Questions of Loyalty

Is loyalty over-rated? George W. Bush has certainly abused the concept.

Loyalty is but a carpenter's hammer for Machiavelli, most politicians, and many business associates. It is required for framing a house, but dispensable once you move in.

What about the lack of loyalty? If loyalty itself is problematic, then betraying loyalty should have no meaning beyond the span of short-term memory, no tangible or intangible benefit in public life, no impact on the collective conscience, and no inherent individual moral or spiritual value - positive or negative.

Maybe it is a form of poison. Perhaps loyalty is only reverse revenge.

Something inside me is greatly disturbed by this interpretation. It would not please me to wake up and determine my allegiances anew each day. Success built on such a fault-line ridden foundation would not be success at all.

Maybe I should grow up.

Maybe
I
do not
want to.