trust the government more when we need the government than when we don’t. Unfortunately the government understand this and uses it to manipulate the populace at times.
The September 11th attacks created a huge amount of fear and the government has exploited that fear. We are constantly reminded by politicians about the terrorist threats that the US faces on a daily basis. We are told about dangers of Al Qaeda and their affiliates. We are so terrified that we are waging a war on terrorism itself.
When we are afraid of an outside foreign threat then we want to seek protection and security. The US government looks a lot more trustworthy than a terrorist organization bent on causing harm to the US. Thus while we feel fearful and insecure we are more apt to trust the government when it says that expanded governmental powers are necessary to protect the people. There is less overall mistrust of the government and less disagreement with the proposed actions because security is a very fundamental human need so it superseded our mistrust of government.
The government exploits that opportunity to expand power and influence. Once the fear subsides many start feeling buyers remorse as we realize exactly what was given up for security. At that point the government tries to ratchet up the fear in order to quell concerns over the government’s power grab. Political rhetoric becomes more extreme, reminders of terrorist threats become more common and the government portrays itself as our benevolent protector. Just look at the current spying scandals. The political rhetoric on both right and left is highly focused on the terrorist threats that have or will be foiled with the NSA surveillance programs. They are trying to create fear of terrorists in order to build trust in the US government.
But the fear can’t last forever, eventually it will subside. Then we will start questioning the government again and our mistrust of the government will grow. Those in power just hope that the fear last long enough for us to forget about the powers we granted the government while we were afraid.
Robert A. Vella said:
Nice essay, and I completely agree. America’s founding fathers gave us something very precious – a governmental structure to restrict the abuse of power, and to make it accountable to our citizens and laws. Those who would sacrifice their liberty for the illusion of security not only deserve neither, but also must be countered by those who still value the fundamental precepts of our nation.
Jessica said:
Some very good points that are quite thought provoking, which is what you were aiming for, no doubt. People sometimes are also just plain too lazy to take a good look at what is going on in our country and try to help do something about it. There is still a lot of that “Sticking one’s head in the sand” going on sadly. I honestly am at a point where I don’t know which news sources can even be trusted. There is also the problem with what one sees as truth another sees as falsehood. Perceptions and presentation play a huge part in this web. I am still reeling over discovering that Time magazine gives the US a different version of their mag then they give other countries, to keep us calm probably. Thanks for your perspective, it will give me something to think about. Thinking is always a good thing.
Tracy Goodwin said:
Yes apathy is a big problem, many simply don’t care. They don’t want to know what is going on, they don’t want to worry about it, they just want to go about their lives. But there is also a chunk of people that will support the government when they are fearful. When the USA PATRIOT act passed I spent a good bit of time railing against it, I brought up warrantless wiretaps and electronic data gathering (as well as sneak and peak classified search warrants). People looked at me like I had two heads. “It will only be used against terrorists” is what they would say. Alas sometimes I hate being right. The issue was that people were terrified right after 9/11, the government promised to protect them and the government just needed the PATRIOT act to do so. The people accepted it. Though to be fair there are parts of the PATRIOT act I agree with like the information sharing between government agencies. But the violations of citizen rights was grievous.
As for the new, I too question the integrity and honesty of new sources. I don’t think that news lies to us purposefully so much as they are selective in what they present to us. So I think news sources are more apt to ignore something big rather than lie about it. Either way it does leave one wondering. I also trust some sources more than others. I happen to like NPR and BBC, I think they cover a wide range of things and seem to do so in a relatively fair manner. On the other hand I don’t trust Fox, mainly due to the reliance on fear-mongering and emotional appeals. Other sources I will trust to an extent but I don’t like them because their bias shows through too much. For example alternet has some interesting pieces but they are so far left leaning that I would prefer to read about the same story elsewhere. But when it comes down to it I don’t think anybody really knows how trustworthy the news is.
Jessica said:
I sometimes think that the American people are just plain too tired and too overwhelmed with the energy required to just keep up with our jobs and the household chores to have any extra time/energy to investigate what is going on “behind the scenes” so to speak. And that’s not even adding in the time spent in the “pursuit of happiness”, which is a major thing for most! (We’ve worked hard, we DESERVE this is the common opinion.) I’ve read studies done on the comparison of the amount of time one had to work to provide for their family in the 60s versus how much time it requires in present times to provide at the same level. The wages keep dropping while the cost of living and the cost of our “extras and toys” keeps climbing. This new hit to the amount of hours allowed for part time workers by corporations attempting to prevent providing health insurance because of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act is going to cause even less free time for many, as they will now need 2 jobs at least to try to survive. I am in support of the Obamacare because SOMETHING has to be done to take care of the huge amounts of people being left without insurance, thanks to the greedy corporations who will in turn point to the greedy insurance companies who will point to the greedy healthcare system who will in turn point to the greedy pharmaceutical companies, etc, etc…… Yet we are still left with a country containing countless amounts of people that can’t get proper health care and still need to be taken care of. It is hard to keep myself from seeing all of this as a conspiracy meant to keep the people too tired to ask questions and stand and fight against the injustices.
I am always double and triple checking information I stumble upon to try to figure out who is giving the straightest story. I watched the Zeitgeist movies a few years back and they were VERY disturbing to me. Just the realization of how a little different perspective and different parts of history being presented with different slants and tilts to it could make it look so different. I was disturbed for weeks and found myself shunning away from almost all news because I was feeling so distrustful of the ability of ANYONE to actually be able to unravel all the facts and present them in an unbiased manner. I’m still uncertain of how much that was in those movies could be considered truths. You know the old adage, ” 4 different people standing on 4 different corners see an accident in 4 different ways, whose version is the truth?”. I agree with you that FOX’s version of the truth is so crazy and biased that I would probably get more of what I deem to be the truth from an episode of SouthPark. It’s scary to think of how many out there see the news on Fox and consider it to be valid and think WE are the uninformed ones!!
I love your blogs and appreciate all the work you put into trying to find the truth and giving your opinions on the issues at hand. I would say you should go work for Time magazine, but you know how I feel about them now!! Hahahaha!! Maybe you should look for a job from the creators of SouthPark!! AFTER you get that Masters degree!! Seriously though, I do really appreciate your blogs and your perspectives. Thank you!
Tracy Goodwin said:
I too think about how many Americans don’t have the time or energy to really look into issues especially political issues. Occasionally I start to think that it feels like a conspiracy to keep us from challenging authority. But I don’t dwell there long. As tempting as it is to think a conspiracy ties a bunch of things together I distrust using conspiracies as an explanation. That is because of the fundamental attribution error which is that when explaining behavior people have a tendency to over emphasize dispositional or personality traits and under emphasize situational factors. Social psychology has shown that situational factors can have massive impacts on individual behavior and are often minimized even by the individual themselves. So when explaining events as a conspiracy as a group of evil individuals controlling everything I fear falling into the fundamental attribution error. Rather I try to look at it like a situational issue. So wages are low because it reduces costs for companies yet they are still able to find employees. When a number of companies maintain low wages then others need to do the same in order to remain competitive. But when all companies do that we end up in a situation where wages are low and stagnant.
As for history and new, I am not sure we can ever really know what is going on. But we can do our best. I will utilize the information from the sources I see as the best providers of good information. I will use that information until I have good reason to discard or revise it. I see this much like the debate over academic skepticism in epistemology. You can challenge our ability to know things for certain and you can either say we can never know (like the skeptics) or you can say we can know with some caveats about certainty. I definitely take a more statistical view and say if I am fairly certain of something I will use it, if not I won’t use it. The level of certain should be relative to the use, so for minor things the certainty doesn’t have to be strong, for really big decisions then I should be very certain.
Anyways thank you very much for reading my blog. I am glad you enjoyed reading it, I enjoy writing it. I noticed that you are posting using an email address. If you would like to follow my blog via email I added a button for that at the bottom of the left sidebar where it says “Follow Blog via Email”. That might be easier for you if you want to keep reading.
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