Loyalty

Loyalty is a rather rare virtue, which can usually be found only in small, fleeting doses in most people. Loyalty is what keep people together through good and bad without abandoning each other, and also what keep people holding up an ideal, or making the same choices time and again even if those choices or those ideal prove to be less than good or put you in a tight place. You show loyalty to your friends when you stay at their side when they are in trouble, and you defend them when things get sticky for them and they may get sticky for you too. You show loyalty when you stick with your religion even when that religion is being mocked or scorned. You show loyalty when you choose to buy a given brand or at a given store even if their prices/products/services aren't the best in the market.

So far, loyalty sounds beautiful and desirable, right? Well, actually all of these can be achieved and achieved better through integrity. You stay with your friend when they get into trouble, you with integrity you don't become blind to their mistakes or wrongs. With loyalty you might find yourself defending something you know to be wrong. With integrity you can still support your friend, stand by them, but also tell them "man, you've got this fucking wrong". With loyalty you stand by your religion and also have to shoulder the wrongs and mistakes commited in its name, and accept without questioning the excuses given, whether you'd believe them or not. With integrity you can still profess your religion but point out that what's being done is wrong and that your believes don't stand for it. Same goes to brand loyalty.

There's people out there who possess a strong sense of loyalty, which have often eroded their integrity. One of the most publicited cases of Big Loyalty, Little Integrity I know of is the case of Alberto González, the Attorney General of the United States during the Bush Administration, who ended up losing his reputation and committing all kinds of ilegal acts, abusing his position to get Mr. Bush's agenda going. However Mr. González isn't the only one caught in the trap of loyalty. How many people do we know - and I know plenty, trust me - who place all their chips on the loyalty they have to someone, perhaps expecting that loyalty to be paid in some way, only to end up getting themselves in a huge mess and becoming the escape goats of a problem from which they've pulled no profit. A boss that demands loyalty and get their subalterns to alter informs, mask figures and statistics, lie, coax others for approvals or rejections, hide facts, make up others in an attempt to benefit the boss or whomever the boss has struck a deal with, and when the proverbial shit hits the fan, the boss ducks, washes their hands and all the evidence points towards the loyal subalterns who take the blame. Yes, this happened to Mr. González, but I bet you swore I was writing about someone you know well.

In and out of the political sphere you can find this exact case and many of its carbon copies. At work, at home, among friends... how many times have you had a friend who asked you to make them a fake recommendation letter, pretending that they work at your family's business? Maybe not so blatantly ilegal, but say, how much a "friend" has pushed the loyalty card to try and coax you to serve as guarantee for a loan when you know well they don't have the capacity to pay it back? Or asked for money they don't intend on paying back? Asked you to lie in order to cover their mischiefs?

Loyalty is a terribly dangerous thing that should be handled with care, though I'd rather vote for discarding it entirely and replace it by the smarter, consistent Integrity. Loyalty can get you in a very bad place, or feeling guilty because you broke it even if you did it on principle. Loyalty is bound to collide with Integrity at some point - unless you pair it with integrity, and restrain it. Integrity keeps you from being manipulated, because what leads you isn't an external force, but by your inner force, your convictions.

So, before you make a decision about granting your loyalty, think it over, think it well and never lose sight of your Integrity.