Loyalty versus Rationality
28 March 2008Why does loyalty exist? What evolutionary significance does it have? I’m not an evolutionary scientist, but I have a few ideas.
First, a definition from dictionary.com:
1. faithful to one’s sovereign, government, or state: a loyal subject.
2. faithful to one’s oath, commitments, or obligations: to be loyal to a vow.
3. faithful to any leader, party, or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity: a loyal friend.
4. characterized by or showing faithfulness to commitments, vows, allegiance, obligations, etc.: loyal conduct.
Loyalty is found at different levels: with family, friends, governments, and even companies. This emotional attachment is our way of sticking together. Presumably our ancestors who were more loyal were better suited to survive. Interdependence with those around us is a key stepping stone to success.
At it’s basic construct, loyalty is an emotional attachment that unites us.
Loyalty will have us do what is best for the group instead of what is better for us as individuals. We will blindly support the group if necessary, putting our faith in a unified effort. We will feel compelled to come to the rescue of other loyal subjects if they are in need. We will be loyal to those around us by guarding and protecting them from strangers. Loyalty is what causes us to choose sides, particularly when we don’t know which side to be on.
Loyalty and faith will also pull teams through difficult times. When the group faces challenges, loyalty forms an emotional bond that will hold a group together, making us comfortable with the sacrifice of our own needs in favor of the needs of the group. Imagine if your spouse had no loyalty. As soon as you get in a fight over how to load the dishes, the relationship would be over. 
Loyalty is a critical part of civilized society, it unites us, builds strong teams of people that protect each other.
Now like other basic emotions like fear, it can hurt us if not used properly. When can loyalty hurt us? When can it cause us to act incorrectly?
- When it causes us to choose the wrong side. Have you ever defended someone only to find out later they were wrong? Have you ever stood up for a group effort, to find out that it was the wrong group to be in? I’m sure we all have our stories to back this up, I know I do.
- When it causes us to stay in a situation that is not healthy. Loyalty is a very powerful, compelling emotion for some. Abusive relationships, gangs, and hostile working environments are situations that should not be tolerated, but people do. Could it be that loyalty is what causes us to stick around?
- When it impairs the judgement of what we are loyal too. In situations of strong loyalty, we will excuse the actions of what we are loyal to. We may manipulate the facts to make our subject appear in a better light. Loyalty creates a cloud that causes us to not think clearly. We may not be able to see just how bad the situation is — our judgement is compromised.
Here are some specific examples I’ve seen where loyalty overpowers a rational decision:
- Staying with a dying company (company loyalty)
- Living in a small town with no opportunity (family loyalty)
- Unjustified wars (country loyalty aka patriotism)
- Working in a hostile working environment (company loyalty)
- Abusive relationships (spouse loyalty)
Is loyalty clouding your judgement? Is it causing you to evaluate the circumstances around you in an biased manner? Is loyalty compromising your ability to make a rational decision? Something to think about.
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on May 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am
My name is Cary and I’m 21, unemployed (only recently) and living with my friend and his handicapped father. I dropped out when I was 16 and lived chaotically (moving from one friends to another, embracing self-destructive behavior and negative attitudes towards life.) I was raised in an abusive household, more mentally than physically, although on several occasions I was hurt by my mother, example; when I was 11 I was hospitalized for days with an extremely severe stomach virus and immediately upon returning home I was stabbed by my mother with a sharpened pencil, right in the neck. I was raised by my grandmother, who had emotional problems and was addicted to anti-depressants, and my mother who was heavily involved in dealing drugs, using crack and heroin as well as pills, and mediating drug-deals between reputable and dangerous criminal’s, as well as crooked cops. I remember bringing a newspaper article with me to school to show to some friends which had in it an article about a recent incident in which a cop had tried to bribe a criminal with drugs in exchange for lying in court about an incident involving said cop, and my mother was the mediator for this exchange. The man was wired and all parties ended up arrested. I also had no fatherly input my whole life, and I had always felt that my lack of judgment came from never being taught how to be a man.
My whole life, I’ve only felt a family-like bond with two people, my Grandmother, whom I loved despite being lied to for years about her addiction, and my now ex-girlfriend, who seemed to be the only person who understood me and cared. We were together four years with a few bumps here and there, and I sometimes feel that if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be here. I owed her a lot. Although I had always feared that were she to meet someone driven and successful, she would make the rational decision to leave me, I was lazy at 17, and unmotivated and depressed, but funny and artistic as well. I liked making people happy when I could.
My laziness ended when I got a job at a tree company as a laborer at 18, my chance to show that I wasn’t useless had arrived, I made the best of it. My work ethic was tireless, within a few months I was the second highest paid laborer, next to someone who had been there for 7 years. I was worth something, and my attitude changed. I was happy, forgiving, enthusiastic, alive. My boss offered me a house that he was renting out, and I moved me and my girlfriend in. I was content with working and paying the rent, I was thrilled to take care of my girlfriend, I paid all utilities, bought all groceries, and did more than half of the chores while she went to school.
So happy, so content, my life suddenly had so much meaning. I threw parties all the time for my friends, I was surrounded by laughter and joy. But to some people After a year of work I began to take on all the skill aspects of tree work, the pruning, the shaping, the chainsaw work, I had a great talent with a chainsaw, and a lot of physical strength. I was also in charge of the weekend work, my boss sold the firewood from the trees we cut down, I worked every weekend and managed the crew and lot, I was in charge. I felt like the man, not in an egotistical way, just dependable, which I believe is the most important thing a man can be. I was also loyal, I believed in my company and took all my bosses views to heart. He was my mentor, and a very inspiring person. He however strongly disagreed with my decision to take the burden of my household and felt as though I was allowing my girlfriend to walk all over me.
Of course this grace period couldn’t last. Over the winter when work was scarce my boss went on vacation and me and the more experienced crewman, Eric, were to look after his shop and keep the stove loaded at his house. Eric was a lazy jealous bastard, however, and sought out to make me as miserable as possible. Long story short he eventually broke in my house and robbed me, and when I found out I got him fired. Him and my boss were very close, however and soon he was back working with us, to my great displeasure. When I voiced my opinion on this I brought my bosses wrath down on myself, he felt as though what Eric had done was too small to warrant being fired, and that I had the wrong kind of attitude for someone in my position. My boss was also very much caught up in my personal affairs, often bringing them into question in front of my co-workers.
These things started getting to me, but at the same time I started questioning myself, my girl had never shown me much gratitude, maybe I was being used? I became a little distant by this time, it was the Fall, 08 around this time. My girlfriend also felt like I took her for granted. Then my Grandmother died, and I fell into depression. Not long after my Girlfriend left me. It was now winter, my boss and I were on bad terms, mainly because I openly condemned his constant badgering over my girlfriend, as well as the fact that he liked to keep everyone updated on my business. I quit my job, and because of that lost my house.
I am so lost now, I have no family, no motivation, and no faith in anything. I cannot bring myself to trust anyone, nor care about any cause. Nobody remembers how I was before, it as if it never even happened, like I’ve been rotting away this whole time. I was loyal and trusting to my bosses extreme views, and that pushed my girlfriend away. Inevitably it was loyalty to my girlfriend that lost me my job. i don’t know what I’m trying to say about loyalty, except that I don’t think I’ll feel it for a long time. Because of that, I cannot go anywhere with life. I just want it back, I was driven, and going somewhere. Sorry if having read this, you feel as though you’ve wasted your time, It’s been so long since I wrote about anything, once I started, I couldn’t stop.