Lack of trust is a major barrier to making civic life more meaningful and inclusive. Although the majority of Interested Bystanders described civic engagement as being actively involved and present in one’s community, there was a large distrust of and lack of attachment to local community and government, which deters engagement.This is one of the headline findings from research done by the Knight Foundation in Charlotte, North Carolina and it reinforces the challenges in marginal and deprived communities where levels of trust in community institutions and public sector agencies is much lower. The term 'Interested Bystanders' refers to residents who are interested in what's happening in their community by not engaged - "people who are paying attention to the issues around them, but not acting on those issues".
We're very familiar with this sort of disengagement because we see it in every community. Partly it persists because it's easier to let other people get on with the activism and, anyway, nobody ever asks these folk for help, so why should they bother? Some of it relates to issues with race, policing and the manner in which segregation is problematised. But perhaps the biggest reason - something the Knight Foundation focus on - is a lack of trust especially in local and national government or its agencies as well as also a more widespread distrust in community and neighbours.
There are a lot of things that fuel this mistrust ranging from the media narrative about crime especially fraud, through public heath or police campaigns targeting young people as a social problem, to the widespread convenience for all agencies, public and private, of demanding identification before service is received. In a world where the TV, radio and newspapers report each day on how ordinary people are ripped off, how violence happened to people 'in the wrong place at the wrong time' and how young people are running riot, it's easy to see how people become mistrustful of others (most notably where, as can be the case, the negatives on crime seem to focus strongly on minority groups - black people, refugees, travellers, Roma and so forth).
This media narrative does not reflect the real situation where, for most people most of the time, the streets of an urban community are perfectly safe and entirely welcoming. Nor does that narrative ever show how nearly all - over 99.9% of consumer transactions are done safely and honestly. Or that most of those transactions had no need for any person to formally identify him- or herself before receiving goods or services.
If we want to restore trust - and as a conservative I consider this imperative if we are to restore community and the social capital that makes it work - it must start with public authorities and the government. Yet - as witnessed by Public Space Protection Orders, ASBOs and the ever-extending list of things that require some sort of ID - government really doesn't trust its citizens, all these things assume that in entirely innocent circumstances people (especially poor people, young people or black people) are up to no good.
Trust the people is a popular slogan (I know this because only the other day Matthew Parris was saying what a bad idea it is) but I've a feeling that we're not really thinking through what it might mean - choosing something akin to Rousseau's "general will" rather than appreciating that nearly everybody, nearly all the time can be trusted to get on with things undirected by government, unlimited by bans and restrictions and entirely honestly. Our problem is that government - and the courtiers of media, law and bureaucracy who clatter and bluster round the state's castle - really doesn't believe people can be trusted, especially the poor, the less skilled, the minority and the provincial. The result of this mistrust is what the Knight Foundation uncovered in Charlotte - lots of interested but disengaged people and a bunch of dysfunctional communities.
Trust the people doesn't mean the people are right, it means that people can be trusted. We should maybe try a bit of it.
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1 comment:
We had an electoral system based on trust: it generally assumed that anyone voting was genuine. OK, there was always some slight bending around the edges (e.g. Northern Ireland "Vote early and vote often") but, on balance, that trust was valid.
In recent years, that system has become utterly corrupted, in your own area more than most, with unrealistic Postal Votes, Proxies and personation going completely unchallenged, enabling democracy to be compromised. (If in doubt, check recent local results in Keighley)
Do you trust the people with that system? (But maybe, as you were elected under it, you may have a vested interest). I certainly don't trust it any more, therefore I don't trust the results either, which saddens me. Are you suggesting we should do nothing, just carry on trusting? If so, you're more naive than I thought.
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