Spring 2017

Trust: Reweaving Our Social Fabric

This issue of Comment is dedicated to analyzing the social dynamics of trust from different angles and constructively considering how to reweave the web. Generating a diagnosis is important, so woven throughout this issue are multidisciplinary accounts that give us insight into the sources of our cynicism—from fake news to ubiquitous surveillance to the broken realities of racism.

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In The Print Issue

02

Editorial

James K.A. Smith

Editorial: Teach Us (How) to Trust

Suspicion and cynicism play right into the hands of authoritarian demagogues. Let's consider another way forward.

06

Essay

James K.A. Smith

World View

An annotated reading of your world.

12

Cardus

Peter Stockland

Headquarters: Faith in Canada 150

Updates from Cardus on the renewal of social architecture.

13

Essay

Kevin Den Dulk

Liberal Democracy Has “Trust Issues”

Why civil society won't revive our trust in government.

22

Essay

David Lyon

Surveillance and Trust

When someone's always watching, someone's always suspicious.

30

Essay

Sarah Hamersma

Finding Trust in the Economy

Trust, like currency, can be debased. Knowing how to grow trust is the key to a thriving economy.

38

Q&a

The Death of Expertise as a Decline of Trust

When we trust our feelings more than anything else, we stop trusting expert knowledge. And it could kill us.

45

Q&a

Pluralism, Difference, and the Dynamics of Trust

What's the likelihood of living together if we can't even trust our neighbours?

54

Book Review

Karen Tan

Who Watches the Nudgers?

It's less about trusting government and more about governments being trustworthy.

59

Book Review

James Poulos

Tocqueville and Twitter Feeds

Don't expect either social media or social science to save us; what we need is social theory.

64

Essay

Milton Friesen

The Commons: Explorations in Social Capital

The invisible power of trust.

Browse Past Issues and Archive

More on this Theme

Editorial
- James K.A. Smith
Editorial: Teach Us (How) to Trust

Suspicion and cynicism play right into the hands of authoritarian demagogues. Let's consider another way forward.
Essay
- James K.A. Smith
World View

An annotated reading of your world.
Cardus
- Peter Stockland
Headquarters: Faith in Canada 150

Updates from Cardus on the renewal of social architecture.
Essay
- Kevin Den Dulk
Liberal Democracy Has “Trust Issues”

Why civil society won't revive our trust in government.
Essay
- David Lyon
Surveillance and Trust

When someone's always watching, someone's always suspicious.
Essay
- Sarah Hamersma
Finding Trust in the Economy

Trust, like currency, can be debased. Knowing how to grow trust is the key to a thriving economy.
Q&a
- James K.A. Smith,
- Tom Nichols
The Death of Expertise as a Decline of Trust

When we trust our feelings more than anything else, we stop trusting expert knowledge. And it could kill us.
Q&a
- James K.A. Smith,
- John Inazu
Pluralism, Difference, and the Dynamics of Trust

What's the likelihood of living together if we can't even trust our neighbours?