It's not hard to find appeals for loyalty in our world - whether it's brand loyalty, family loyalty, denominational loyalty, political loyalty, or some other kind - the sales pitch is always basically the same just with different names and details attached. Loyalty gets touted over and over as one of the building blocks of life...but is it really?
Is loyalty really the ultimate virtue we've made it out to be?
I'm starting to think it's not. In fact, I'm starting to think it's something concocted by humans who want other humans to not hold them accountable for their actions.
That's because what I've noticed is that even though we rarely include the word "blind" (blind loyalty) when referring to loyalty, if we stop to spell out our expectations it becomes obvious that we do, in fact, usually mean blind loyalty when we're talking about loyalty. That realization should set off warning bells for us because blind loyalty is an absolute monster, but for some reason it doesn't.
What this points to is the fact that what we apparently want is the ability to do whatever we want to do and then have the kind of people around us who won't stop us or turn us in even when they probably should. I'll be specific: we want to cut corners at work and have co-workers or employees who will look the other way; we want to have families who will hide us from the authorities if we commit a crime; we want to have teammates who won't say anything even if they know we're cheating to get an edge; we want friends who won't tell our spouses about the way we behave when we're out on the town.
Now, IF what we mean when we talk about loyalty is: standing by someone in their weakness, forgiving a loved one who let's us down, or choosing to support a trusted business even when a flashy new competitor rolls into town, then I would say that loyalty is a good thing. The problem - as with so many other things in life - is that we take the idea too far and end up letting loyalty essentially trump everything else, including truth and integrity.
Loyalty is a fine quality when it's properly submitted to truth, but when that isn't the case it spirals into some strange places. If you really dig into the idea of loyalty being submitted to truth you'll discover that loyalty doesn't deserve nearly as much of our attention as truth does. That's because when we pursue truth and let it guide our thoughts and actions we end up finding that a great many sub-issues (like loyalty) somehow work themselves out in the process. I know this might sound like an over simplification, but I sincerely believe it to be the case. The Truth tells me to be kind. The Truth tells me to be honest. The Truth tells me to love God and love others. The Truth tells me that obeying God is of the utmost importance. With all of that (and so much more) in place as a result of following Truth, how much consideration will I really need to give to the question of loyalty?
I believe our ultimate loyalty is meant to be given to God and that all other calls for loyalty are just distractions from that. Cultural loyalty, family loyalty, military loyalty, occupational loyalty, etc., should ALWAYS take a back seat to God-loyalty.
Could it be that our cultural aversion to truth is one of the big reasons we've come to over-emphasize loyalty?
Whenever you get rid of any type of reference point you'll suddenly find yourself a little less sure of where you are and start grasping (consciously or subconsciously) for something to replace it with. Truth is the reference point we've abandoned (awhile ago) and we've been busily replacing it with anything we could get our hands on ever since.
When absolute/objective truth gets watered down to "my truth" and "your truth" and then those two "truths" don't line up, what will serve as the tiebreaker? Preference? Comfort? The Horoscope? A pizza dream?...Loyalty?
Let's lift our eyes to something bigger and more stable than just "looking out for our own".