Question — What is trust? As mentioned in last weeks blog, I have just recently returned from a visit to the Russian capital Moscow. Before I traveled there, various people were telling me myths and many bad things about Russia and Moscow in particular. Things like the Mafia & racism and they were telling me to be extra careful. All this did was left me with a very high level of mistrust and defensiveness when I arrived in the capital. I found these myths not to be true and actually found many of the places and people I visited to be very pleasant. So in actual fact, I learned a very big lesson in trust while I was there. So what is trust? Wikipedia defines trust as the following:
“In a social context, trust has several connotations. Definitions of trust typically refer to a situation characterised by the following aspects: One party (trustor) is willing to rely on the actions of another party (trustee); the situation is directed to the future. In addition, the trustor (voluntarily or forcedly) abandons control over the actions performed by the trustee. As a consequence, the trustor is uncertain about the outcome of the other’s actions; he can only develop and evaluate expectations. The uncertainty involves the risk of failure or harm to the trustor if the trustee will not behave as desired.
Trust can be attributed to relationships between people. It can be demonstrated that humans have a natural disposition to trust and to judge trustworthiness that can be traced to the neurobiological structure and activity of a human brain, and can be altered e.g. by the application of oxytocin.
Conceptually, trust is also attributable to relationships within and between social groups (families, friends, communities, organisations, companies, nations etc.). It is a popular approach to frame the dynamics of inter-group and intra-group interactions in terms of trust.”
But don’t get me wrong, racism does exist in Russia. World class football player Roberto Carlos, is a player/manager who last played as a defensive midfielder for Russian Premier League club Anzhi Makhachkala, where he was also club captain. He currently works with Anzhi as a coach and is not currently registered with the league as a player.
Last year in March, during a game away at Zenit Saint Petersburg, a banana was held near Carlos by one of the fans as the footballer was taking part in a flag-raising ceremony. In June, in a match away at Krylia Sovetov Samara, Roberto Carlos received a pass from the goalkeeper and was about to pass it when a banana was thrown on to the pitch, landing nearby. The 38-year-old Brazilian picked it up and threw it by the sidelines, walking off the field before the final whistle and raising two fingers at the stands, indicating this was the second such incident since March.
But this type of racism occurs in many parts of the world including the UK and USA. And the Mafia is an underworld criminal organisation that operates globally and not only predominately in Russia, China and Italy.
So I leave you with this Chinese proverb: “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion”.
