Betraying a person’s confidence to gain personal advantage, and yet not being sure why you are doing it and what end it serves, is where the erosion of trust begins.

And once trust in a high-trust society, bound by traditions, family bonds, and the surety of community, is riven by such erosion, the beginning of social chaos is not far behind.

But a society that is eroding in trust can survive chaos, adapt to it, and emerge on the other side with a different sort of trust schema altogether by individuals refusing to play the game of selling out their principles, their values, or their relationships. It’s a lot of psychological, moral, and emotional weight for individuals to carry during times of chaos, when it seems as though every bond around them is fraying, tearing, and breaking.

But it’s only the act of buying in that works to preserve, not what was in the past, but the circumstances–fragile though they may be–for a different, and potentially better, future. Otherwise, the Hobbesian war of “all against all” breaks out and then nothing worth preserving remains.

And it’s monstrously difficult to cobble together a high-trust society again out of nothing.