Loyalty?

[Asgaya Dihi]

I've been reading more than posting over the last few days and a thought that I can't get out of my head is this, loyalty does more damage than most realize.

A thread on teachers draws a lot of reactions, but one thing I noticed is that a lot of both the attacks and defenses seemed to be based more on prior experience and conceptions than on the article itself, prior loyalties. The code of silence with cops is legendary, the thin blue line has hid a lot of abuse and corruption over the years to the point that the term "testilying" is even defined by Wiki these days. Same happens in Iraq, one soldier won't turn on another often even in the face of obvious wrongs and abuses. The Republicans followed Bush off the edge of a cliff just like a bunch of lemmings, and though I won't scrape any raw nerves with examples here most of us should realize that we've probably done it too in one degree or another.

I'm starting to wonder, exactly what does loyalty mean to most people? Better yet, what should it mean? In todays world I'm a bit wary of loyalty to anything but an ideal, an eventual goal of where we want to end up. It's just way too easy to assume a bunker mentality when we divide ourselves into groups, and the media feeds that. People excuse faults in their own that we'd attack in others, good ideas and groups that started with sound principles are stolen by branding and marketing before a lot who follow them are even aware their ideals have been betrayed.

So, do we have a real problem here, or is it just the way I'm looking at it? I think we've replaced ideals with institutions in too many cases, and I'm not so sure that was a good thing.

[More Than A Feeling]

1. I think its the exact opposite

Loyalty to ideals is what got us into this mess in the first place. Bush and his neocon cronies and religious rightist haters have nothing but their ideals, which are greed, power, and the aforementioned hate, despite what their press releases say. Reality is now slapping them upside the head.

Meanwhile, those who are loyal to their institutions like the CIA, FBI, and the constitution are the ones fighting back and speaking out. If congressmen and senators had more loyalty to their institutions, we might have some kind of oversight and control over the executive branch.

[Asgaya Dihi]

5. Different type of ideal

I don't mean in religious terms. In terms of an example such as I gave above, it might mean that a cop doesn't protect a cop just because he's another cop, he turns him in quicker than a criminal because the dirty cop does more damage. An ideal, sticking to what you know is right rather than to the institution.

In terms of your example the ones doing the right thing these days I'd think are doing what I'd like them to do. Sticking up for what they should stand for, not what their leaders tell them to do.

[Guaranteed]

8. Well, "ideally" (ha ha) we'd be loyal to the

correct ideals.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of really bad, selfish people out there.

[RufusEarl]

2. I see nothing wrong with loyalty,

i do however have a problem with blind loyalty.

Short story here:

One evening out with an old friend and my old friend got way out of line, he said some things he shouldn't have said. I couldn't defend his actions, and when another guy called him on it i ended up holding the other guys coat.

I like to think i'm loyal to those who deserve my loyalty, but i don't confuse loyalty with stupidity.

[izzie]

3. I think people for get where their loyalty should go

I have even heard people say that the service takes a pledge to the President. I am sure the German army did that to Hitler but we are to take a pledge to the US Constitutions. The Lord with his own army is gone in this country, but Bush people have not got up to date I guess. I am sure I know know what that man did at a bottom of a bottle all those years and we are all living it. :shrug:

[Kutjara]

4. Tribal thinking.

For better or worse, humans are tribal by nature. Nationalism, religion, civic pride, even supporting a particular team are all the result of our innate need to form exclusive groups. Loyalty, whether to one's God, baseball team or country, is the glue that cements these tribal groups together. Without it, a 'community' is just a collection of individuals that may fracture at any moment. For those whose interest it is to keep the group together, nothing is worse than the destruction of the group, so leaders tend to place the 'virtue' of loyalty on a very high pedestal. In some cases (the police, the military, secret societies, the Mafia), disloyalty is the highest crime of all. Much better to be a murderer than to be a narc.

Loyalty is one of those double-edged swords. On the one hand, it is necessary for large groups to act as one. On the other, it can lead to a dangerous kind of thinking in which group values take priority over humanity.

[sweetheart]

6. Preconception and "here, now"

People generally fall on a scale of how open they are to the present moment.

On one extreme, are persons who don't carry any baggage from moment to moment,
yet who are totally aware and engaged in the here and now.

At the other extreme, are persons lost in their egos, the past, the future,
their identity, their success, their indignity... ad infinitum.

The present is not the past, and the loyalties you're speaking of, are to
old frames of mind, old concepts of self.... whereas if the loyalty is to
truth and *choosing life*, then a person is willing and open to truth,
with all the knowledge, yet without the prejudice of yesterday.

[Guaranteed]

7. Reminds me of a short story Kurt Vonnegut put into

"Breakfast of Champions" about a civilization of cars that happens upon the Earth, looking for a new place to live because they destroyed their old home.

Us Earthlings let them in and don't say anything when they start destroying our home for the sake of being "friendly." He comments on how much importance we put into "friendliness" in our culture, even when bad ideas confront us.

That story really stuck with me.

[neoblues]

9. Blind Loyalty...

Loyalty isn't good if you have to subvert your personal integrity and honesty to maintain it. To knowingly support someone who does wrong, or evil or criminal... just because you're "loyal" is not a positive or desirable quality and basically means you aren't a worthy human being (or rather that you are a worthless human being).