Trust: A Fragile Cultural Pillar through History

Trust is like silence in a classroom of students, it can take forever for it to happen, and only seconds to be broken. Like silence, trust is very fragile and not easy to obtain. Trust has been an important cultural attribute in cultures all around the world from the beginning of humanity until now. In Ancient Greece, cultural values were carried out through their daily lives and through stories and myths. Out of the many, one passed on by the Greeks is trust. Trust, along with many other values, it is important to both ancient and present culture, and many examples are shown through stories and myths like in Damon and Pythias, and Jason and Medea. Trust affects me because it determines my relationships with people, and ties in along

with many of my daily life situations and I also believe that trust is never just one thing, it’s always tied with something else.
In ancient Greece, trust was taken seriously and applied to everyone in their everyday lives. In Greek households, husbands and wives needed to have trust in order to live an ideal life. But between the two, the women valued trust more than the men. Since women in Ancient Greece lived their lives based on what their husbands did, they needed to depend on their husbands. Also in some households, there had to be trust between slaves and the owners. Slaves trusted that the owners weren’t being too overpowering and owners trusted the slaves would do their labor and wouldn’t try to do any tricks. The statement made by author Steven Johnstone, “Practices constituted and affected social relationships of trust (and distrust)” states that what the Greeks did in their daily lives affected their social lives and either built or broke their relationships. If the household had bad habits/practices, then the social relationships would be weak, but if they had good habits/practices their relationships would grow and become stronger. Along with that, there are also many other signs of trust in ancient greek society such as when citizens elect someone they trust to lead Greece, and also they trusted their armies.
In the present day, many people seem to find trust rare because people don't seem to value it as much think about themselves and take it for granted. Often, some people tend to also make lies just to protect someone, but it backfires and hurts the other person more than one may think. Unlike other values, trust is not something given, it's something that must be earned. The way trust is carried out is through actions and proving to them that they respect and is loyal to you. The only way trust can teach you something is when that trust is gained or when trust is broken. The message of trust can't just be from a book or cold facts. You have to feel impacts that it has, good or bad, to know the true value of trust.
The cultural value, trust, shows up in many ancient Greek myths.

The two stories that reflect on the value of trust are the stories of Damon and Pythias, Jason and Medea. Although from both stories, trust is not what the main point may seem to be, trust truly plays an important role in the stories. In the story Damon and Pythias, these two men were best friends. Both of them decided to take a trip to Syracuse, far away from their home in Sicily. In Syracuse, Pythias said something to the king that offended him and Pythias was put into prison and was sentenced to death. Pythias pleaded to the king to let him say goodbye to his family. Damon stepped in and took his place in prison while he was gone. The king in disbelief of the trust between the two, gave Pythias a month to return, or else Damon would be killed. After Pythias said his goodbye's and was on his way back, he was attacked by pirates and was forced to swim to the island, and run to the king's palace. As Damon was put into his place of death, the king taunted him about his stupidity in trusting his friend, yet Damon still had no doubt that Pythias would return. The second before Damon was going to die, Pythias showed up and saved him. The king was in shock and truly impressed by their trust, that he didn't kill either of them. This story definitely shows a true sign of trust because Damon was willing to die for Pythias just so he could say goodbye to his family. With trust, they were able to achieve great

things, and have positive influences. Even though a main theme of this story is friendship, a big part of friendship is trust. Many stories have a deeper meaning than what there seems to be. In this case, trust is one of those deeper meanings. It takes a deeper level of thinking and understanding to get the greater theme out of a story.
With many good things, there is usually a bad side to it.

The story of Jason and Medea shows the part of trust that doesn’t have your typical happy ending. Jason, a king’s son grew up away from the kingdom, and went to go take his place on the throne after Pelias expropriated his place. When Jason shows up, Pelias makes up that in order to have the kingdom he must bring the Golden Fleece to him. Jason believes it, and gathers a group (the Argonauts) to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Together they go through countless challenges and defeat the first few. Hera asked for Aphrodite’s help because she felt like the Argonauts were in danger, so they send a witch named Medea to accompany them in their adventure and to make her fall in love with Jason. After they stole the fleece, they returned home only to find out that Pelias killed his father and his mother died from sadness. So Jason and Medea plot revenge and also bring his father back to life. Jason and Medea ended up having two children but Jason ended up betraying Medea and marrying someone else. She was very overwhelmed and plotted a horrible revenge. In this story, we see a tragic ending between two people. After Jason betrayed Medea and got married to someone else, Medea was enraged and broken because the trust she had with him was ruined. When there is a lack of trust from both sides of a relationship, many things can go wrong. Maybe not as far as Medea took it, but still something bad. Overall, trust is very important

in this story because it shows that trust is not always good, and has its consequences if it is not taken into consideration.
My personal view on trust is that it is easily taken for granted. Trust may not seem like much from a simple definition, but in reality, trust can be what builds or breaks a friendship or relationship between people. There's always a lot at risk when you build up trust. Especially if you have one person you put your complete trust to. Whether this person is someone you're in a relationship with or a family member, if that person breaks that trust, you get broken down and feel like trust is something that is impossible to have. The phrase "the higher you get the further the fall" plays in. Your trust level with a person or people gets so high the smallest thing can startle that and you could just fall. I also believe that trust is never alone. With trust, you can tie in betrayal, friendship, sadness, and other values and emotions. When love and trust go together, your love can make you think that trust is already there. In my opinion, with friendship and trust, trust is more easily built. There isn't a real affection over taking your emotions. You have an easier time building the friendship and building that trust which is essentially the base of most relationships.
The cultural value trust has heavily impacted the way of life of the ancient greeks as well as the present. It is carried out through myths but takes a deeper thinking to be able to understand where trust takes part in the story. Trust may not seem like anything significant in stories or in real life, but beneath the plot, there is sometimes a part to do with trust. Even though trust is something people would associate with horrible things, if one uses trust correctly and doesn't break it, then trust is one of the strongest values out there.