Insularity - The Next Crisis of Trust

The English poet John Donne wrote in the 17th century the immortal line, “No man is an island entire of itself.” This memorable declaration of our need for one another is now replaced by insularity, a psychological state shaped by fears and crises. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer finds that seventy percent of our 33,938 respondents across 28 nations now are hesitant or unwilling to trust someone who has different values, information sources, approaches to societal problems, or backgrounds than them. This majority holds across income levels, gender, age groups, developing and developed markets.

We are choosing a closed ecosystem of trust that mandates a limited worldview, a narrowing of opinion, intellectual stasis, and cultural rigidity. Distrust is the default instinct; only one-third of respondents tell us that most people can be trusted. Insular respondents say they would have profoundly lower trust in institutions if led by anyone different from them (-28 pts or more, compared to people with open trust mindsets). We are withdrawing from dialogue and compromise. We opt for the safety of the familiar over the perceived risk of innovation. We prefer nationalism to global connection. We choose individual benefit over common advancement, the Me over the We.

How did we get here?