Loyalty/Respect

"Protect me from the enemy who has something to gain; and protect me from the friend who has something to lose." - T.S. Eliot

About 8 out of every 9 decisions I make in life are based on loyalty. So when we have student organization elections, I vote the person who was most loyal in my eyes: the person who was at meetings throughout the semester, the person who I saw giving effort as much behind the scenes as in the public eye. When it comes to people I associate with, I tend to 'size them up' in terms of loyalty as well. Who was there for me when it counted? Who called when I needed to be talked to or got worried? Who kept in touch and dropped lines and at least 'checked in' every once in a while?

In modern society, loyalty is undervalued and often unappreciated. We tend to see a person's appeal to others as opposed to their loyalty to people they legitimately call friends and family. And often, being ruthless and cutthroat is celebrated, much more often than being loyal. Look no further than some of our reality TV shows: on these shows, often times, the players will 'stab each other in the back' and build false friendships in the name of getting ahead. It is accepted that ours is a 'dog eat dog' world, and believed that you must eat... or be eaten. This boils down to values and value systems: what happens when someone you consider a friend stands in the way of what you're trying to accomplish? Or, what happens when you're put in a situation where your only opportunity to get ahead is to crush or replace a friend of yours in that spot? Do we place more importance on temporary positions, temporary paychecks, or lifelong friends?

Maybe I'm just being idealist. But have we really become THAT selfish as individuals? I wonder, in a sense, if we've just forgotten what it means to be dedicated. That's why people don't value or appreciate loyalty anymore, because dedication to people, to a cause, just doesn't exist or just isn't given any value in modern times. I wonder if that's because the current Black generation is so far removed from how things were back in the day. I think back to the time period of the Black Panthers, to the Civil Rights period marches, perhaps even as far back as slavery. My people, when placed in a position of desperation and a need to survive, were loyal to each other. Granted, you did have those Black overseers and those particular slaves who felt that "tattling" on certain slaves would gain them favor with their masters; and perhaps that, as well, reinforces how betrayal appears to be rewarded or encouraged. But in most cases, people worked together. There was shared trust, there was unbroken loyalty...

These days such trust and loyalty is, in my opinion, very rare. People will always let you down, people will always fall short of your expectations. You will let others down and fall short of their expectations, too. But is this justification for broken loyalty? If not, then what, if anything, is?