Two Ways to Look at Loyalty
This term and the associated virtue has always confused me.
I have always struggled with loyalty. Not with being loyal. I think I am loyal to a fault.
I have struggled with understanding what people mean when they invoke it and especially how it should be considered a virtue. On the surface it is almost an insult to either the person/thing being loyal or the person/thing to whom loyalty is being extended or both.
After some recent reading and reflection, I’ve come to a more nuanced understanding realizing there are really two ways to think about loyalty.
The first . . .
From Rob Henderson’s review of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: “Loyalty is often at its most functional when it looks most irrational. Loyalty means strong attachment to an organization that doesn’t deserve it, because an equally appealing or superior alternative is available. Put differently, when an organization is obviously superior, it doesn’t need loyalty to keep its members. Loyalty is only needed when the organization has serious competitors.”1
In this sense loyalty is a sacrifice made against one’s interest—it is a gift without strings attached. There is virtue in this although Ayn Rand would likely disagree.
The second . . .
There is never a “best” version of something, but there is always a better version depending upon the comparison being made. Loyalty is staying with that which you are committed to—a person, partnership, organization, institution, etc.—even though from time to time various opportunities will come along that along one or even many dimensions will happen to be superior. FWIW, I believe Ayn Rand would endorse this view.
I still struggle some with the first perspective on loyalty, but the second version is very salient to me.
The reason I evoke Ayn Rand is that I think her philosophy stands in remarkable contrast to the concept of loyalty at least on the surface. To the degree I identify with Objectivism I have always found conflict with the virtue of loyalty.
Oscar is always loyal in all ways . . .
For those in the know, I could get myself into trouble expanding upon those sentences.