Loyalty There was a man, alone in his own little world, feeling as lonely as a castaway on a deserted island. In reality this man was not alone, rather countless numbers of people going about their business surrounded him while he was handcuffed a the chair in a police station. This man was a criminal, a thief, a murderer, but he was part of a family, and that family was the Mafia. This was a family in which loyalty was crucial to its survival. This man had been betrayed by another member of his family.
That betrayal would demand justice, or would it? This “Benedict Arnold,” the man who betrayed his friend and his family might have done what he thought was right. He turned in a criminal who deserved everything the law would allow. This man had sworn to be loyal, to do everything he could for the family, but he did the worst thing imaginable to the family–he was disloyal. He turned in a person who would do anything for him, a person that had sworn to be loyal to the end. Maybe he thought he had a greater loyalty to the common good of society rather than his sworn family. Whom did he really feel that he should be more loyal to? When someone becomes a member of a group, whether by some initiation process or by birth, there are certain expectations.
Some of these expectations are traits such as dependability, trust, duty, and the most important of all, loyalty. Without loyalty society would not be able to function. When this man did turn in his friend, he betrayed the family, thus being disloyal to it, but he was exercising his loyalty to something that was more important to him, the good of his fellow man. Society thrives on people who show their loyalty by caring more for society as a whole than they do for anything else, including them. These people are the heroes of every day and sometimes only for a moment in time. They prove that they are loyal by committing great acts, or by the ever-slight ones.
When all the soldiers of our country swore their allegiance to our country, they were pledging their loyalty until the end of their lives. Many of these soldiers have done just that, died in the line of their sworn duty, because they care about their friends and families back home. Society survives on these acts by using them as examples and inspirations to all of its citizens that are in it. Loyalty is a well-known trait, but to whom and to what extent it is carried out plays a role in society. Everyone is loyal in one way or another. It is possible to be loyal to more than one thing, and that is what is so trying on the spirit sometimes.
People sometimes have to make a choice between two things or groups that they feel a sense of loyalty to, such as between family and friends. Trying to make a decision like this is often very hard, but it is often necessary, like in the instance of the man in the Mafia. Sometimes people pledge their undying and never-ending love for another, thus pledging loyalty forever. Others pledge this loyalty and then disregard it as if they never made a pledge of the sort showing that they do not care for others. Those type of people are the kind that should be avoided because not only are they disloyal, but they are often untrustworthy, which hurts society. Loyalty and trust are very closely related, if not intertwined.
When someone has betrayed one’s trust, thus proving to be disloyal, that person is likely never to be trusted again. For this reason loyalty is such an admired trait. If a person proves to be trustworthy and loyal to a friend, then he will more than likely be a friend that is not taken for granted, rather, he would be a friend that will always be cared for. Society is able to function because of this kind of trust and loyalty between its citizens. When I was a young teen, I witnessed one of these .
