I’ve been asking myself this since Trump’s first term. Trump’s best policy is going to be a tax cut, the reason why I say that is because it that it let people keep more of their money for those few years (Maybe I’ll treat this sentence as a filter for reactionaries). Every other policy trump has done has been harmful or agnostic to his base (bombing an Iranian general isn’t going to make Americans lives better). For the past decade they just blindly defended trump and stayed loyal for seemingly no reason.
I’ve been loyal to people just to have the relationship end because one or both of us just moved on in physical and emotional sense. I feel like I shouldn’t have been loyal just excited to see them.
Seems that loyalty is more of a detriment, it can make your ignore faults in people and do reflexive and reactionary things. Like a tenous alliance seems more practical than loyalty.
I’m seeing if someone can advocate for loyalty in and of itself or if the merits loyalty is context based.
This question is so fundamentally wrong, but such a good example of what is wrong with most people.
Most people don’t actually have an ethical system. They simply substitute tribal dynamics or what ‘feels’ right in the moment for ethics.
Loyalty, and most virtues, aren’t about what you get from them. Thinking of them in those terms is itself an example of the lack of any ethical system.
Loyalty, and most virtues, are about having a system of values that you think are right, and then living up to those values. Even when it is inconvenient. Especially when it is inconvenient.
If a system of beliefs, like religion, is something you espouse to believe in then you live those ideals. Otherwise you’re just there to feel like you belong in a group.