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MuadDib · 02-06-2009, 12:50 AM

So a friend of mine recently acquired the password to his girlfriend's email account. The other night while we were out having a few drinks he devulged to me that he's started worrying that she seeing other men. He swears that he hasn't checked her account yet, but is seriously considering it. Long story short, I advised him not to, going along the lines that a relationship is made of trust and that if he went down that road than rather she was true to him or not he could never have the relationship with her that he wanted.

The point of this post is that the conversation got me to thinking; what is the value of trust? Hypothetically, if you could go throughout your entire life never trusting any one, but never having to, would you? That is to say, if you never had to have faith in any one because you always knew the truth, would you choose that option. On one hand, it isn't as though you are effecting the situation just by knowing the truth of the matter, but on the other hand, it seems to me that you lose something in not having to risk being hurt by others. Similarly, would you choose to be able to verify, after the fact, if you rightly put your trust in someone, where you otherwise would have spent the rest of your life not knowing.

Finally, would it make any difference if you could act on that knowledge? Hypothetically, say you could know any one's actions or motives, but you could never act on that knowledge or do anything to change the result. Would you want to be in that situation or would you be happier not knowing; even not knowing that you had been deceived.

I like to think that I have faith in people. More importantly, I like to think that there is value in having faith in people beyond the mere practicality of its consequences. However, I cannot deny that there is an inquisitory/voyeuristic desire in me to just know what is real. It was so easy to say from the outside that my friend should not check up on his girlfriend when he suspected she might be cheating, but now, after thinking about the whole trust thing, it's hard for me to put into words just why. Thoughts?

02-06-2009, 12:50 AM	#1 (permalink)
MuadDib Psycho	Trust? So a friend of mine recently acquired the password to his girlfriend's email account. The other night while we were out having a few drinks he devulged to me that he's started worrying that she seeing other men. He swears that he hasn't checked her account yet, but is seriously considering it. Long story short, I advised him not to, going along the lines that a relationship is made of trust and that if he went down that road than rather she was true to him or not he could never have the relationship with her that he wanted. The point of this post is that the conversation got me to thinking; what is the value of trust? Hypothetically, if you could go throughout your entire life never trusting any one, but never having to, would you? That is to say, if you never had to have faith in any one because you always knew the truth, would you choose that option. On one hand, it isn't as though you are effecting the situation just by knowing the truth of the matter, but on the other hand, it seems to me that you lose something in not having to risk being hurt by others. Similarly, would you choose to be able to verify, after the fact, if you rightly put your trust in someone, where you otherwise would have spent the rest of your life not knowing. Finally, would it make any difference if you could act on that knowledge? Hypothetically, say you could know any one's actions or motives, but you could never act on that knowledge or do anything to change the result. Would you want to be in that situation or would you be happier not knowing; even not knowing that you had been deceived. I like to think that I have faith in people. More importantly, I like to think that there is value in having faith in people beyond the mere practicality of its consequences. However, I cannot deny that there is an inquisitory/voyeuristic desire in me to just know what is real. It was so easy to say from the outside that my friend should not check up on his girlfriend when he suspected she might be cheating, but now, after thinking about the whole trust thing, it's hard for me to put into words just why. Thoughts? __________________ "The courts that first rode the warhorse of virtual representation into battle on the res judicata front invested their steed with near-magical properties." ~27 F.3d 751 Last edited by MuadDib; 02-06-2009 at 12:53 AM..