By Morf Morford

Tacoma Daily Index

There’s a country song in that line somewhere. Or at least there should be.

We in America have issues with authority, some areas more than others, some states perhaps, more than any others.

Our nation, after all was founded in the aftermath of rejection and a bloody and costly rebellion.

Our rebellion was against external control – and any king, or kingdom that had, and fully intended to continue to control and profit from us (and its other colonies).

We, as a nation, have had a fairly muddled, sometimes contradictory history of expressing, embracing and living out that history.

Every one of us, every child, every community and every state grapples with the questions of local, independent control and the larger state or national regulation, if not interference.

Every business person I know complains (perhaps rightly so) about the seemingly unreasonable demands, rules, laws and guidelines.

Every business person, maybe even almost every grown-up person, wants to do as they see fit – to make decisions, set policy, even pay workers, as they see best appropriate.

In an ideal world, we as humans could be expected to act fairly and responsibly.

In reality though, we all know better.

How many of our favorite movies, TV shows and cartoon strips are based on the worker/boss, child/parent, husband/wife contest over authority and autonomy?

From Dilbert to The Office, to a hundred more, we almost always portray the authority figure (especially the boss or the dad) as the most clueless and inept.

And in most shows, (like The Simpsons) the most insightful is the youngest and most unassuming of all.

If you look at the TV shows and movies from other countries, you’ll quickly notice that they don’t do that – or at least they don’t do it as obsessively as we do.

In most cases, their kings and commanders, even their village or home leaders, are presented as capable, caring and maybe even sacrificial.

Their calling is their obligation – not their opportunity for lording it over, or even exploiting others.

Some, though all too few, see authority as something like a sacred trust, even a calling.

The Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, for example, has a statement they are promoting “Wear a mask, save a business.”

A mask, to them, is not a political statement, or even a practical health measure, or even an act of personal protection; a mask is literally a way that we as individuals can “save” a business.

And a business, as they well know, is more than a profit-making enterprise – a business defines a community, offers avenues of personal and professional growth and exploration, creates opportunities for individual and community stabilization and growth and, in theory at least, offers the best possible opportunity for equality and racial reconciliation.

In our culture, and certainly in much of popular culture, businesses (and authority figures) can be perceived as crass or even exploitative.

Historic and ancient cultures know better.

Any society, or neighborhood or family, to succeed and survive, must have a “fabric” of trust and mutual respect. If we, as we in so many ways have been learning across our culture the past few years, have (or should have) learned, distrust of our leaders and our most essential services and processes, from voting to the local grocery store, has a corrosive effect on every aspect of our attitudes and relationships.

If we don’t trust our leaders, who do we trust?

As we have learned to our chagrin, when we don’t trust those in authority, we don’t transfer that trust to another person or party.

When we lose trust in our leaders, we don’t lose trust in them alone, we lose the ability, even the capacity to trust at all.

If you, like all too many of us, know someone who has fallen down the multiple rabbit-holes of conspiracy thinking, you see very quickly that they trust or believe no one; not other family members, not friends, not neighbors, not you and not even themselves.

In a very profound way, their trust has been broken – again, not trust in any one person, party or process, but their deep-rooted ability to trust.

There could literally be nothing more “un-American” than this state of being.

We, the United States, we neighbors, we workers and leaders, parents and teachers can only do our best, we can only be who we are called to be, be who our communities, families and larger regions need us to be, if we trust, and have the trust of those round us, those we work for and even strangers.

Every time we buy anything online or send our money to a store or non-profit, we trust that they will carry out their part of the bargain.

We trust – because at a practical level – we must.

So yes, “Wear a mask, save a business”, that too is an act of trust, a belief that every business, every customer cares about more than themselves, more than today, even more than whatever profit may be made today.

Wearing a mask is a small act, a small statement of trust and solidarity; we are in fact all in this together, and the more we take care of, and trust each other, the sooner we will be out of this situation – and yes, probably another situation that demands that we trust each other.

Maybe that’s the point – working together we can go far and accomplish much.

Distrusting (and discrediting) each other may have its psychological (if infantile) satisfactions, but if we want to accomplish anything, appreciate each other, and most of the time, enjoy the experience, and even make some money along the way, we can only do it if we trust each other.

“United we stand, divided we fall” was one of the core beliefs of our Founding Fathers. It’s at least as true now as it was then.

And it’s true on every level, from Congress to the next business meeting to the next family dinner.

Rules and regulations should not be onerous, and they should be used, or applied only when necessary, but any collapse of a system, or even an individual building shows us how essential they are.

Like everyone else, I generally don’t like rules either, but zoning guidelines and speed limits are there for a reason.

We are all safer, and can be far more productive in a climate of trust than distrust.

Wear a mask, follow the speed limit, pay your bills and honor your commitments.

We might not always like it, but it’s the only way we get through.