Author: Robert Břešťan, HlidaciPes.org
When we leave for vacation, we get on the plane with the expectation that the heavy machine will actually take off, stay in the air and get us to our destination. In doing so, people don’t need to know the principles of balance of lift, gravity, thrust and drag. Trust plays a role – in a system that we know somehow works, even if we may not know exactly how. But while the plane will fly regardless of us, without mutual trust in society, our democracy is certain to collapse.
Trust is a precious thing; essential for life in a modern democratic society. No wonder those who want to populistically control the masses or outright seek to dismantle democracy – from within or without – are building on the breakdown of cohesion, spreading fear, mistrust and conspiracy theories that everything is different and everyone is lying to us.
Libor Kutěj, director of the Institute of Intelligence Studies at the Brno University of Defence, summed it up clearly on the floor of the Czech Chamber of Deputies recently. He was speaking primarily about the Czech Republic, but it is undoubtedly true in general:
“The mind becomes the battlefield. In cognitive warfare, the target is human consciousness. It’s part of the information chaos where we are so overwhelmed that we can’t discriminate. People feel that truth is relative. It’s moving us toward a polarization of society.”
As he pointed out, for those who are trying to deconstruct society (especially Russia, as Kutej says, “The Russians know us very well, I would almost say better than we know ourselves”), it’s not just a matter of telling people what they should think, but also how they should think, how to interpret information, regardless of whether it’s facts or disinformation:
“The consequence is that people stop trusting any source. It leads to distrust of state institutions, whatever the reasons. It goes on to radicalise and fragment social cohesion. The aim is to weaken democratic processes.”
The secret services have repeatedly spoken about the fact that part of the hybrid war against the Czech Republic and Western democracies in general is the targeted undermining of cohesion and trust in society and democratic institutions.
“The development of artificial intelligence also plays a role in this. But it is no longer just about deep fake videos, it is about psychological influence with a high effect and impact on a specifically selected group of people. These are cognitive attacks, where the aim is to destroy trust in the state, in institutions and to build the feeling that everything is a lie and a deception and nothing can be trusted, which limits the will to defend oneself,” says Michal Koudelka, director of the Czech counterintelligence agency BIS.
Who’s pulling the strings
We all know it: trust has to be earned in everyday life. But trust (not blind faith) in the system is also based on trusting in the functionality and reliability of systems and institutions that we perceive as given, familiar, even if we cannot actually see into their guts. It’s like the airplane – we don’t necessarily know how to fly it either.
Lack of trust (or its repeated disappointment) leads, on the contrary, to apathy, disinterest in politics, feelings that everything is a lie and a fake – and then it’s just a step to finding alternative interpretations of reality, where (usually never named) mysterious “they” from somewhere behind the scenes pull the strings, the “sheep” follow them and “we the awakened” are only oppressed and deceived.
An accompanying phenomenon is the polarization of society, the invocation of the good old days (however differently everyone sees them) and the call for a strong leader. Populist politicians feed on this, promising simple solutions to complex problems, exploiting fear and confusion, fostering a priori distrust in society.
In the Czech Republic, for example, the opposition ANO movement – contrary to reality – permanently portrays the Czech Republic as a government-impoverished country full of poor and unhappy people. With the implication that things were better under their rule and will only be better again under their rule.
When trust is lost
To make the concept of trust sound less abstract, let’s use a few examples. Our belief in money and the value it has and what we get for it is based on trust alone. When people believe that their money has value, they are willing to invest and participate in economic activities. Conversely, when trust is broken, it can lead to economic crises and market destabilisation.
For example, the whole insurance system is based on trust – if we didn’t trust that insurance companies would reimburse us if there was a problem and that it was enforceable, we would hardly have insurance.
American behavioural economist Dan Ariely offers the opposite examples of what would happen if we no longer trusted anything in his book Nonsense:
“We would stop believing in modern medicine and reject operations that can save our lives. We would go to the bank, withdraw all our savings and turn them into cash and gold. We would arm ourselves because we wouldn’t trust the police to protect us. What about trusting the election results? If we lost confidence in the government, would we keep paying taxes? Would we obey the law?”
The meaning and importance of trust will become clear only after we lose it. Or be deprived of it.
We live in a complex world of politics, laws, finance and healthcare and without mutual trust, we simply cannot do it. It is not for nothing that the words honesty, integrity and respect are associated with reliability. All of this is hard to build, but very easy and quickly lost.
Therefore, trust in society cannot be gambled with; it must be built and built upon. Trust in the legal system, its predictability and fairness is also key… There is always something to improve and work on. Democracy (and trust in it) is not a final state, it is an ongoing process. For the year 2025 and all the years to come.
