Events lately in the realm of politics and culture wars got me thinking about loyalty. It seems much of the trouble we're seeing is, at root, a matter of where people put their loyalties, or, rather, how they order their priority of loyalties.
I like to play board games and I'm an enthusiast of one called Advanced Squad Leader, a game that depicts infantry combat in World War II. It has a binder full of rules and a small but devoted following of mostly military history buffs. I play in tournaments and, while there's no cash prizes involved, the competition gets pretty intense. There's a rating system like with chess and a handful of top players dominate the tournaments (I'm not one of them). Cheating, however, is rare. Tempers can flare and things can get testy but, by and large, the competitors help each other with the rules because there's a lot of rules to remember.
So while mulling the subject of loyalty, it struck me that in the case of players of Advanced Squad Leader, their loyalty is to the rules and the spirit of the game. That loyalty has to take priority over winning. Without that loyalty the game breaks down and winning becomes meaningless. The same can be said for sports like football or basketball. However intensely loyal players may be to their teams, their higher loyalty has got to be with the sport itself and its rules.
Thinking along those lines, it becomes clear that the same can be said for democratic government. For it to function, a citizen's loyalty has got to be first and foremost to the principles of democracy. If it becomes so important to people that their favored party, ideology or leader wins that the rules of democratic society become secondary, then democracy itself is threatened.
Back in 2004 or so, I was at a large gathering where we watched a documentary about the failed coup attempt in Venezuela meant to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Many of the attendees at the gathering were pretty far left socialists and saw the film as demonstrating how the people of Venezuela rose up to defend Chavez's socialist revolution. I saw it differently. To me it was clear that many of the people opposing the coup attempt weren't doing it because they liked Chavez so much; they were doing it because he was the lawfully elected president. They opposed the coup because of their loyalty to democratic principles and the rule of law, not because of their loyalty to Chavez.
I mentioned this to a few people at the gathering and met with disagreement and suspicion. I wasn't on the team.
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I didn't have to ponder the idea of loyalty for very long before things started getting fuzzy and complicated. Are there loyalties that are higher than democratic principles? Democracies have done their share of bad things: The internment of Japanese Americans during W.W. II is one example among many and far from the worst. So how do we determine what takes precedence over democratic principles?
Thomas Jefferson, however flawed in actuality, was probably on the right track with the phrase, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Here he lists the things that need to take precedence over majority rule. The ordering of the phrase is apt. Liberty is important but it shouldn't come at the cost of others' lives. Pursuing happiness is important but it should impinge on others' liberty.
With this in mind I tried to come up with a priority list of loyalties:
1. The Earth and its ability to sustain life
I can't think of any logical reason something else would take precedence over this one. It would take belief in unearthly spiritual realms or dogged faith in the possibility humans could populate other planets in order to even start making a case the Earth was secondary to some other priority. Without the Earth and its ecosystem, the first of Jefferson's triad is absent: There is no life.
2. Natural rights, human rights, the right of living things to live their lives
A old coffee shop buddy of mine used to laugh at the idea of "natural" rights. "The only natural right I can think of is you have the right to be eaten," he quipped. Probably true, but, however difficult to ground natural rights empirically, they're pretty deep set in my bones and my experience tells me they're the right way to go -- they're the just way of treating others and being treated in turn. If this loyalty is not prominent in a culture, then liberty is essentially absent.
To me the great silver lining of American history is the growth of the perception that human rights apply to everyone.
3. Democratic principles and the rule of law
Here's the loyalty to the rules of the game that I discussed above.
4. Family, loved ones and friends
Here we get to instinctual loyalties that can get quite visceral and can easily overwhelm abstract loyalties like 1, 2 and 3. As social animals, it's clear we're geared to be loyal to the ones we're close to. Conflicts between these loyalties and, say, loyalty to the law are grist for creating dramatic tension in our stories and shows.
5. Groups, organizations, nations
Like 4, these loyalties are less abstract than 1, 2 and 3. Team loyalties can tap deep emotions. The potential for constructive endeavor is great, but so is the potential for destruction, particularly when team loyalty trumps loyalty to the rules of the game and human rights.
Side Note: America was founded on the ideas referenced in 2 and 3. To me, being a "loyal American" means loyalty to these principles. If your loyalty to Team America or America the Nation trumps your loyalty to human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, then, by definition, you're not really a loyal American.
6. Ideologies and charismatic leaders
An extension of 5, these may be the most problematic loyalties. When loyalty to an ideology or to a leader becomes the top priority, then things can slip into real horror. People doing nasty things because of their loyalties to loved ones is probably inevitable, but it generally happens at a small enough scale that it can be contained. A society has mechanisms to deal with them and the whole is not threatened. But history shows that fanatical devotion to demagogues like Adolf Hitler or ideologies like communism can lead to carnage, destruction and suffering on a massive scale.
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The question of loyalty is a big suitcase to unpack. What I've said here I can't claim to be anything more than a starting point for thinking about the subject.
I should note that religion can certainly fall into the category of ideology. I should also note that the ideas of a religion or ideology are not necessarily bad. Marx and Lenin had their insights, as did many religious prophets and leaders.
At the risk of contradicting myself, I believe that ideas -- whether religious, political, economic, scientific, or otherwise -- are best seen as tools that help us understand and cope with the world. We owe them no more loyalty than that. When our loyalty to ideas grows into unalloyed devotion, the ideas become ideologies. They stop being tools and become our masters.
