Loyalty or Possession

Sometimes there is a fine line between being loyal to someone and possessing that someone.  The plain meaning definition of loyalty is “a strong feeling of support or allegiance.”  But I wonder about what that really means and how that might cross into the hemisphere of possession, which, by plain meaning, is defined as “the state of having, owning, or controlling something.”

When separating loyalty from possession, the most important question to ask is “where does my allegiance truly lie?” – because full allegiance forfeits autonomy and allegiance to only those matters to which I agree is allegiance only to myself.  One might argue that I can only be loyal to myself, considering that I decide to whom or what I place my allegiance.  However, there are matters in which I decide to abide by even though I disagree, I feel strongly against, I am unsure of, or they are counter to my health, person, or reason.

Why on earth would I do something like that?  I would do something like that in the same way a child trusts a parent.  I child might be afraid to go to school or the doctor or down the slide.  Every instinct in that child is to pull away from the needle at the doctor’s office or get down off the top of the slide.  But the parent tells the child it will be okay.  And against the child’s own instincts and many times against the child’s own reason, the child trusts the parent.

One might argue that children merely depend on their parents, and therefore have no autonomy of their own.  And in many regards, I would agree.  Loyalty is part duty and part dependency.  There is nothing wrong with being dependent on another.  It is self-evident in nature that each being depends on another.  And although the child places its loyalty with its parents, the child remains autonomous.  Nobody is telling the child it must go down the slide.  Further, children enjoy a world of autonomy.  They decide which book they want to read before going to bed, what song they want to sing, and what game they want to play.  They are still very capable of expressing themselves and exploring their world.  There is still a world of matter that has been granted to the child to possess.

The question, again, is “where does my allegiance truly lie?”  Children, for the most part, are loyal to their parents.  But is that a wise choice?  Some parents deeply hurt their children and teach them awful things.  My old boss once told me that children do not belong to us.  We do not possess them.  They are not our children.  They are children of God that have been given to us to protect and care for.  It took me a while to appreciate what he said.  But now I understand that it would be foolish for a child to be loyal to its parents for the mere reason that it was born to its parents.  Likewise, it would be foolish for a parent to be loyal to its child or for anyone to be loyal to anyone else without properly justifying their loyalty.  For my thoughts on proper justification see my post “Three Rule Theory of Morality”. https://timindelaware.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/three-rule-theory-of-morality/

As my theory of morality suggests, there is one source for justification.  That source can be witnessed everywhere in nature.  It is because of this source, which has ingrained in the child a sense of loyalty to its parent, that justifies the child’s loyalty.  Dependency is justified because of this source, and possession is justified because of this source.

There are certain things in this world that I am free to possess.  Another person – be it my spouse, my girlfriend, my friend, my parents, my siblings, or even my own child – is not one of those things.  They have their own calling, their own hardships, their own joys, their own ways of expressing themselves and exploring their world and their own missions.  I may teach and I may aid, but I must never possess because God (the source) has already claimed possession of people.  And my loyalty is to God.