So I'm going to talk about trust, and I'm going to start by reminding you of the standard views that people have about trust. I think these are so commonplace, they've become clichés of our society. And I think there are three. One's a claim: there has been a great decline in trust, very widely believed. The second is an aim: we should have more trust. And the third is a task: we should rebuild trust.
Dakle, govorit ću o povjerenju i započet ću podsjećajući vas na to kako ljudi obično gledaju na povjerenje. Vjerujem da su pogledi na povjerenje toliko uobičajeni da su postali klišejima današnjega društva. Smatram da postoje tri klišeja. Prvi je tvrdnja: Došlo je do velikog opadanja povjerenja. u to gotovo svi vjeruju. Drugi je cilj: Trebali bismo imati više povjerenja. A treći je zadatak: Trebali bismo obnoviti povjerenje.
I think that the claim, the aim and the task are all misconceived. So what I'm going to try to tell you today is a different story about a claim, an aim and a task which I think give one quite a lot better purchase on the matter.
Smatram da su i tvrdnja, i cilj, i zadatak pogrešno shvaćeni. Dakle, ono što ću vam danas nastojati reći drugačija je priča o tvrdnji, o cilju i o zadatku, i vjerujem da će vam ona pružiti mnogo bolje razumijevanje ove teme.
First the claim: Why do people think trust has declined? And if I really think about it on the basis of my own evidence, I don't know the answer. I'm inclined to think it may have declined in some activities or some institutions and it might have grown in others. I don't have an overview. But, of course, I can look at the opinion polls, and the opinion polls are supposedly the source of a belief that trust has declined. When you actually look at opinion polls across time, there's not much evidence for that. That's to say, the people who were mistrusted 20 years ago, principally journalists and politicians, are still mistrusted. And the people who were highly trusted 20 years ago are still rather highly trusted: judges, nurses. The rest of us are in between, and by the way, the average person in the street is almost exactly midway. But is that good evidence? What opinion polls record is, of course, opinions. What else can they record? So they're looking at the generic attitudes that people report when you ask them certain questions. Do you trust politicians? Do you trust teachers?
Najprije, tvrdnja: Zašto ljudi smatraju da je povjerenje opalo? Razmislim li uistinu o tome na temelju vlastitog iskustva, ne znam odgovor. Sklona sam misliti da je povjerenje moglo opasti u nekim djelatnostima ili u nekim ustanovama, a da je u drugima moglo i porasti. Nemam u to uvid. Ali, naravno, mogu pogledati ankete, a ankete su navodno izvor vjerovanja da je povjerenje opalo. Ako, zapravo, pogledate ankete tijekom proteklih godina, nećete naći osobitog dokaza za to. Hoću reći, ljudima kojima se nije vjerovalo prije 20 godina, prije svih, novinarima i političarima, ne vjeruje se ni sada. A ljudima kojima se duboko vjerovalo prije 20 godina vjeruje se i danas: sucima, medicinskim sestrama... Mi ostali smo negdje između. Uz to, prosječna osoba, slučajni prolaznik, gotovo je točno na pola puta. Ali, je li to dobar dokaz? Ispitivanja javnog mnijenja, naravno, registriraju - mišljenja. Što bi drugo i mogle bilježiti? Dakle, bilježe opće stavove koje ljudi iznesu kad im postavljate određena pitanja. „Vjerujete li političarima?“ „Vjerujete li učiteljima?“
Now if somebody said to you, "Do you trust greengrocers? Do you trust fishmongers? Do you trust elementary school teachers?" you would probably begin by saying, "To do what?" And that would be a perfectly sensible response. And you might say, when you understood the answer to that, "Well, I trust some of them, but not others." That's a perfectly rational thing. In short, in our real lives, we seek to place trust in a differentiated way. We don't make an assumption that the level of trust that we will have in every instance of a certain type of official or office-holder or type of person is going to be uniform. I might, for example, say that I certainly trust a certain elementary school teacher I know to teach the reception class to read, but in no way to drive the school minibus. I might, after all, know that she wasn't a good driver. I might trust my most loquacious friend to keep a conversation going but not -- but perhaps not to keep a secret. Simple.
Kad bi vas netko upitao: "Vjerujete li prodavačima voća i povrća?", "Vjerujete li trgovcima ribom?", "Vjerujete li učiteljima u osnovnim školama?", vjerojatno biste najprije upitali: „U vezi s čime?“ I to bi bio savršeno razborit odgovor. Nakon što biste razumjeli odgovor na svoje pitanje, mogli biste reći: „Pa, nekima vjerujem, a nekima i ne.“ To je savršeno razumno. Ukratko, u svakodnevnom životu iskazujemo svoje povjerenje na različite načine. Ne pretpostavljamo da će razina povjerenja koje ćemo imati prema svakom dužnosniku, službeniku ili tipu osobe biti uvijek jednaka. Mogu, primjerice, reći da uistinu vjerujem određenoj učiteljici u osnovnoj školi, koju poznajem, da će svoj razred naučiti čitati, ali joj nipošto ne vjerujem da će znati voziti školski autobus. Na koncu, mogu znati da ona nije dobra vozačica. Mogu vjerovati svojoj najbrbljavijoj prijateljici da će održavati dinamiku razgovora, ali možda ne i da će sačuvati neku tajnu. Jednostavno.
So if we've got those evidence in our ordinary lives of the way that trust is differentiated, why do we sort of drop all that intelligence when we think about trust more abstractly? I think the polls are very bad guides to the level of trust that actually exists, because they try to obliterate the good judgment that goes into placing trust.
Dakle, ako smo u svakodnevnom životu iskusili da se povjerenje očituje na različite načine, zašto odbacujemo sve to razumijevanje kad o povjerenju razmišljamo na malo apstraktniji način? Smatram da nas ankete lako mogu zavesti u razumijevanju koliko povjerenja istinski postoji, jer prikrivaju dobar, zdravi razum koji ide uz davanje povjerenja.
Secondly, what about the aim? The aim is to have more trust. Well frankly, I think that's a stupid aim. It's not what I would aim at. I would aim to have more trust in the trustworthy but not in the untrustworthy. In fact, I aim positively to try not to trust the untrustworthy. And I think, of those people who, for example, placed their savings with the very aptly named Mr. Madoff, who then made off with them, and I think of them, and I think, well, yes, too much trust. More trust is not an intelligent aim in this life. Intelligently placed and intelligently refused trust is the proper aim. Well once one says that, one says, yeah, okay, that means that what matters in the first place is not trust but trustworthiness. It's judging how trustworthy people are in particular respects.
Drugo, što je s ciljem? Cilj je imati više povjerenja. Iskreno, smatram da je to glup cilj. To nije ono na što bih ja ciljala. Ciljala bih na to da imamo više povjerenja u vjerodostojne, ali ne i u one koji to nisu. Zapravo, izričito ciljam na to da ne vjerujemo nevjerodostojnima. Mislim na sve one ljude koji su, na primjer, povjerili svoju ušteđevinu čovjeku koji se vrlo prikladno zove gospodin Madoff, koji ih je onda pokrao. [Madoff - made off, op.p.] I razmišljam o njima, i mislim: da, previše povjerenja. Više povjerenja nije inteligentan cilj u ovom životu. Inteligentno pruženo i inteligentno uskraćeno povjerenje pravi je cilj. Jednom kad netko to kaže, kad kaže,da, dobro, to znači da ono što je bitno nije povjerenje, već vjerodostojnost. To je prosuđivanje koliko su ljudi vjerodostojni u određenim okolnostima.
And I think that judgment requires us to look at three things. Are they competent? Are they honest? Are they reliable? And if we find that a person is competent in the relevant matters, and reliable and honest, we'll have a pretty good reason to trust them, because they'll be trustworthy. But if, on the other hand, they're unreliable, we might not. I have friends who are competent and honest, but I would not trust them to post a letter, because they're forgetful. I have friends who are very confident they can do certain things, but I realize that they overestimate their own competence. And I'm very glad to say, I don't think I have many friends who are competent and reliable but extremely dishonest. (Laughter) If so, I haven't yet spotted it.
Smatram da nam prosuđivanje nalaže da sagledamo tri stvari. Jesu li sposobni? Jesu li iskreni? Jesu li pouzdani? Uvjerimo li se da je osoba sposobna u važnim stvarima, te pouzdana i iskrena, imat ćemo poprilično dobar razlog vjerovati joj, jer bit će vjerodostojna. Ali, ako je netko nepouzdan, nećemo mu vjerovati. Imam prijatelje koji su sposobni i iskreni, ali ne bih im povjerila niti pismo da pošalju jer su zaboravni. Imam prijatelje koji su uvjereni da mogu učiniti određene stvari, ali uviđam da precjenjuju svoje sposobnosti. I vrlo mi je drago reći da ne smatram da imam mnogo prijatelja koji su sposobni i pouzdani, a izrazito neiskreni. (Smijeh) Ako i imam, nisam to još primijetila.
But that's what we're looking for: trustworthiness before trust. Trust is the response. Trustworthiness is what we have to judge. And, of course, it's difficult. Across the last few decades, we've tried to construct systems of accountability for all sorts of institutions and professionals and officials and so on that will make it easier for us to judge their trustworthiness. A lot of these systems have the converse effect. They don't work as they're supposed to. I remember I was talking with a midwife who said, "Well, you see, the problem is it takes longer to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby." And all over our public life, our institutional life, we find that problem, that the system of accountability that is meant to secure trustworthiness and evidence of trustworthiness is actually doing the opposite. It is distracting people who have to do difficult tasks, like midwives, from doing them by requiring them to tick the boxes, as we say. You can all give your own examples there.
Ali, to je ono što tražimo: vjerodostojnost prije povjerenja. Povjerenje je odgovor. Vjerodostojnost je ono što trebamo procijeniti. I to je, naravno, teško. Tijekom nekoliko prošlih desetljeća, nastojali smo izgraditi sustave odgovornosti za sve vrste institucija, profesionalaca, službenika i drugih, kako bismo lakše prosuđivali njihovu vjerodostojnost. Mnogo ovih sustava ima suprotan učinak. Ne djeluju onako kako bi trebali. Sjećam se razgovora s primaljom koja je rekla: „Vidite, problem je u tome što mi papirologija oduzima više vremena od samog porođaja.“ Posvuda u našoj zajednici i u našim institucijama nalazimo ovaj problem: sustav odgovornosti koji bi trebao osigurati vjerodostojnost te dokaze vjerodostojnosti, zapravo, radi suprotno. Ometa ljude koji trebaju odraditi zahtjevne zadatke, poput primalja, u obavljanju tih poslova zahtijevajući od njih da se bave sporednim stvarima. Svi možete navesti slične primjere.
So so much for the aim. The aim, I think, is more trustworthiness, and that is going to be different if we are trying to be trustworthy and communicate our trustworthiness to other people, and if we are trying to judge whether other people or office-holders or politicians are trustworthy. It's not easy. It is judgment, and simple reaction, attitudes, don't do adequately here.
Toliko o cilju. Mislim da je cilj više vjerodostojnosti, a to će biti drugačije ako nastojimo biti vjerodostojni i izražavamo svoju vjerodostojnost prema drugim ljudima, i ako nastojimo prosuditi jesu li drugi ljudi, službenici ili političari, vjerodostojni. To nije lako. To je prosudba, i jednostavna reakcija, stavovi, nisu u ovom slučaju primjereni.
Now thirdly, the task. Calling the task rebuilding trust, I think, also gets things backwards. It suggests that you and I should rebuild trust. Well, we can do that for ourselves. We can rebuild a bit of trustworthiness. We can do it two people together trying to improve trust. But trust, in the end, is distinctive because it's given by other people. You can't rebuild what other people give you. You have to give them the basis for giving you their trust. So you have to, I think, be trustworthy. And that, of course, is because you can't fool all of the people all of the time, usually. But you also have to provide usable evidence that you are trustworthy. How to do it? Well every day, all over the place, it's being done by ordinary people, by officials, by institutions, quite effectively. Let me give you a simple commercial example. The shop where I buy my socks says I may take them back, and they don't ask any questions. They take them back and give me the money or give me the pair of socks of the color I wanted. That's super. I trust them because they have made themselves vulnerable to me. I think there's a big lesson in that. If you make yourself vulnerable to the other party, then that is very good evidence that you are trustworthy and you have confidence in what you are saying. So in the end, I think what we are aiming for is not very difficult to discern. It is relationships in which people are trustworthy and can judge when and how the other person is trustworthy.
I treće - zadatak. Mislim da reći kako je zadatak obnova povjerenja također otežava cijelu ovu priču. Sugerira se da bismo vi i ja trebali obnoviti povjerenje. Pa, možemo to napraviti sami za sebe. Možemo obnoviti djelić vjerodostojnosti. Možemo to učiniti kao dvoje ljudi koji zajedno nastoje unaprijediti povjerenje. No, na koncu, povjerenje se razlikuje po tome što nam ga drugi poklanjaju. Ne možete obnoviti nešto što vam drugi ljudi daju. Morate im dati razloga da oni vama poklone svoje povjerenje. Dakle, mislim da morate biti vjerodostojni. I to, naravno, zato što obično ne možete zavaravati sve ljude sve vrijeme. Već im morate pružiti upotrebljiv dokaz da vi jeste vjerodostojni. Kako to učiniti? Svakoga dana posvuda to čine obični ljudi, službenici, ustanove, i to poprilično učinkovito. Dat ću vam jednostavan komercijalan primjer: u trgovini u kojoj kupujem čarape tvrde da te čarape mogu vratiti, a oni neće postavljati nikakva pitanja. Oni ih prihvate i vrate mi novac, ili mi daju par čarapa u boji koju želim. To je odlično. Vjerujem im jer su se preda mnom učinili ranjivima. Vjerujem da se tu krije bitna pouka. Ako priznate drugome svoju ranjivost, to je vrlo dobar pokazatelj vaše vjerodostojnosti, vaše vjere u ono što govorite. Na koncu, smatram da ono čemu težimo nije preteško raspoznati. To su odnosi u kojima su ljudi vjerodostojni te mogu prosuditi kada i koliko je vjerodostojna i druga osoba.
So the moral of all this is, we need to think much less about trust, let alone about attitudes of trust detected or mis-detected by opinion polls, much more about being trustworthy, and how you give people adequate, useful and simple evidence that you're trustworthy.
Dakle, pouka svega ovoga jest: Trebamo mnogo manje razmišljati o povjerenju, osobito o stavovima o povjerenju na kakve nam ispravno ili neispravno ukazuju ankete, već više o tome kako biti vjerodostojan i kako ljudima dati odgovarajuće, korisne i jednostavne dokaze da ste vi vrijedni povjerenja.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)