Trust and Identity

I had a nice exchange over the weekend with Branedy who drops in here most days and leaves a comment from time to time. Part of his email said, "I've been more or less anonymous as I work more or less out of the house... more like a tele-outsource worker. But for some regular sites where I post comments, I've been coming out a bit so that they and you don't think I'm a compete crank."

1. The last thing Branedy is, is a crank of any kind, let alone a complete one, but it IS interesting that he feels that he might be seen as one and wants to dispel that idea if it exists. He reads my stuff, he makes some comments, he ends up feeling an obligation. Something has happened. Through an exchange of words that appear to confirm some common ideas and ideals, a relationship has been created between two people who have never met and one of whom is a pseudonym. And he feels that he owes me something in exchange for having his input accepted. That's interesting right there.
2. The way he affirms the relationship is to send me to a URL which reveals his identity. Now the interesting thing is that the person to whose home page he sends me could be an elaborate hoax, I have no way of knowing this side of some serious investigation but in fact, I take him at his word,  mostly because I trust that he is telling me the truth. Now where, exactly, did that mutual trust come from? Are we both so confident of our critical literacy skills that we think we can spot a fake by the way they write, or is something else going on?
3. The fact is that I accept his assurances that he is who he says he is. I trust the guy because of some shared discussions and ideas and he trusts me not to blab his revealed identity to all and sundry. By trusting me with information that he feels sensitive about he demonstrates his trust in me, by not blabbing it, I demonstrate my trustworthiness. And we move on.
4. What's more, as with people like Jon Husband or Johnnie Moore or Euan Semple, I would happily have him to stay if he came to Australia and I'd be perfectly willing to crash on his sofa and share a meal with him if ever I get to Ireland again.

Despite all the panic and performance that goes on around privacy and stalking and authenticity online, I don't think we are necessarily doing anything new. Throughout our lives we establish relationships with strangers. We meet somewhere, we exchange "identities" that are no more reliable than any online pseudonym or avatar, we exchange opportunities for trust to develop and we form relationships. But those "real world" relationships are no more real than many online connections.

Think of all the mass murderers, urban terrorists, traffickers in god knows what; how do we say, "oh my god how could it be, they were such nice people, quiet, unassuming, generous, pillars of the community. I would never have suspected that." How often do we say, the spouse is the last to know. Been there, done that, from both sides. So who IS this person with whom you share your life again? What IS their identity?

Who we are, our identities have always been synthetic, malleable and adapted to our context. Dammit we promote the idea of reinventing ourselves as a good thing. Branedy's identity is at least as reliable as that, and his identity IS, in perfectly acceptable ways, Branedy, a guy with a blog and a set of understandings and opinions that strike a chord with me.

I expect we'll get used to the idea of forming actual relationships online and we'll get some better methods for raising our level of trust in individuals, but I suspect that the main tool will be the one we have always used; conversation, not an online eReputation trading platform.

Comments

[Jon Husband]

As you and I (and many of the others we know through this medium) are over 40 and have some life and work experience ...

... what have we learned so far about trust and identity ? How many times have you (or me) trusted, with people we know 9or knew), worked with, played with, lived with ... for that matter, how well do we actually know and trust ourselves ?

Yes, of course we will get used to forming (and growing, and ending, too) relationships online. It will always be the same dynamics .. I believe many people trust others as a default setting (and thank goodness for that, or else that whole consciousness-differentiates-us-from-animals thing is useless), and lose trust when betrayed, fucked over or lied too,

In every single relationship, the same dynamics operate .. and those who are cold-blooded or insensitive enough to not care about betraying or lying, etc. will be assholes whether online or off .. and vide-versa. Some of the people I have met and grown to know online I KNOW would be staunch supporters if ever i needed a hand, or an ear.

[Earl Mardle]

Exactly Jon.

I was thinking this morning about that and I realised that my default position is to trust. It came home really clearly in Stockholm in May when we had about 200 people; finalists for the Challenge,gathered together, workshopping and conferencing etc.

At one stage we were milling about chatting and a bit of skylarking and a couple of the Philippinos (younger ones, maybe 17/18) were standing behind me, joining the melee over my shoulder and for some reason, at one point, they said its OK, you can fall backwards, we'll catch you.

So I did, and they did.

Now I have a dodgy back and I didn't know these kids for more than a few words; but I trusted them and I was right.

Im damned glad to get to 55 and still be able to do that. Remember too that I am a lifelong pessimist, but while I always assume that the worst CAN happen so i should be prepared for it, and I have plenty of evidence that the worst DOES happen, and sometimes to me, for some reason I accept that most people, by a huge majority, bear me no ill.

The universe is not malevolent, it just doesn't care. I wonder how the world would look if we all, truly, understood that we only have each other.

[Jon Husband]

That's it, that's all.

I think I believe that there's a few trul;y bad, dishonest people here and there, but I have a really hard time believing that even they were born that way.

I do believe that we live in socializing systems that teach us to be anxious, fearful, and so on ... and that teaching takes a long time. What's interesting about that is how strong the impulse to trust is, and remains, for many people.

I have been burned more than once. My default setting is still oriented towards trusting, but I do ask questions when I feel the need.

This issue, for me, is one of the reasons I have used my name and identity on the Web. I'll be damned if everything in the world is so crap that I can't walk through it, online OR offline, except by "being" someone other than me.

And I suspect the same for you .. I've met you, and I don't think Earl Mardle is a pseudonym.