Michalos, Alex C. (1990). The impact of trust on business, international security and the quality of life. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(8), 639-653.
***
"Virtually all contemporary research on subjective well-being, quality of life, happiness and satisfaction with life as a whole shows that good interpersonal relations contribute more than anything else to these desirable states. If one were to list plausible necessary conditions for good interpersonal relations, trust would certainly be included in the list" (p. 639)If it is such a necessary condition, and, as I have already described in my previous posts, trust was so problematic for me at the Vienna mission, it's a wonder that I had any positive relations. Actually, it's possible that the positive relations on their end were just as withheld as they were on my end. On my end, I just did as much as I could agree with them, but beyond that I chose to stay out my term. As it turned out my relations with the mission were only instrumental, because they turned on my so quickly. This is an example, too, of how the trust issue really to the forefront, because they obviously did not trust me at all.
***
"[T]he moral principle which is at the basis of a civilized society ... is a principle of mutual trust, of mutual respect for certain basic rights: that persons will not, in the normal course of life, knowingly inflict physical physical harm on one another, that they will abstain from such harms insofar as it is in their power to do so, insofar as they can informedly control their relevant conduct." (p. 633)The leadership at the Vienna mission clearly did not adhere to these principles in how they treated me. If they had treated me with mutual respect they wouldn't have given me such menial work (reading software manuals) and shuffling me around all over the place in my various jobs. And being sent back to the U.S. I think they were knowingly inflicting physical harm on me in doing that, as a kind of brain washing just like how they sent back the two other wives for counseling - to scare them into towing the line.
***
"Alternatively, one might say that insofar as adherence to the No Harm Principle is necessary for a civilized society or a moral community, so is trusting people and being trustworthy. Thus, I prefer the Principle of Beneficence, even those who prefer the No Harm Principle as the fundamental basis of morality would have a good reason to take trust and trustworthiness seriously." (p. 633)For clarity's sake here are the referred to principles:
"1. Principle of Beneficence: One ought to try to act so that one's actions tend to impartially improve the human condition.
2. No Harm Principle. One ought to try to act so that one's actions tend not to harm anyone." (p. 633)
The point I want to make here is that trust should be a basic element of a civilized society and a moral community. A submit that a Christian mission counts as a moral community, and therefore trust should be rather high in such a community, at least if this text is right. Well, it turns out that it isn't right, because the mission doesn't apply trust and trustworthiness impartially (the principle of beneficence) or to "anyone" (no harm principle), because it seems I was left out. The mission left me out of its trustworthiness. That's they only way I can explain the way I was treated.
***
"From a logical point of view, there are four relevant possible worlds to consider. The world might be such that most people are actually1. trustworthy and trusted,
2. trustworthy but not trusted,
3. not trustworthy but trusted,
4. not trustworthy and not trusted." (p. 634)
Michalos goes on to describe each of these and gives them each such names as Real Hell and Fool's Paradise.
I think that I was trustworthy to the mission in that I never ever harmed the mission or intended anything of that nature. So I was always trustworthy in that way. And when I was out having my Austrian contacts I didn't do foolish things or cause any security breaches or anything stupid like that. But If they insisted on controlling all my thoughts and my opinions, etc. then to them I'd be untrustworthy because they didn't like it that anyone had thoughts or opinions that they didn't know about. Well, and they didn't know what I really wanted, but I couldn't tell them because they'd have just freaked out because of how much I was disagreeing with them.
But if you turn the tables and ask how much I could trust the mission... from early on I decided I couldn't really trust them at all. That is, I didn't open up to them at all after they sent me back to the U.S. I made no more admissions to anything after that, because I didn't trust them, any of them. You just never knew who to trust. Not after what they did to me. No way.
