Loyalty in Disloyal Times
It’s good and necessary to praise loyalty, the binding element of strong families, friendships, communities, churches, and basically everything that matters. But a difficult question arises in times like ours: what are we to do when people or institutions prove unworthy, when a man’s loyalty makes him look like a chump?
Answering this question requires care—because it can lead to a trap. We don’t want to be like those Redditor-types who amaze themselves with their own faux-sophistication as they list exceptions to obviously good principles. (“Ackshually…”) Hard cases make bad law, and they don’t disprove general truths. What they do instead is create cynical feedback loops: when we start with the premise that loyalty will get you played, we encourage the self-seeking behavior that confirms the claim. Distrust begets selfishness, and selfishness warrants more distrust. The unworthiness of a former friend, a weak bishop, or a wayward government is no reason to jettison the virtue altogether, even if we have to rethink specific loyalties. Anyone who stayed awake during the last few decades knows how this show ends: our attempt to build a social order that avoids the need for any loyalty (except to our wallets and whims) has been a disaster of loneliness, weakness, dependency, medication, addiction, and more. Your loyalty will help you build something better than this nightmare.
We must also understand that there are few sins graver than betrayal. Our tradition has long held this to be true. In Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, the most choice real estate and the most intense punishments are reserved for those who stab others in the back and make loyalty more difficult for the rest. Authorities especially must get it right. So one of the most important tasks of any culture is to make people feel in their bones the importance of sacred trust.
There can be few hard-and-fast strategies for navigating a treacherous world: prudence is always required, a virtue which always resists attempts to reduce judgment to simple self-help manuals. In the end we cannot outsource decisions about how to live our lives. No one else knows quite what we’re up against and no guidebooks could account for the specific challenges before us. But two general principles will always apply. First, we must stay true to the Lord. Difficulties of loyalty will be better sorted out if we keep first things first. Second, when we are forced to renounce loyalties to the unworthy, we must recommit to loyalties elsewhere.
Models can be found in great literature. Take Tolkien’s Éomer: a man whose country has been infiltrated by a hostile power, whose king has fallen under the spell of wicked operators. Loyalty to the bewitched Théoden is effectively loyalty to Grima Wormtongue and Saruman, and loyalty to the real Théoden requires maneuvering and even defiance. Éomer’s situation is made still more treacherous by the vulnerability of his sister, who will find herself in grave danger if he gets himself executed for treason and cannot protect her from perverts. What does his duty to Rohan, to Théoden, to Éowyn require of him?
Éomer treads carefully until a crisis arises. Then, in defiance of orders, he and his men slaughter a band of Orcs roving the plains of Rohan. There are certain things that no Marshal of the Riddermark can allow—one of them being Orcs moving freely through his country. No good deed goes unpunished by wicked regimes, and Éomer might have met his demise but for the timely appearance of Gandalf and his exorcism of Théoden. But this should not be seen as some random rescue. It is instead the workings of Providence. Eomer’s conduct receives its just reward—and it’s only because of his boldness that Théoden’s people still have a chance after their king is awakened from his bad dream. Those Orcs massacred by the Rohirrim were carrying Pip and Merry to Isengard and, had the Hobbits been handed over to Saruman, they would have spilled Frodo’s secret and doomed the quest; the Ring would have fallen into the wrong hands and everything would have been over. Éomer stops that from happening. His dutifulness to king and country saves Middle-earth.
The legend of Robin Hood presents another example of how a good and loyal man might conduct himself in treacherous times. Justice and order have broken down in England near the end of the12th century, as Richard the Lionheart is (illegally) locked in a German prison. Wicked princes, clergyman, and sheriffs turn England into their own sheep-shearing operation. Under these conditions, Robin of Locksley has no choice but to become an outlaw.
Notice, though: he hardly disregards loyalty altogether. He remains true to God and King Richard and his people, defending them from fatcats and predatory elites. In those wicked times he builds a band of heroic troublemakers, to whom he is utterly loyal.
Like Éomer, Robin Hood presents himself for judgment when the true king returns. And like Théoden, Richard pardons his loyal servant. “But be assured, brave Outlaw,” Richard says in Scott’s Ivanhoe, “that no deed done in our absence, and in the turbulent times to which it hath given rise, shall be remembered to thy disadvantage.”
In both cases, the heroes don’t have guarantees that doing the right thing will be easy and won’t cost them anything. But both make their judgments and live with the consequences. They don’t cry about complications or despair over the difficulties; they simply act, as best they can. And they show great loyalty even in defiance.
It's further provedential in that if eomer had not sacked the orcs near Fangorn the hobbits would not have recruited the ents.
Another excellent post drawing for the deep well of virtue contained in the LOTR.