Recent years have witnessed much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the public’s loss of trust in government, the growing suspicion toward the institutions of state, and the embrace of conspiracy theories in public discourse.

Which is to say we are asked to comment on opinion polls that highlight these rifts and to reflect on the fragile edifice of consensus—though it does not appear to be derailing the progress of events in any meaningful way.
But trust—which some theorists have elevated to a key form of social capital in democratic societies—is no simple matter. How can trust coalesce when the powers that be commit an endless stream of arbitrary acts, both major and minor? When every major system of governance, from large-scale functions to the administration of justice, is becoming increasingly opaque?

There is a powerful sense that the ‘movers and shakers’ are all in cahoots, and simply throw the occasional over-exposed sacrificial lamb in front of the bus to keep the rest safe. And judging by the results, that does seem to be the case.

Shelving cases—literally or in a symbolic or metaphorical sense—would seem to be the first commandment of self-preservation for these systems of power. Especially when they feel they are weakening and could collapse when the next major revelation sees the light of day.

In the case of the wiretapping scandal and associated events, it is clear that the government apparatus was jittery from the start, ready to counter any threat with a smear offensive of its own. Its staff enlisted posters, some anonymous some not, to slander those who conducted investigations, who lodged complaints, or simply insisted that a government systematically spying on its opponents undermined the very foundations of the political system.

The government and its parastate allies tried to downplay the issue, reducing it to a technical slip-up that could occur in any modern governance structure.

They also tried to portray it as an isolated misstep in the campaign to tackle vague threats to the nation in an era of geopolitical turbulence. And sought to exploit the awe and trepidation with which a certain type of citizen views higher forces and matters they consider ‘beyond the common reach’.

Then the phrase ‘trust in Justice’ began to circulate as a kind of institutional voodoo—a way to summarily shut down the ongoing debate. In this way, justice could be turned into a synonym for a blind faith in the methods and judgments of certain government figures.

Of course, this reduced ‘trust in the justice system’ and the denunciation of ‘toxicity’ to mere appendages of a self-justifying rhetoric with distinctly authoritarian overtones. The discourse on toxicity, which sprang from the fertile pastures of social-media psychobabble, came to be seen as an acid test for policing the tone and mode of criticism.

Just as trust was translated into a command to passively accept whatever decisions were made. What, one has to wonder, would qualify as non-toxic in the context of such a cynical sequence of events? Striking the colors of criticism, abdicating from political rivalry, watching on as contradictions are neutralized amidst a homogenizing sludge of minor differences?

And yet the most egregious aspect of these self-justifying cover-ups and their backers is to be found in another all-too-familiar ‘argument’. One which, in and of itself, should be a clarion call for every critical democratic voice. I am referring to the infamous argument that the public is not interested in such matters, and that issues like the wiretapping scandal are a game which only a select clique of political pundits and opposition figures are entitled to play.

What is this particular narrative actually telling us? It purports to describe a reality – the attitude which many take toward such issues –, yet simultaneously constructs, emboldens and sanitizes that very stance.
It magnifies the current condition and sanctifies it as the new normal. Operating on the fatal assumption that democracy is funneled solely through the delegation of its most fundamental values to the ‘proper authorities’.

But this view promotes the self-erasure of the concerned citizen and their transformation into a self-interested consumer of goods and services who should not care about personal data theft or surveillance—just as long, of course, that they themselves have done ‘nothing untoward’. So, the exact same submissive attitude these same people were peddling two or three years ago, on the grounds that these things happen, that it’s simply the way of the world and there’s no point railing against reality.

But this litany of trust and toxicity will yield nothing but a lesson in political secession and passivity. It operates on the pretext that it’s best not to get riled up about problems that do not personally affect you or your family; that, in the final analysis, it is not your place to speak.

Ultimately, a parallel drama has unfolded around the handling of the wiretapping saga, continuing through to its latest development: the refusal to reopen the case. It is a drama that recalls Étienne de La Boétie’s famous Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, one of the foundational texts of modern political thought.

All this talk of ‘trust’ and ‘toxicity’ has driven home just how parlous a state the concept of a critical public sphere now finds itself in here in Greece. In defiance of the notion that these matters are none of our business, such violations of fundamental rights—regardless of whether the majority are directly targeted—demand greater collective vigilance and more passion.

Passion is the only effective bulwark against the neo-oligarchies and their inner circles. For when it comes to the struggle for justice, state and party expediency bind no one but their own acolytes.