On Gutgläubigkeit

For the past few days I was surrounded by nature, and I had almost forgotten how good that could feel.

I am not a devoted hiker. I do not usually dream of climbing mountains or walking for hours uphill. Yet this time, I was open to everything—to going anywhere, following any path, seeing what might appear. That openness felt freeing. For a few days, I could create some distance between myself and everything cruel, frightening and senseless happening in the world.

While walking, I kept thinking about the German word Gutgläubigkeit.

When we describe someone as gutgläubig, it is rarely intended as admiration. There is usually a trace of condescension in it. That person is too trusting, too innocent, too easily deceived. Their willingness to believe in the good is treated almost as a weakness—something naïve, perhaps even slightly embarrassing.

We are taught instead to be critical, questioning and discerning. To anticipate hidden motives. To develop defence mechanisms. To think strategically, recognise threats and protect ourselves from being taken advantage of.

And, of course, much of this is necessary.

The world repeatedly reminds us that not everyone acts in good faith. Institutions fail. Authorities misuse trust. People manipulate, exploit and harm one another. There is evil in the world, however uncomfortable that word may be.

Yet nature briefly made me wonder what we lose when suspicion becomes our permanent state.

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There was something about the water, the fields, the plants and the trees existing alongside one another without appearing to compete for moral superiority. Everything seemed to belong to a wider harmony.

We hardly saw any animals. Perhaps they, too, have learned not to be gutgläubig. They hide from humans. Only the birds remained frightened, watchful, yet still present.

Whenever I spend enough time in nature, I am reminded that, at heart, I still want to be gutgläubig.

I want to believe in the good in other people. I want to believe in the good within myself. I want to trust that change and peace are not merely slogans, and that many people genuinely desire both. I want to believe that cooperation is as natural to us as competition, and that not every relationship requires an enemy.

Perhaps that is why the word troubles me.

Why have we made faith in goodness something to ridicule? Why is cynicism so often mistaken for intelligence, while trust is mistaken for ignorance? Why does maturity seem to require us to expect betrayal?

What would happen if the world became a little more gutgläubig?

Not blind. Not careless. Not unwilling to recognise danger. But less invested in the assumption that hostility is inevitable.

What if we believed less obsessively in enemies? What if we stopped creating adversaries simply to give ourselves direction, motivation and a reason to compete? What if more people were met not first with suspicion, but with the possibility that they might genuinely want peace, dignity and change?

Perhaps Gutgläubigkeit is not the absence of discernment.

Perhaps it is the decision to remain capable of trust after learning exactly why trust can be dangerous.

To recognise evil without worshipping it.

To protect oneself without becoming hardened.

To see the world clearly without allowing its cruelty to define what one believes humanity can be.

I do not want to be naïve.

But I do want to remain gutgläubig at heart.