Showing posts with label Loyalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loyalty. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Loyalty cannot be coerced

Loyalty is one of the few words in existence about whose meaning dispute is virtually impossible. Everyone knows what loyalty is, and what a desirable, nay indispensable thing it is to the survival of any community. Like honor and chastity, it is strongest when least talked about, and thrives only in a climate of uncritical acceptance. A virtuous investigation of loyalty is like a noisy oration in praise of silence, and the appearance of loyalty order and loyalty legislation...is a sign of lost confidence, a desperate groping in empty air for something which groping fingers only push farther out of reach. ("The Unsolved Loyalty Problem: Our Western Heritage", The Ancient State)