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.
Pričaću vam o poverenju i počeću podsećanjem na standardne stavove koje ljudi imaju o poverenju. Mislim da su toliko uobičajeni da su postali klišei našeg društva. Mislim da ih je tri. Prvi je tvrdnja: javio se veliki pad u poverenju, i to mišljenje je vrlo rasprostranjeno. Drugi je težnja: treba da imamo više poverenja. Treći je zadatak: poverenje treba da povratimo.
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.
Mislim da su te tri stvari - tvrdnja, težnja i zadatak - svi pogrešno shvaćeni. Danas ću pokušati da vam ispričam jednu drugačiju priču o tvrdnji, težnji i zadatku, koja, mislim, daje jednu bolju sliku čitave stvari.
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?
Prvo, tvrdnja: zašto ljudi misle da je poverenje opalo? Ako istinski razmislim o tome, na osnovu sopstvenog iskustva, ja odgovor ne znam. Težim mišljenju da je možda opalo u nekim aktivnostima ili nekim institucijama, a možda poraslo u drugim. Nemam nikakav pregled. Naravno, mogu da pogledam istraživanja javnog mnenja, a istraživanja javnog mnenja su navodno izvor uverenja da je poverenje opalo. Ako stvarno pogledate istraživanja javnog mnenja tokom vremena, nema tako puno dokaza. To jest, osobe u koje se nije imalo poverenja pre 20 godina - najpre novinari i političari - i dalje ne zavređuju poverenje. A ljudima kojima se pre 20 godina jako verovalo njima se i dalje prilično veruje, i to su sudije, medicinske sestre. Mi ostali smo u sredini, a uzgred, prosečan prolaznik na ulici je gotovo tačno na sredini. Ali da li je to dobar dokaz? Ono što istraživanja javnog mnenja beleže je, naravno, mišljenje. Šta drugo mogu beležiti? Dakle, posmatraju se opšti stavovi koje ljudi zauzmu kada im se postave određena pitanja. Da li verujete političarima? Da li verujete nastavnicima?
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 neko pitao: „Da li verujete piljarima? Da li verujete prodavcima ribe? Da li verujete nastavnicima u osnovnim školama?", Verovatno ćete započeti sa: „U vezi sa čim?" I to bi bila savršeno razumna reakcija. I kada shvatite odgovor na to, rekli biste: „Pa, nekima verujem, a nekima ne." To je savršeno razumno. Ukratko, u našem stvarnom životu težimo da poverenje ukažemo na različite načine. Ne pretpostavljamo da će nivo poverenja - koje dajemo svakom zvaničniku ili funkcioneru ili nekoj trećoj osobi - da će taj nivo svuda biti isti. Ja bih na primer rekla da svakako verujem određenoj nastavnici koju znam da uči prvake da čitaju, ali ne bih imala poverenja u nju da vozi školski autobus. Možda, ipak, znam da ona nije dobar vozač. Možda bih verovala da moj najbrbljiviji prijatelj može da održava razgovor, ali ne - verovatno ne i da sačuva tajnu. Prosto.
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.
Ako imamo takve dokaze u našim običnim životima o različitim načinima ukazivanja poverenja, zašto mi onda takve informacije zaboravljamo kada malo apstraktnije razmislimo o poverenju? Mislim da su ankete veoma loši pokazatelji nivoa poverenja koje zaista postoji, jer pokušavaju da umanje zdrav razum koji koristimo kada nekom ukazujemo poverenje.
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, šta je s ciljem? Cilj je da imamo više poverenja. Iskreno, ja smatram da je to glup cilj. To nije nešto čemu bih ja težila. Ja bih težila ka tome da imamo poverenja u one koji su ga vredni, a ne u one koji nisu. (Smeh) Zapravo, ja istinski pokušavam da ne dajem poverenje onima koji ga nisu vredni. I mislim da, od ljudi koji su, primera radi. svoju ušteđevinu poverili gospodinu zgodno nazvanom Mejdof, koji ih je potom izigrao i kad pomislim na te ljude, da, onda pomislim da su imali previše poverenja. Imati više poverenja nije pametan cilj u životu. Pametno poklonjeno i pametno uskraćeno poverenje su podesni ciljevi. Kaže se da, znači, ono što je pre svega bitno nije poverenje, već zavređivanje poverenja. Procenjivanje koliko su ljudi vredni poverenja u određenom smislu.
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.
I ja mislim da ta procena zahteva da obratimo pažnju na tri stvari. Da li su sposobni? Da li su iskreni? Da li su pouzdani? I ako vidimo da je neka osoba sposobna za određene stvari, i pouzdana i iskrena, imamo prilično dobar osnov da joj verujemo, jer je vredna poverenja. Ako, s druge strane, nije pouzdana, onda nećemo verovati. Imam prijatelje koji su sposobni i pošteni, ali se ne bih oslonila na njih da pošalju pismo jer su zaboravni, Imam prijatelje koji veruju da mogu da urade određene stvari, ali vidim da precenjuju sopstvene sposobnosti. I veoma mi je drago da mogu da kažem da mislim da nemam puno prijatelja koji su sposobni i pouzdani, ali izrazito nepošteni. (Smeh) A ako ih ima, onda nisam primetila.
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: zavređivanje poverenja pre samog poverenja. Poverenje je odgovor na to. Moramo da procenimo da li je neko vredan poverenja. To je, naravno, teško. Tokom prethodnih nekoliko decenija pokušali smo da stvorimo sisteme odgovornosti različitih institucija, profesionalaca i zvaničnika, itd. da bismo sebi olakšali procenu da li su vredni poverenja. Mnogo tih sistema ima suprotan efekat. Ne funkcionišu onako kako bi trebalo. Sećam se da sam pričala s jednom babicom koja je rekla: „Pa, vidite, problem je što više vremena treba da se odradi papirologija nego da se rodi beba." I u celom našem javnom životu, u institucijama nailazimo na taj problem da sistem za procenu, koji bi trebalo da osigura zavređivanje poverenja i dokaze za to, zapravo radi suprotno. Smeta ljudima koji treba da obavljaju teške zadatke, poput babica, zahtevajući da, što se kaže, štikliraju kvadratiće, Svi imate primere toga.
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. Cilj je, mislim, pre zavređivanje poverenja i to će se razlikovati ako pokušavamo da budemo vredni poverenja i da našu vrednost pokažemo drugma i ako pokušavamo da procenimo da li su drugi ljudi, zvaničnici ili političari vredni poverenja. To nije lako. Tu nema mesta proceni i prostoj reakciji, kao ni stavovima.
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.
Treće, zadatak. Mislim da nazivanje zadatka ponovnim izgrađivanjem poverenja znači nešto sasvim suprotno.. To bi značilo da treba da opet izgradimo poverenje. Možemo to sami da uradimo. Možemo ponovo zavrediti malo poverenja. Dvoje ljudi mogu pokušati da zajedno unaprede poverenje. Ali, na kraju krajeva, poverenje je posebno po tome što ga dobijamo od drugih ljudi. Ne možete ponovo izgraditi ono što vam ljudi ukazuju. Morate im dati povoda da imaju poverenja u vas. Tako da mislim da morate biti vredni poverenja. Naravno, to je zato što ne možete nekoga varati sve vreme. Bar obično ne. Takođe morate imati opipljive dokaze da ste vredni poverenja. Kako to uraditi? To svakoga dana svuda rade obični ljudi, zvaničnici, institucije, i to veoma dobro. Daću vam jedan prost komercijalni primer. Radnja u kojoj kupujem čarape kaže da ih mogu vratiti, i da ne postavljaju nikakva pitanja. Uzmu ih nazad i vrate mi novac ili mi daju par čarapa u boji koju tražim. To je odlično. Verujem im zato što su sebe učinili ranjivim. U tome je velika pouka. Ako sebe učinite ranjivim to je onda dobar dokaz da ste vredni poverenja i da verujete u to što govorite. Na kraju, mislim da svi imamo cilj koji nije toliko teško prepoznati. To su veze u kojima su ljudi vredni poverenja i mogu da procene kada je i kako je druga osoba vredna poverenja.
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.
Pouka svega ovoga je da treba da manje razmišljamo o poverenju, a da i ne spominjemo stavove o poverenju, koje ankete javnog mnenja otkriju ili ne otkriju, i treba da više razmišljamo o tome da budemo vredni poverenja i o tome kako ljudima pružamo adekvatne, korisne i jednostavne dokaze da smo vredni poverenja.
Thanks.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)