>Social trust is highly correlated with peaceful collective decision making and civic engagement. In its absence, the authority of shared values and mutual obligations slips away. The void that remains is a loud signal of societal vulnerability. Confusion, uncertainty, and distrust enable power to fill the social void [^1] > >Shoshana Zuboff Cultural identity is woven from a vast array of social norms, codifying everything from religious beliefs and customs to etiquette, cuisine, architecture, and the arts. At first glance, it would seem that these **explicit** rules—the written laws, the formal codes of conduct, the clearly defined traditions—constitute the foundation of society. But this is an illusion. What truly defines a culture are its **tacit** rules, the invisible currents that shape behavior without ever being formally articulated. These are the **unknown knowns**—the unspoken boundaries that structure our speech, thought, and action, yet rarely rise to the level of conscious awareness. In this way, culture is, to a significant extent, the **systematic arrangement of uncertainty**. Take **social trust**, for example. Trust is the invisible force that allows large groups of strangers to coexist, cooperate, and coordinate. But trust cannot be built through explicit rules alone. It requires a delicate balance—what might be called a **desired state of vulnerability**. For trust to exist, there must be an element of uncertainty. If one party insists on eliminating all doubt—say, by demanding exhaustive assurances or scrutinising every detail—the other party will perceive this as a sign that trust has already been broken. In this way, trust is paradoxical: it thrives on uncertainty, and yet it is uncertainty that most threatens it. The very glue that holds societies together is, in part, an active manipulation of ambiguity. **Etiquette** operates in a similar way. The rules of polite society do not merely dictate what is acceptable; they also establish what is **not** to be done. The most powerful of these rules are not those that are explicitly taught, but those that are absorbed through immersion, internalised without instruction. And, crucially, these tacit norms are highly localised. In Shanghai, for instance, it is perfectly normal for a taxi driver to ask how much money you make. In central London, such a question would be unthinkable. What is considered polite in one culture is an egregious breach of decorum in another. The same dynamic applies to **social taboos**. Every culture has strict, often unspoken rules governing the treatment of the deceased, prohibitions against murder and incest, and restrictions on acceptable food. Dietary taboos, in particular, demonstrate how deeply ingrained cultural norms are in shaping human behaviour. Hindus avoid beef, Muslims and Jews abstain from pork, and nearly all cultures recoil at the thought of eating pets—or, more universally, other humans. Yet, as history has shown, these prohibitions are fluid; what is sacred in one society may be mundane in another, what is forbidden in one era may be normalised in the next. Mary Douglas’ framework of **symbolic order** provides a lens through which to understand these norms. Societies establish stability by drawing epistemic boundaries—by categorising objects, people, and practices into neat, intelligible classifications. What falls outside these classifications becomes *other*: impure, dangerous, disruptive to the social fabric. This is not merely a system of organisation; it is an act of power. The creation of social norms is, at its core, the active manipulation of uncertainty—establishing meaning by defining what is inside and what is out. [^2] Thus, culture does not exist to *resolve* uncertainty so much as to *structure* it, to carve out islands of predictability within the chaotic sea of human existence. Whether through trust, etiquette, taboo, or law, society operates not by eliminating the unknown but by controlling its borders, shaping the boundaries of what can be thought, said, and done. [[First Principles/Society/Creativity|Next page]] <hr> [^1]: Zuboff, Shoshana. The age of surveillance capitalism : the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. London: Profile Books, 2019. Print. [^2]: Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, 2002.