“One of the hallmark trends of our generation is the fall of confidence in institutions. From the 1970s until now, people have lost faith in almost every major institution, from government to corporations. Post–World War II, America trusted places like General Motors or The Wall Street Journal as organizations acting in society’s interest, serving as gatekeepers.”
From a blog post by Qasar Younis I saw shared on Twitter.
This got me thinking:
If this is true – which according to the research it is – shouldn’t this be the best time (or right time (Kairos)) to think that the now’s the best time to be investing in institutions?
This is contrarian, but not for its own sake.
> Something like: Disbelief in institutions is oversold, so now’s the time to buy. That’s the theory.
When there’s a collective and sufficiently abundant amount of agreement that X is happening, or Y is true, isn’t it reasonable to apply some discount rate to the veracity of that?
Now might be the best time to find institutions worth placing your trust in.
And put a premium on your trust in them, in fact. Double down on your trust in those institutions.
It’s some version of what our parents used to tell us:
If all of your friends jump off of a bridge, are you going to as well?
If people are selling you dollars for pennies on a collective consciousness, it might be worth placing a sufficiently risky bet against them.
This would not be an all-in bet. The whole point of this bet is that you suspect an all-in-ness is happening and would like to hedge yourself against it.
You also shouldn’t be contrarian for contrarianism’s sake.
I.e.: disbelief in institutions is at an all-time high, so I disagree with that but do nothing about it.
This is an active bet.
Back to the example of institutions:
> You won’t be making a bet from the outside on institutions, like it were some line on the Cowboys and Eagles.
Your bet is that now is the time to invest and involve yourself in an institution because you’ll learn something about the come-up of the Institution through your work in that one.
That’s what this bet is about.
This is very much a working theory.
Our church is currently my most active bet on this theory.