> “there’s only trust, force, or nihilism.”
Actually, there is more. One might say that reality is a dance in between these extremes, and its a mistake to fall into any particular one of them, either as a philosophy of life, or as a philosophy of socio-political organization. The site meaningness.com develops these ideas in a series of wide-ranging “book chapters”. I think he’s got more than a few books worth of material there, so below are some entry-points that might give a hint of the thesis. One is a review of mid-20th century history, from the point of view of “sensemaking”; another is a review of mid-late 20th-century religion/nihilism from the sensemaking perspective.
Systems of meaning all in flames (1914–1964) — https://meaningness.com/systems-crisis-breakdown
Countercultures: modernity’s last gasp (1960’s-1980’s) — https://meaningness.com/countercultures
The above are actually later chapters, but are kind-of fun and enlightening and give a flavor. Here are some earlier chapters: