Loyalty - give and receive

Next week there will be a test of loyalty here. A strange thing - this idea of loyalty; where a person says that "I will never abandon you." No matter what happens, loyalty demands that commitment. It is a promise that says that you can count on me. It is similar to the theme I have developed in other posts, the essential answer to "Where Art Thou?" and being always able to say "Here I Am." Never failing and never wavering in the act of supporting what you claim to be loyal to. Judgment, and even reason, may be suspended in that support. It is the moment where self-interest disappears in the face of being with the person, institution, or the idea. In my life this principle has been particularly important. Few people can claim to be the quintessential "company man” and worked for the same employer for nearly thirty years or lived in the same town for nearly forty years (albeit with a temporary departure for professional development). It makes me wonder what drives loyalty. The famous Chinese philosopher Confucius made much of loyalty at every level from family, friends, community to society. Much later, Rousseau suggested that commitment is a moral responsibility, and McIntyre, in 1981, argued that it is the virtuous who can bind people for the common good. But therein lies the rub. Commitment to the common good, or the good of the other person, calls upon a virtue that requires the suspension of judgment, and reliance on trust. Loyalty requires sacrifices and hardships. And it needs the process of "being there" at whatever cost. Perhaps a selfish person cannot be loyal to anyone else but himself or herself. Simultaneously, the oppotunistic coward abandons loyalty and runs as soon as there is trouble or as soon as there is a new opportunity. Then they leave. This is a phenomenon that is too common, where in that departure there is selfishness and cowardice, and they escape the responsibility of commitment. The responsibility that places the promise over the self. Where the other can place trust in that loyalty. Hopefully, a few people in my life may call me their bondhu (friend) - a person who is loyal to them. But what earns me the right to be called that? And what responsibility comes with that status? The answer simply is: That I have before, and I continue to promise to be there. There may be rocky times and there will be good times, but there will always be trust in the promise. That the loyal will never let the other down. When faced with adversaries the ones who are loyal to each other will stand by each other - in the wrong or in the right - and never abandon each other. To me loyalty is worth fighting for. Of standing by and protecting and trusting each other - which makes loyalty so precious. And that brings me to next week. I have even learned to respect decisions made on the basis of blind loyalty, where all judgment is held aside and the very fact that you trust someone is sufficient to make the decision. And therein lies the danger. Because some will demand that you commit, and you will, as a virtuous person. But can you genuinely trust the person that demands the loyalty? Many will have to answer that question next week, and some have already answered. And that tension between blind loyalty and informed distrust will settle the future of my country. History tells us that many have suffered from incorrectly assessing the tension; a person wronged by a lover to nations taken down horrific paths are both examples of mistaking what to be loyal to. There lies the conundrum of loyalty - you cherish it, but you forget to question it. The value of loyalty is related to the trust one has in what a person is loyal to, and thus loyalty is easily abused by the crafty to get what they want and then leave the cheated loyal by the wayside. Genuine loyalty is mutually experienced when there is commitment to give and receive. I just hope next week is not decided just by the "give." Such a decision might leave us with a condition described by Clash in the song, WhiteRiot, "Nobody wants to go to jail."