As a social order becomes more complex and variable, it tends on the whole to lose its matter-of-fact character, its taken-for-granted familiarity, because daily experience can envisage or recall it only in a fragmentary way. Yet the very complexity of the social order creates a greater need for co-ordination and hence a need to determine the future – i.e. a need for trust, a need which is now decreasingly supported by familiarity.

XREF: Connects to sociological theories of disembedding, such as Giddens on trust and expert systems in modern institutions. Also resonates with the paradox that modern societies demand more trust of strangers than traditional ones did. Builds on: "Familiarity with past patterns reduces perceived world complexity and harm."

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 139