A loyal people is captive

The highest loyalty is loyalty to what is right

Let me talk to you about loyalty.

It is the virtue that has been used against us more than any other. We were taught to be loyal. Loyal to the family. Loyal to the church. Loyal to the party. Loyal to the flag. Loyal to the employer. Loyal to the system that was eating us alive.

And we were. We were loyal. We gave everything. We stayed when we should have left. We defended when we should have questioned. We kept the secret when we should have spoken. And what did loyalty give us in return?

Strip it down. What is loyalty, really?

Loyalty is not obedience. Obedience is doing what you are told. Loyalty is something else. Loyalty is the decision to stay with something because you believe in what it is becoming — not because you are afraid of what it will do if you leave.

That is the difference. And the system has spent generations blurring it.

The system understands loyalty better than it understands almost anything else.

It knows that a loyal people is a captive people — if the loyalty is pointed at the wrong thing. So it made loyalty into a trap. It convinced us that leaving was betrayal. That questioning was disloyal. That speaking the truth about the family, the church, the party, the nation was an act of treachery.

And it worked. Millions of people stayed in situations that were killing them — and called it loyalty. Millions kept silent about abuse — and called it loyalty. Millions defended leaders who were stealing from them — and called it loyalty. Millions stayed loyal to institutions that had never been loyal to them.

That is not loyalty. That is capture. That is a hostage defending the hostage-taker.

The wise ones before us knew the difference.

They understood that loyalty has a direction. Loyalty to the land is not loyalty to the government that sells it. Loyalty to the people is not loyalty to the leader who exploits them. Loyalty to the truth is not loyalty to the lie that has been told for centuries.

They knew that the highest loyalty is loyalty to what is right — and that loyalty to what is wrong is not a virtue at all. It is a surrender dressed in the robes of honour.

They did not ask their children to be loyal to a chief who had sold them. They asked them to be loyal to the lineage, the ancestors, the land, the truth. When the chief betrayed those things, loyalty to the chief was no longer loyalty. It was complicity.

The sovereign response to loyalty is to ask: loyal to what?

Not loyal to whom. Loyal to what. What is the thing you are being loyal to? Is it the name? The person? The institution? Or is it the truth the institution was meant to serve?

The sovereign is loyal to the truth. To the land. To the people. To the lineage that came before. To the children who will come after. Not to the man in the chair. Not to the title. Not to the flag. Not to the building.

Because the man, the title, the flag, the building — they all pass. The truth does not. The land does not. The people do not.

And here is the harder truth: the sovereign will leave.

The sovereign will leave the church that protects abusers. The sovereign will leave the party that steals elections. The sovereign will leave the family that demands silence. The sovereign will leave the employer who calls exploitation an opportunity. The sovereign will leave the institution that has betrayed its own purpose.

They will leave — and they will not call it betrayal. They will call it loyalty. Loyalty to the higher thing. Loyalty to the truth. Loyalty to the self that the institution was asking them to abandon.

So I ask you today: Who are you loyal to?

Not the polite answer. The real one. The person. The institution. The family. The party. The church. The system. Name them.

And the second question: What are you loyal to — beyond the person?

What is the truth that loyalty is meant to serve? What is the land? What is the lineage? What is the purpose? Name it.

And the third question: Where has your loyalty been misplaced? Where have you stayed when you should have left? Where have you defended when you should have questioned? Where have you kept silent when you should have spoken? Name it. And then decide.

Loyalty is not the enemy. It is the test. The system taught us that loyalty means staying forever. The wise ones before us knew that loyalty to the wrong thing is not loyalty — it is surrender. Loyalty to the right thing sometimes means staying. Sometimes it means leaving. Sometimes it means fighting from within. Sometimes it means walking away and building something new.

The sovereign knows the difference. The sovereign asks: loyal to what? And then acts.

*****

I. Ras Gad Shangox owned and operated a Taxi in Toronto for 28 years before 2016 when he sold his plate and became licensed as a delivery truck driver. His series “Pocket Wisdom for Sovereign Minds” was born of his curiousity about the relationship between individual words and their impact on human consciousness and behaviour. Shangox’ writing is founded upon his original ideas and then polished with AI. 

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