welcome to trust issues
i promise i'm not talking about romance. here's how i found the invisible string tying together my summer.
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in government and study politics. In the fall of 2023, that all changed.
After spending a summer crossing still-segregated train tracks in rural North Carolina, I realized the pain and grievance gripping our country runs far deeper than polarization. We actually don’t trust each other, or our institutions.
Why?
There are a variety of explanations. I’ll list a few I find compelling, but there are many more! Robert Putnam, Harvard political scientist and author of Bowling Alone, diagnoses America with an erosion of “social capital.” Old institutions and networks of stability and sociability have disappeared, leaving Americans isolated and mistrustful.
History Professor Christopher Lasch excoriated an exploitative elite for betraying working-class Americans; though he wrote about this in 1996, the populist waves of the 2010s, fueled mostly by right-wing anti-elite sentiment, certainly bolster his claims.
Richard Edelman, CEO of the public affairs company Edelmann (which releases an annual trust barometer, called today “era of information bankruptcy.” Lying leaders and politicized media have caused ideological echo chambers, negatively self-reinforcing division and distrust.
The results?
The U.S. Surgeon General warned of an epidemic of isolation in America; alienation often breeds outrage, and outrage in turn can spur radicalization. The proof is in the polls: Americans are angrier and lonelier than ever. We’re more political violent too.
I saw it with my own eyes in Tarboro. I saw that in Phoenix, my hometown, one of the epicenter of the 2020 elections’s Big Lie fight. I saw that in Durham, my adoptive home, in conflicts between Greek-affiliated students and residents. I saw that in Chapel Hill, my spring semester city, while reporting for the Daily Tar Heel and the Indy.
Government is a part of the answer, but it isn’t the whole story. I needed to know more, to intimately understand trust as relational, social, and institutional.
What next?
Initially, I only had questions, but no answers. My exploration summer mentor, Robertson alum Kelsey Woodward, told me (ironically) to trust the process. Following my interests, she explained, would shape my new Program II major, whatever that might be. I’d naturally then have a direction for my summer of endless possibilities.
She was right. My self-designed major on “Social and Public Trust in the Digital Age” led me here, to studying, writing, and reflecting about trust issues.
And for this summer?
I’m steeping myself in trust’s global fault lines. In Taiwan, I’m interviewing experts and civil society practitioners about the country’s battle with misinformation. In South Korea, I’m exploring Asian spirituality. Can religion survive in modern times? And, I’m trusting myself to visit a country where I don’t speak the dominant language. In China, I’m reconnecting with my heritage in a time of extreme distrust between my home country and my heritage country. I’m also exploring imperialism (both practiced by the Chinese, and subjected upon them).
In the US, I’m working in Washington, D.C., at a news outlet. After all, information shapes our ability to trust. I’m participating in the American Enterprise Institute’s Summer Honors Academy, taking a course on “Political Brokenness & Cultural Alienation.” Thanks to Duke, I’ll be in and out of North Carolina, researching polarization for the North Carolina Leadership Forum. I’m also visiting Chinatowns in New York City and San Francisco, continuing to explore trust in the diaspora. Along the way, I’m make my inner child proud by being a voracious reader, consuming works about trust, tech, and media.
I’m also practicing trust. This mental muscle has been worn down by the pandemic (yep, it never quite goes away), rage-bait media consumption, and the rollercoaster of sophomore year. But, I’m tired of being cynical. So, I’m talking to strangers, because I want to believe that everyone is more similar than we are different. I’m revisiting Mobile, Alabama, the home of Distinguished Young Woman, one of the first places that I experienced unconditional trust and love outside my family. I’m working at a conservative news organization, despite not being a conservative, because I’m putting my faith in people of all different political stripes. I’m walking random streets and trying new things, because I’m trusting myself enough to do the crazy things!
The world is abundant.
I’m lucky to experience it, and I’m grateful I get to share my perspective with all of you.