LiveUninhibited

Generally I hate television, but sometimes when I eat I watch RealTV (formerly CourtTV). Often, the programming has something to do with how a murderer or other criminal was caught. What surprises me is how often the families of the criminals contribute damning evidence to the police/DA/prosecutors. This made me start to think about the nature of loyalty.

I cannot imagine turning in a significant other, family member, or close friend to the police. If they did something horribly wrong, I would want to talk to them about it privately and that'd probably be it. Unless I saw them as a threat to myself or others I am close to, I would contribute absolutely nothing to bringing them to justice. Obviously if I knew something, the safest bet would be to suddenly have amnesia every time an officer came near. Apparently while some people feel an obligation to the wider society, and to justice, I feel an absolute obligation to those I am close to. Is this unusual, or are the people who turn in their murderer son unusual?

The concept of loyalty seems to manifest itself in other, not always positive ways. For example, Americans in general seem to value the lives of other Americans much much more than the lives of foreigners. When we speak of Iraq, we talk of the thousands of Americans killed, not the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed. I don't understand this form of loyalty. An American stranger is about the same to me as a foreign stranger. Their lives have value of course, but not based upon nationality. This may be some form of patriotism/nationalism..?

Another example is to ones company, but this has deteriorated in the past generation, perhaps due to the lack of loyalty from company to worker. In a class on Japan, I learned that it was considered extremely inappropriate (in the recent past) to take a better job at a company that is a competitor of the company you started working for out of college.

I think "school spirit" could be called loyalty. There seemed to be a real rivalry between the two highschools in my hometown, and I was called a "traitor" for hanging out with people from the other school. Most people said it jokingly, but some seemed serious. They really hated the other school, of which they knew little about beyond their football team. Well I hated my high school, but even if I liked it I wouldn't really get this form of loyalty at all.

Loyalty seems to usually amount to blind, sometimes irrational, devotion. I am not sure if it is a good or a bad thing.