Microsociology of daily life
On November 20, 2005, a couple of African origin approached a lady while she was at the Bancontact self-banking machine at the ING bank in La Hulpe, asking her to explain how the machines worked. The victim turns around to discuss and one of the two perpetrators manages to steal his bank card from the device. The victim then gives up her place to the couple to show them what to do but she obviously cannot get her card back. The man suggests that he enter his secret code in order to “unblock” the system. The victim complies, without success, and realizes that the couple has stolen his bank card. The couple denies it and then leaves the bank. A few minutes later, this couple made 2 money withdrawals using the victim’s bank card at the self-bank of the Fortis bank in La Hulpe and also attempted to withdraw money from the ING bank in Waterloo. (Announcement from the Federal Police)
News item? Run over dog? Maybe not.
The original model of community is, according to the founding fathers of sociology, the village community. It is interesting to analyze how this African couple destroys social trust in what has been a friendly village, and how in doing so they contribute to the erosion of social capital.
Although belonging to a “visible minority”, those concerned behave like members of the community and appeal to its principles. There is first a request for support, which is well received by the victim because she is ready to help (mutual support within the community). There is then an offer of support, “unblock the system”, which is in the same vein (community reciprocity). Finally, there is a perversion of this mutual support by playing on its bases: trust (anticipation of positive behavior) and veracity (respect for the value of truth in the use of language). We can imagine the impact that such a micro-event could have had on trust in the village, and not just among the victim.
The community suffers from the irruption of populations who do not feel they belong to the same whole, who are sometimes deprived, and who use language as a weapon of sophistic persuasion more than Christian Europe does. Growing social anomie is increasing the number of cases of disruption of community trust, with varying degrees of severity. Of course, in this case, other factors destroy the conviviality of the village: the turnover of postal and banking employees who no longer know their customers personally; the establishment of traders who do not reside locally and are not involved in local life; real estate speculation which destroys the city/country balance and widens social differences. These developments partly extend beyond the village, but it is still up to its inhabitants to do everything in their power to restore what remains of community ties.
Who theorized the importance of trust in social life? Not just the recent specialists in social capital gathered around Robert Putnam at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. One of the contributors is… Alain Peyrefitte, one of the barons of Gaullism. Was it the intuition of a Negro more astute than the official author, or the expression of an indirect admission of guilt? In 1995, Peyrefitte published an essay titled “The Society of Trust” on the causes of development and underdevelopment in the world. With numerous supporting examples, he put forward the idea that the main factors of development are not to be found in certain material causes such as the climate or natural resources, but in the “third intangible factor” that is to say -say culture, mentalities . More precisely, the driving force behind development lies in the constitution of a society of trust, trust that the State places in individual initiative, but above all trust that individuals place in the State, recognize each other, and make each other to themselves. It is this “ethos of trust” which is said to have enabled the development of Western Europe in recent centuries.
Who also said that “the State always regulates in the smallest details all areas of civil society, thus emptying social dialogue of its content, hindering competition, promoting corporatism and mistrust. While our era requires networking, initiative and trust, everything is still decided from above, everything is controlled in a climate of general distrust”?… the Attali commission, author of a report for the “liberation of French growth” (2008).
It must be a return of the repressed, as it is true that the French Bonapartists, whether they were Gaullists or socialists, never stopped destroying this confidence that they invoke or whose absence they denounce. .
The deterioration of community trust is the most wonderful instrument there is for making citizens who have become incapable of regulating themselves dependent. Those who, in various countries, spread false, exaggerated or inappropriate information about alleged terrorist risks are irresponsible. There is an attempt to undermine confidence and to make itself indispensable as a state body in the eyes of a population which feels threatened and no longer believes in the future or in itself. The destruction of friendly trust weakens the social body, fuels conflicts, and favors the establishment of a surveillance society.
Trust, a sign and a factor of the existence of abundant social capital, is not a utopia. Many recent success stories, like those of Wikipedia or Ebay, operate on the basis of trust. A large part of business relationships, the operational performance of large companies like the Post Office, are also largely based on trust. It can inspire us to do what we can to begin to restore that attitude that forms the basis of community. This begins at the individual and behavioral level: the look, the smile, the civility, the mutual assistance of neighbors, the respect of the word given, a positive attitude towards others, the reciprocity, a healthy assertiveness, are precious steps to begin to reverse the disastrous trend reserved for us by those in power.
