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>Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a

>Things don't deserve loyalty. Your company is a "thing". A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". A sports-team or TV show or band is a thing, loyalty to it is called "fandom". Loyalty to an idea or philosophy is called "being principled" or "idealism". Do you believe that things don't deserve loyalty, such that all of these are errors? Or do these examples not capture the sense of your statement?

Apocryphon 1y ago
Perhaps it should be refined to say that "profit-oriented things" that view existence as purely transactions don't deserve loyalty.
- OpenDrapery 1y ago
  Sports franchises are the ultimate trick, in that they are profit-oriented, yet they somehow play on our tribal nature and fool us into forgetting about the profit part. I guess you could argue the same for a church.
  - Apocryphon 1y ago
    Thanks to the financialization of everything, perhaps the same can be said of colleges and universities!
    - OpenDrapery 1y ago
      Definitely. Universities keep asking for money even after you've completed the transaction. We wear the shirt and tout our pride. Win the hearts and minds. Perfect marketing play.
riehwvfbk 1y ago
That's right, they do not deserve loyalty. All of these things hijack our loyalty to people in the name of some higher-order goal. Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. Loyalty to a country gets us to be reliable cogs in someone else's grand project. Loyalty to a philosophy gets us to be a cult leader's acolyte. Skip the substitute and go for the real thing: loyalty to people. You can still join grand projects, but do it consciously rather than on instinct.
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  Your examples are bizarre (sports teams are a matter of petty entertainment, not proper objects of loyalty). Philosophy isn't an object of loyalty either. However, you should acquaint yourself with the principle of subsidiarity. Loyalty, duty, and love radiate outward from those who are owed the most diminishing to those who are owed the least (spouses, then children, then parents, etc., all the way through extended family and then community and nation and finally the human race). The loyalty is to the objective good. How that is expressed will be modified by contingent factors particular to a given person's situation.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    They didn’t come up with the sports team example, it comes from the comment they are responding to.
  - riehwvfbk 1y ago
    Hey, you can do a real-world test to see if I'm right or you are right. Go to a football match (soccer for Americans), find a group of hooligans and tell them their team sucks. If you are right and it's just petty entertainment - you'll be just fine.
- bumby 1y ago
  >Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. A less cynical take: there seems to be some research that following sports fosters greater social connectivity and well-being. It may just be that we're hardwired to be tribal. From that context, sports seems to be a relatively benign way to tap into that.
senderista 1y ago
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I would have the guts to betray my country." --EM Forster, "What I Believe"
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  The problem here is that Forster is relativising the good. I am not betraying my country by refusing to follow laws or decrees that require that I engage in intrinsically evil deeds. I am not loyal to my friend if I do evil things he asks me to do. Our loyalty is to the objective good of our country and our friend. Otherwise, there is no such thing as loyalty.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    There are situations when you genuinely must betray your country to protect your friend, or vice versa. For example, if your country is a multiethnic empire that is unsustainable as a single entity without compulsion and forced assimilation, and your friend happens to be an ethnic minority in it.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      Please reread what I wrote. What does it mean to betray someone? If a friend intends to murder someone and asks you to keep that secret, would telling the police be a betrayal? Would keeping it secret be an expression of loyalty? Loyalty and betrayal cannot be understood in purely subjective terms. It must always be grounded in the objective good. In your example, you haven't provided enough information to judge how exactly you would are betraying your country. However, if your country is doing evil things and you defend a friend from those evil things, then you aren't betraying your country. The government in question is betraying your country.
- musicale 1y ago
  "I must admit that when my friend first told me of his plan I was sorely tempted drop off an anonymous tip recommending that the Archduke postpone his trip to Sarajevo..."
moffkalast 1y ago
Patriotism is mostly just propaganda to make people willing to kill and die for some old cynical geezers' delusions of grandeur. The guy said it right, countries don't deserve loyalty either. Lots of Russians are figuring this out firsthand these days.
ashoeafoot 1y ago
Yes, all of these things do not deserve loyalty. There are values i hold dear, if a philosophy or state holds on to the same values, i support them. If they turn away from them, no reason to be loyal.
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  Are you perhaps confusing loyalty to an incumbent regime with loyalty to a nation or people?
  - willcipriano 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - ashoeafoot 1y ago
    A nation can change, a people can become corrupt, the values stay and if for example a democracy steered by corrupted peoples betrays itself, a democrat with values can just soldier on without getting into any loyalty conflict. A sadness for what has fallen may linger.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    Not really. Have you ever heard a saying, "right or wrong, my country"? That's exactly the kind of toxic stuff that loyalty to entities leads to.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      Your use of language is imprecise. What exactly is meant by "my country" here? We have the state; we have the ruling regime; we have the society in question. Who is this "country" that is right or wrong exactly? If the state, then in the abstract, it is authority without particular directive. So it can't be that. If the ruling regime, then it can undermine its own authority by demanding people commit evil deeds. But it is not betrayal to refuse to commit the evil deeds it demands. It is the ruling regime who betrays the society it rules by demanding evil. Remember: lex iniusta non est lex. If society, then we're talking about an aggregate and therefore mob "rule". But who cares what the mob thinks? The mob has no authority. Betrayal and loyalty can only be measured in relation to the objective good. I agree with you that "my country, right or wrong" might suggest something very evil, but to reject the suggested relativistic understanding of loyalty is not betrayal. You could interpret it differently: I am loyal to the good of my country, regardless of whether my country is in the right or in the wrong. And the good of my country might involve opposing an evil regime or standing up to the mob. That's true loyalty. Obedience to evil is false obedience and true betrayal.
dspillett 1y ago
> A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. People often see their “external tribes” as an extension of their self much likely they do family/friends, rather than them being part of it like a company. I am a Spillett. I am a Yorkshireman, I am English, I am UKian, I am European, I work for TL. Notice the difference in language in that last one. This is part of why some get so offended when you poke fun at their town/county/country: if they see it as an extension of their identity more than just somewhere they live then your disrespect is a personal attack. They would not likely defend their employer nearly as passionately.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  notice the mirage version of this with some companies - one can be a "googler" or so on, and companies try to encourage this identification
- int_19h 1y ago
  > That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. I would argue that this is a tit-for-tat, and as such, not really an example of loyalty per se. Loyalty would be protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you and yours in any tangible way. And it has all the same problems as corporate loyalty, really.
  - bumby 1y ago
    >protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you Perhaps this needs some nuance. It seems like duty has some relevance here. Military service may not actually benefit someone directly, and it could easily be a detriment at the individual level. But societies struggle to operate effectively for very long when everyone takes an individualistic transactional mindset. At some point, it becomes a collective action problem that needs to find a balance between serving a sense of duty to society as a whole and society not taking advantage of such sentiments.
jajko 1y ago
Patriotism is as we know a loyalty to real estate. Borders do change all the time if history is viewed from few steps back. In fact, everything changes - languages, culture, traditions and so on. Where I come from in Europe - they say we have proud history going back some 1500 years. Well before that, there were other tribes, we are same type of immigrants as current waves. We either mingled with them, killed them or drove them away. I am pretty sure genetic tracing would favor the mingling for the most part. What makes more sense is really what all others say - pick up a specific set of people, philosophy, moral imperative etc. and be loyal to them. Higher concepts muddy the waters with slippery slopes and are unnecessary, just opening surfaces to manipulation.

Apocryphon 1y ago

Perhaps it should be refined to say that "profit-oriented things" that view existence as purely transactions don't deserve loyalty.

OpenDrapery 1y ago
Sports franchises are the ultimate trick, in that they are profit-oriented, yet they somehow play on our tribal nature and fool us into forgetting about the profit part. I guess you could argue the same for a church.
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  Thanks to the financialization of everything, perhaps the same can be said of colleges and universities!
  - OpenDrapery 1y ago
    Definitely. Universities keep asking for money even after you've completed the transaction. We wear the shirt and tout our pride. Win the hearts and minds. Perfect marketing play.

riehwvfbk 1y ago

That's right, they do not deserve loyalty. All of these things hijack our loyalty to people in the name of some higher-order goal. Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. Loyalty to a country gets us to be reliable cogs in someone else's grand project. Loyalty to a philosophy gets us to be a cult leader's acolyte. Skip the substitute and go for the real thing: loyalty to people. You can still join grand projects, but do it consciously rather than on instinct.

lo_zamoyski 1y ago
Your examples are bizarre (sports teams are a matter of petty entertainment, not proper objects of loyalty). Philosophy isn't an object of loyalty either. However, you should acquaint yourself with the principle of subsidiarity. Loyalty, duty, and love radiate outward from those who are owed the most diminishing to those who are owed the least (spouses, then children, then parents, etc., all the way through extended family and then community and nation and finally the human race). The loyalty is to the objective good. How that is expressed will be modified by contingent factors particular to a given person's situation.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  They didn’t come up with the sports team example, it comes from the comment they are responding to.
- riehwvfbk 1y ago
  Hey, you can do a real-world test to see if I'm right or you are right. Go to a football match (soccer for Americans), find a group of hooligans and tell them their team sucks. If you are right and it's just petty entertainment - you'll be just fine.
bumby 1y ago
>Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. A less cynical take: there seems to be some research that following sports fosters greater social connectivity and well-being. It may just be that we're hardwired to be tribal. From that context, sports seems to be a relatively benign way to tap into that.

senderista 1y ago

"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I would have the guts to betray my country." --EM Forster, "What I Believe"

lo_zamoyski 1y ago
The problem here is that Forster is relativising the good. I am not betraying my country by refusing to follow laws or decrees that require that I engage in intrinsically evil deeds. I am not loyal to my friend if I do evil things he asks me to do. Our loyalty is to the objective good of our country and our friend. Otherwise, there is no such thing as loyalty.
- int_19h 1y ago
  There are situations when you genuinely must betray your country to protect your friend, or vice versa. For example, if your country is a multiethnic empire that is unsustainable as a single entity without compulsion and forced assimilation, and your friend happens to be an ethnic minority in it.
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    Please reread what I wrote. What does it mean to betray someone? If a friend intends to murder someone and asks you to keep that secret, would telling the police be a betrayal? Would keeping it secret be an expression of loyalty? Loyalty and betrayal cannot be understood in purely subjective terms. It must always be grounded in the objective good. In your example, you haven't provided enough information to judge how exactly you would are betraying your country. However, if your country is doing evil things and you defend a friend from those evil things, then you aren't betraying your country. The government in question is betraying your country.
musicale 1y ago
"I must admit that when my friend first told me of his plan I was sorely tempted drop off an anonymous tip recommending that the Archduke postpone his trip to Sarajevo..."

moffkalast 1y ago

Patriotism is mostly just propaganda to make people willing to kill and die for some old cynical geezers' delusions of grandeur. The guy said it right, countries don't deserve loyalty either. Lots of Russians are figuring this out firsthand these days.

ashoeafoot 1y ago

Yes, all of these things do not deserve loyalty. There are values i hold dear, if a philosophy or state holds on to the same values, i support them. If they turn away from them, no reason to be loyal.

lo_zamoyski 1y ago
Are you perhaps confusing loyalty to an incumbent regime with loyalty to a nation or people?
- willcipriano 1y ago
  [flagged]
- ashoeafoot 1y ago
  A nation can change, a people can become corrupt, the values stay and if for example a democracy steered by corrupted peoples betrays itself, a democrat with values can just soldier on without getting into any loyalty conflict. A sadness for what has fallen may linger.
- int_19h 1y ago
  Not really. Have you ever heard a saying, "right or wrong, my country"? That's exactly the kind of toxic stuff that loyalty to entities leads to.
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    Your use of language is imprecise. What exactly is meant by "my country" here? We have the state; we have the ruling regime; we have the society in question. Who is this "country" that is right or wrong exactly? If the state, then in the abstract, it is authority without particular directive. So it can't be that. If the ruling regime, then it can undermine its own authority by demanding people commit evil deeds. But it is not betrayal to refuse to commit the evil deeds it demands. It is the ruling regime who betrays the society it rules by demanding evil. Remember: lex iniusta non est lex. If society, then we're talking about an aggregate and therefore mob "rule". But who cares what the mob thinks? The mob has no authority. Betrayal and loyalty can only be measured in relation to the objective good. I agree with you that "my country, right or wrong" might suggest something very evil, but to reject the suggested relativistic understanding of loyalty is not betrayal. You could interpret it differently: I am loyal to the good of my country, regardless of whether my country is in the right or in the wrong. And the good of my country might involve opposing an evil regime or standing up to the mob. That's true loyalty. Obedience to evil is false obedience and true betrayal.

dspillett 1y ago

> A country is a thing and loyalty to it is called "patriotism". That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. People often see their “external tribes” as an extension of their self much likely they do family/friends, rather than them being part of it like a company. I am a Spillett. I am a Yorkshireman, I am English, I am UKian, I am European, I work for TL. Notice the difference in language in that last one. This is part of why some get so offended when you poke fun at their town/county/country: if they see it as an extension of their identity more than just somewhere they live then your disrespect is a personal attack. They would not likely defend their employer nearly as passionately.

nemomarx 1y ago
notice the mirage version of this with some companies - one can be a "googler" or so on, and companies try to encourage this identification
int_19h 1y ago
> That sort of loyalty is not quite the same: protecting your own to indirectly protect yourself. I would argue that this is a tit-for-tat, and as such, not really an example of loyalty per se. Loyalty would be protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you and yours in any tangible way. And it has all the same problems as corporate loyalty, really.
- bumby 1y ago
  >protecting your country even when it doesn't actually benefit you Perhaps this needs some nuance. It seems like duty has some relevance here. Military service may not actually benefit someone directly, and it could easily be a detriment at the individual level. But societies struggle to operate effectively for very long when everyone takes an individualistic transactional mindset. At some point, it becomes a collective action problem that needs to find a balance between serving a sense of duty to society as a whole and society not taking advantage of such sentiments.

jajko 1y ago

Patriotism is as we know a loyalty to real estate. Borders do change all the time if history is viewed from few steps back. In fact, everything changes - languages, culture, traditions and so on. Where I come from in Europe - they say we have proud history going back some 1500 years. Well before that, there were other tribes, we are same type of immigrants as current waves. We either mingled with them, killed them or drove them away. I am pretty sure genetic tracing would favor the mingling for the most part. What makes more sense is really what all others say - pick up a specific set of people, philosophy, moral imperative etc. and be loyal to them. Higher concepts muddy the waters with slippery slopes and are unnecessary, just opening surfaces to manipulation.