Distrust and Violence

Image credit. Continued from here.

I am on the lookout for organising themes for Attempts at Liberty. I just went through my head that two issues might hold up as fundamental organising themes for thinking about society and freedom.

No community, however small or large, is capable of enduring survival unless it addresses the problems of distrust and violence.

Man is a social animal, he depends on fellow human beings - the recluse is an "idiosyncratic luxury" that is possible only because a community has given life, education and a set of skills to survive to the hermit.

Imagine a world consisting only of one family, each member of which distrusting al the other members. I mean, absolute distrust. This would inevitably lead to massive conflict, since a person that you absolutely do not trust must be supposed to be capable of every vicious deed under the sun. He is an acute menace that ultimately cannot be thwarted other than by severe coercion based at least on the threat of violence.   

In turn, violence will tend to be an originator or reinforcer of distrust. And off goes the vicious circle.

Why should distrust and violence be regarded more fundamental issues than others such as procreation or nourishment?

I think, the answer is that violence and distrust can block the performance of all other vital activities that people need to engage in so as to survive.

Like the family I mentioned above, no community or larger society stand a chance to survive if they have not managed to reduce violence and distrust to minimally reasonable levels.

So, my thesis is that societies evolve and are consciously designed to come to terms with the side constraint that levels of violence and distrust must be sufficiently low to allow for forms of coordination and collaboration ensuring durable survival.

The history of mankind may be regarded as a slow evolvement whereby violence increasingly becomes replaced by productive coercion, while distrust gives way to conditional trust. Violence is withheld on certain conditions conducive to productive and largely peaceful interaction among the members of society. Equally, trust (trustful behaviour) is being credibly promised provided certain requirements are fulfilled. Violence and distrust are not the drivers of action, they are the background threats that motivate non-violent and trustful arrangements among people.

Can we say that freedom marks the most advanced stage in the historical process whereby violence and distrust are reduced to an unprecedented extent in their detrimental and downright destructive consequences for communal life?