Loyalty, Patriotism, and Principles

Loyalty is an aspect of personal identity. The intellectual concept of loyalty finds emotional expression in the sense of belonging to the object of one’s loyalty, and in experiencing emotions ranging from pride to shame based on the behaviors of the object of loyalty. If I was loyal to X and X betrayed my loyalty, I would feel wounded. If X repaid my loyalty, I would be suffused with delight.

What can we be loyal to?

1. To ourselves as individuals, as determined by our principles. These are the ideas, morals, values, causes, or icons that we consider foundational or central to our self-conception. Such loyalty is characterized as sincerity or conscientiousness. To be true to oneself is the first stage of loyalty.
2. To our family, to whom we are bound by genetic lineage. The family benefits from the loyalty of its members. Defection is betrayal or infidelity, and directly reduces the ability of the family as a genetic lineage to survive or prosper.
3. To our friends, to whom we are bound by emotions. This loyalty is repaid by our own emotional well-being and that of our friends. Such emotional gains are often tied to material benefits.
4. To organizations, such as a business, professional association, church, etc., with whom we are linked for material, spiritual, or commercial benefits.
5. To our country, to which we are belong as subjects or citizens. The country is the unit that navigates the welfare of its subjects versus other countries. Our loyalty to a country is called patriotism.

The game-theory concept of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is useful to understand the benefit and uses of loyalty. Loyalty may be defined and measured as the decision to be loyal or to defect in any iteration of the Prisoner’s Dilemma game versus the object of our loyalty.

In general, the Prisoner’s Dilemma applies as follows:

1. For loyalty to ourselves, our family, friends, and organizations, we have direct ties to each. In these cases, the Prisoner’s Dilemma game is iterated many times (effectively an Infinite Prisoner’s Dilemma). In these cases, we can use the strategy of calibrating our loyalty to the reciprocal loyalty it attracts. We would be well-served to punish disloyalty with disloyalty, and reward loyalty with loyalty. The calibration of loyalty/betrayal will be on a spectrum.
2. For loyalty to our country, we are placed in a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. A country is a large, amorphous, and diverse entity of which we don’t have a direct and simple reading. Worse, we do not have direct ties to the opponent countries. Opponent countries may not be playing an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. They are often driven by their calculation of the benefit that would accrue to them. The downside of losing a game against an opponent country can be terrific annihilation of life and property. Defection (or disloyalty) against your own country is therefore a bad strategy. The correct strategy is “my country, right or wrong” when dealing with matters between countries. This maximizes the strength of your country.

Patriotism and Leadership

For patriots it is crucial that the leaders of the country must have the same patriotism. The foundation of patriotism lies in the threat of unlimited or massive downside if the country loses. The leaders of the country can only be trusted if they cannot escape that downside as individuals. The leaders must be insiders, with no options to exit, bound to sink or swim with the country they lead. Outsiders are defined as people who can leave their current country for another country, so an outsider cannot be allowed to lead a country. It does not matter how the outsider behaves or speaks. The outsider may really be emotionally as invested in your country as you are, but you cannot confirm it. A win-win game cannot build trust, and even a win-lose game where the putative leader sacrifices (takes a loss) for the benefit of the country is indistinguishable from a strategy to gain power and stature.

Aligning Loyalty to Principles

In all cases, however, the object of loyalty must be held to account. If the family, friend, organization, or country violates your principles, you must oppose the violation and correct it. Such opposition can be in two forms.

1. Opposition from within the object of loyalty, to force a change in it. Forcing change requires reinforcing the principles you hold, either as an incumbent policymaker or a member of an opposition movement. For example, a woman may decide to forgive her husband’s infidelity as part of her effort to repair their marriage. An accountant may force corrections to bookkeeping malpractices.
2. Defection from the object of loyalty. This defection takes the form of becoming a whistle-blower or an insurgent. Bhagat Singh is an example of an insurgent who martyred himself for Indian Independence.

Opposition carries the risk of being labeled a traitor. Well-reasoned opposition blunts that charge and reverses it to an affirmation that the object of loyalty is worth the effort of correction. Badly-reasoned opposition can stem from propaganda and lead to behavior that is in violation of personal principles. For example, a lone wolf terrorist may think he is acting on principle when he is missing gaps in his reasoning.

Well-reasoned opposition squares with the “my country, right or wrong” principle or other decisions about loyalty as the difference in behavior when dealing with out-groups and within your in-groups.

• Between-group loyalty deals with how you behave when confronted with decisions that come with out-group exposure. In such cases you would have to determine your stance based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma assessments described earlier.
• In-group loyalty deals with holding the object of your loyalty in alignment with your personal principles. In some cases, this in-group behavior can lead to exposure outside the in-group, such as when the international press amplifies an opposition voice against the policies of its country. In most cases, the dissidents and insurgents would consider themselves to be rendering their patriotic duty to the in-group and act with solidarity with the in-group against out-groups.

Sometimes, though, the individual does not have any principles other than personal satisfaction. Such people are sociopaths or psychopaths. They will not hold their organizations to account for violation of their principles, for they have no principles. They can come across as extremely loyal. Beware the loyalty of an unprincipled person, especially pitted against principled opposition.

The basis for loyalty, therefore, is the individual’s principles. From that individual basis, loyalty can be constructed as a set of rational behaviors. In the absence of lofty individual principles, loyalty becomes the tool of unprincipled players.