TRUST VS TRUTH (profound) Lets contrast the golden and silver rules with trust a

TRUST VS TRUTH

(profound)

Lets contrast the golden and silver rules with trust and truth. And lets start out stating the unintuitive: that the Nazarene got it wrong: we should not do unto others as we would want done unto us. Because that is implicitly authoritarian once you realize it means you set the rules of cooperation, not the other person. It’s actually an incredibly selfish strategy to build a culture upon. It actually insidious.

Instead, we get a very different society if we use the principle **do not unto others that which they would not have done unto them** from the Anglo Saxon tradition. These are the not identical prescriptions they appear to be at first blush. The Nazarene’s is authoritarian metaphor couched as charity, and the second is libertarian (in the Protestant sense – meaning: aristocratic egalitarian), stated honestly.

The same can be said for emphasizing TRUST rather than TRUTH. You cannot mandate trust. It is a description of an an experience and an effect. But what is the cause? We know that the result is the extension of in-group trust to out-group members. Sure. But what do we do to cause us to extend trust to out-group members?

We speak the truth.

Worse, emphasizing trust puts the requirement on the other, and never on you. Truth telling puts the requirement for trust building upon you.

So, when we refer to ‘the high trust society’ the correct description is “the people who tell the truth”. And when we refer to the low trust society, the correct description is “the people who don’t tell the truth.” Or more precisely: “the people who lie.”

Do you see how different that is?

I thought so.

Aristocratic Egalitarians: “The People Who Speak The Truth”

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.