Do you trust the government? How about the media? How confident are you in the latest developments in healthcare and medical science?
Mark Kingwell, a professor with the Faculty of Arts & Science’s Department of Philosophy, believes we’re currently in a crisis of trust, continually questioning authority in democratic societies. There’s an alarming amount of doubt and suspicion surrounding the institutions that are designed to support, protect and inform us.
Politics, academia, journalism, medicine, religion, science — every kind of institutional claim is now met with objection, criticism and outright disbelief.
“Right now, all we’re doing is being skeptical,” says Kingwell. “It becomes a reflex, and then the reflex is counterproductive. We’re not building anything or improving anything, just questioning. That's when trust can break down. Some amount of distrust is good, but too much is bad.”
His latest book, Question Authority: A Polemic About Trust in Five Meditations, examines this crisis and asks you to reassess how you think for yourself. He also offers suggestions for restoring a healthy balance of trust and skepticism.
“What I wanted to do was go back to basics on the very idea of authority in democratic societies,” he says. “Where did it come from? What holds it together?
“That led to consideration of this elusive idea of trust, which is the glue and the grease of a functioning democratic society. You can have authority that’s imposed by force or demanded by threat, but genuine authority is based on some kind of investment from the people over which the authority is exercised, and that requires trust.
“With that in mind, I wanted to go sector by sector and look at different aspects of shared social life and try to excavate some of the problems or examples of the trust crisis in those sectors.”
One glaring example is the current media landscape.
“People go into silos for their media consumption, and the result is that nobody trusts anybody else's view on the world,” says Kingwell. “You’re likely to feel constant reinforcement of what you already believe by consuming the media that you do.
“But somebody who's consuming a different media diet is going to have a completely different reality altogether. And that makes trust impossible between those people.”
Add to this an all-consuming need to be right which hinders the ability to listen and to compromise. Kingwell coins a new word in his book to describe this: “doxaholism” — meaning an addiction to conviction, from the Greek word for opinion, doxa.
“Unfortunately, we need to see others as mistaken in order to feel better about our sense of being right,” he says.
Medical or public health science is facing the same scrutiny.
“People's ideas of what counts as a genuine public health issue is no longer rationally held,” he says. “For example, a mask mandate seems perfectly reasonable to many people. But for others, it’s an unwarranted insult to their personal liberty.”
Inaccurate reporting, questionable scientific news sources and other factors are adding to the discontent.
“There are genuine reasons for distrust,” says Kingwell. “The problem is that there doesn't seem to be the right kind of discourse that allows us to assess the distrust honestly against some kind of shared standard.”
While Kingwell doesn’t claim to have definitive solutions, he does offer several ideas for how to develop greater trust again — much of them centred around self-reflection.
“We've been trained and reinforced in questioning authority. Everybody's skeptical of everything. So keep doing that, but temper it with some ‘What are you building up?’ rather than ‘What are you tearing down?’”
He also wants readers to step back and consider the extent to which they are bound by their convictions.
“Why don't you put yourself into question, and the authority of your own position?” he asks. “That pleasure you get, the rush of feeling right — maybe that’s something to be skeptical about in yourself.”
Kingwell offers other broader ideas for changing societal thinking, including early philosophical education to develop critical thinking skills.
“Kids 12-13 are drawn to science fiction, fantasy and games,” he says. “Their imaginations are extremely vivid, and their capacity for imagining alternative worlds is at a very high pitch.
“It's a great time to reflect on the foundations of how things are,” says Kingwell. “And then by the time they get to high school, they're starting to appreciate the rigours of argument, and you can help them avoid the fallacies that mislead everybody.”
Kingwell also suggests bringing back national service programs — some kind of mandatory service to foster community and develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of society and its citizens.
“I think national service would be a great thing in this country,” says Kingwell who looks at successful models in countries like Norway that require its citizens to take part in mandatory military service, or other environmental and public service projects.
Though not as popular, Kingwell would love to see a resurgence of the Katimavik program — a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to youth development by contributing to community projects through volunteering. Founded in 1977, the program is still active but much less popular than it was in the 1980s.
“Such things have fallen out of favour because we live in a very self-oriented age,” says Kingwell. “But national service is a great opportunity for people to appreciate their citizenship, to give back and to meet their fellow citizens.”
Education, national service programs, self-reflection; Kingwell encourages readers to consider these and other shifts in attitude and behaviour to regain a healthier balance between trust and skepticism.
“If we want to survive and adapt, we have to trust,” says Kingwell. “It must be maintained and improved. And the stakes couldn't be higher: climate crisis, global pandemics, the destruction of democratic institutions.
“So if you want humanity to get to the next stage of whatever it is, then trust is essential. It’s a crucial element of the human success story.”