You'll Just Have to Trust Me Here

Jack Schafer (Slate) and Chuck Klosterman (Esquire), two of our better and brighter writers, have recently shared some interesting thoughts on the state of trust in America. Schafer (from a few weeks ago) launches a tongue-in-cheek attack on his readers (well, readers, sure, but not his readers -- they're fine) in response to a recent Pew poll that shows trust in journalists to be at or near some sort of all-time low.

The average American's dislike for the institution of journalism but satisfaction with its product has a political analogue. Most Americans hate Congress and Washington because they hate paying the taxes that give government money to spend on entitlements and pork-barrel legislation. But they love their individual members of Congress because they work hard to steer entitlements and pork to the district or state. [...]

I've had it with all you unreliable, inconsistent, and detestable blockheads. I've given you every possible chance and you've failed me miserably. Tonight I'm ordering a custom bumper-sticker that reads, "I Don't Trust the Mainstream Media Audience."

Unlike Schafer's mock knee-jerk, Klosterman makes a very good case that Americans no longer trust what they are told by anyone (by me, or the credentialed-and-therefore-real media, or government, etc.), and that this is a good thing. Naturally, since he's Chuck Klosterman, he uses some morsel of pop culture (the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes no-mance in this case) to make the point. To boot:

We can't trust anyone, and that makes us feel vulnerable. But it actually makes us safer. It makes us savvy. It's why nobody hitchhikes anymore, and it's why—if they tried—nobody would ever pick those people up. I realize this sounds cynical, but it's actually just pragmatic; I mean, how many of history's most profound travesties could have been avoided if previous generations had unconditionally assumed they were always being lied to?

Human nature is not devolving; we just understand it better. We don't distrust Tom Cruise because he's a terrible person, and we don't distrust him because the tabloid media is out of control. It's not because War of the Worlds seems like Steven Spielberg's self-righteous version of the miniseries V, and it's not because we're envious or mean-spirited or unhappy with our own lives (which may or may not be true). We don't trust Tom Cruise because we're learning.

Some might call that evolution.