22- [Written]
I remember someone recently asked how people personally defined loyalty. My question, I suppose, is a bit different--what's the point to it?
There is absolutely no one who won't betray you on some level at some time during your acquaintance, whether stabbing you literally or figuratively in the back or... I don't know, forgetting your birthday.
People exist to use and be used, either exploiting one another or drawing something mutually beneficial from the exchange. Money. Status. Alleviation of some of the emotional symptoms of living--loneliness, lust, what-have-you. As one of our own dear wardens pointed out through a somewhat selective passage from Dickens, as a whole, humanity is an unknowable beast; can a person be loyal to what they don't fully understand?
Or rather, isn't loyalty just an accidental form of exploitation, a one-sided investment that those being latched on to will either be unaware of or--at some point--abuse?
So I suppose that's my answer--loyalty isn't loyalty. It's leverage.
There is absolutely no one who won't betray you on some level at some time during your acquaintance, whether stabbing you literally or figuratively in the back or... I don't know, forgetting your birthday.
People exist to use and be used, either exploiting one another or drawing something mutually beneficial from the exchange. Money. Status. Alleviation of some of the emotional symptoms of living--loneliness, lust, what-have-you. As one of our own dear wardens pointed out through a somewhat selective passage from Dickens, as a whole, humanity is an unknowable beast; can a person be loyal to what they don't fully understand?
Or rather, isn't loyalty just an accidental form of exploitation, a one-sided investment that those being latched on to will either be unaware of or--at some point--abuse?
So I suppose that's my answer--loyalty isn't loyalty. It's leverage.