Can a Culture Survive on Trust Alone?

A Game Show Asked a Better Question Than I Expected

By LONNIE KING

Sometimes wisdom shows up in unexpected places.

For me, it happened while watching a 1970s episode of To Tell the Truth.

One of the contestants claimed to have founded a 500-person community in India called Auroville. The concept fascinated the celebrity panel. The community had no traditional government, no police force, and no established religion. It was built on the belief that people, committed to a common purpose, could largely govern themselves.

It sounded idealistic. It also sounded beautiful.

Then panelist Bill Cullen asked the question that changed the way I thought about the whole thing:

“If you don’t have a government…what happens when someone breaks the rules?”

Every Culture Begins With Hope

The more I learned about Auroville after the show, the more fascinated by it I became.

It wasn’t intended to be an Indian community. It was intended to be a human community.

People from around the world came together believing they could build something different. Not because they hated humanity, but because they believed humanity could do better.

I find something deeply admirable about that.

Every worthwhile culture begins with hope:

• Families begin with hope
• Churches begin with hope
• Businesses begin with hope
• Nations begin with hope
• Someone imagines a better way

But Cultures Don’t Stay Designed

What fascinated me wasn’t the founding. It was what happened afterward.

On the show, the founder admitted something I wasn’t expecting. People had already left the community. Not because they were arrested. Not because there was a police force. But because they had violated the community’s standards and lost the trust of those around them.

That was the moment I realized something.

Even communities that reject formal authority still develop ways of enforcing their values. Culture always governs. The only question is how.

We Don’t Just Inherit Culture. We Create It.

That realization made me think about something much larger.

The United States was also an experiment. Its founders established remarkable principles. Auroville’s founders envisioned a community unlike any the world had seen. Both began with deeply held ideals.

But neither could determine what their cultures would become. Because founders don’t create finished cultures. They create beginnings.

Cultures emerge through millions of ordinary choices made by ordinary people over time. Every conversation. Every act of kindness. Every compromise. Every lie. Every moment of courage. Every moment of indifference.

That’s how culture is actually built.

What Lives at the Center?

One of Auroville’s founding principles was that it would have no established religion. America similarly rejected the idea of an established national church. Yet neither could avoid answering a deeper question.

What do we place at the center of our lives together?

I don’t think human beings can avoid that question. Whether it’s God. Or freedom. Or justice. Or family. Or any number of other things, including success, community, politics and national identity. We naturally organize our lives around something we believe deserves our loyalty.

Every culture has a center, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Maybe We Keep Looking in the Wrong Direction

Watching that old game show made me wonder if many of us share the same instinct.

We imagine that if we could just find a different place…

• A different church
• A different town
• A different job
• A different political system
• A different community

…we’ll finally discover the culture we’ve always wanted.

But there’s a problem with that logic. And a line attributed to Groucho Marx encapsulates it perfectly.

Groucho once quipped:

“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”

I’ve always laughed at that line because it has always sounded less like a punchline and more like a confession. Like most great humor, it’s funny because there’s truth hiding inside it.

Every club, every church, every neighborhood, every workplace, every nation eventually fills up with the same problematic thing: people.

And people have an uncanny ability to complicate even the noblest ideas.

If I’m being honest, I’ve spent more years than I’d care to admit believing that the next place would finally get it right.

• The next church
• The next community
• The next organization
• The next way of thinking

Sometimes leaving was the right decision. Sometimes it wasn’t. But every time, I eventually had to confront an uncomfortable reality: every place I went was made up of human beings.

Including me.

That doesn’t mean people are hopeless and cultures are ultimately doomed. Quite the opposite. Most people I know are trying to do the right thing. They’re mostly generous, compassionate and hardworking. They’re also capable of blind spots, selfish moments, and convincing themselves they’re right.

So am I.

Maybe that’s why no culture remains exactly as its founders imagined. Because cultures don’t simply inherit ideals. They inherit people.

The Culture We Are Creating

So, can a culture survive on trust alone? I still don’t have an answer for that. But I do know this: every culture begins with hope, and then every culture eventually encounters human nature.

The question isn’t whether people will shape a culture. The question is, how can they not?

And that then leads to another question: are we willing to take responsibility for the culture we shape?

Because cultures aren’t created and they aren’t static. They emerge. And every day, whether we realize it or not, we’re helping that process along.

Grace and grit to you! –LK