But with this one, there is something more.
The issue of the place of loyalty in the Bushite worldview has been put once again into the spotlight. What has brought this back to center stage is this scandal of the firing of the U.S. Attorneys: 1) we now know that loyalty to Bush was a central question upon which the Bushites based their decision on whether or not to keep or to fire those representatives of justice around the country-- in other words, the whole value of fairness and justice was overwhelmed by the priority placed on the loyalty of their minions in their unceasing struggle for more and more power; and 2) we are beginning to witness the working out of the fate of Alberto Gonzalez, the Bush loyalist whom this president transferred to the Attorney Generalship without any expectation that he would service justice itself, but only the political interests of his lord and master, to whom he has sworn fealty.
These connect quite organically with the ideas in this piece, posted over a year ago here on NSB.]
When Loyalty is Not a Moral Virtue
Although loyalty is always highly valued among our politicians, George W. Bush has shown himself exceptional in placing so high a priority on loyalty in assessing his people.
While in many contexts loyalty is rightly regarded as an important moral virtue, Bush’s excessive valuing of loyalty is less a sign of his appreciating a moral virtue than of his inhabiting a world in which true morality is scarcely relevant.
That’s what underlies Bush’s pronounced penchant for appointing cronies rather than well-qualified people, and of his bestowing honors on people who have stood by him while failing the country.
So when this president bestows the Medals of Freedom on a George Tenant, whose failures in the pre-war intelligence helped plunged America into a disastrous war, or on Paul Bremer, whose misjudgments helped squander what chances there were of avoiding disaster, it is indeed a scandal. For these honors are supposed to acknowledge achievements in the service to the nation as a whole, and to the nation’s values, and not just loyal service to an individual.
But while calling it a scandal is a valid moral judgment on this president’s actions, we should also understand that Bush’s excessive valuing of loyalty is a clue to why this president consistently works to advance his own power at the cost of the nation’s good order.
The Psychology of the Fortified Castle
History reveals that groups in which loyalty is most highly prized are those embedded in a social system so fragmented that they cannot contain that wholeness (harmony, synergy) we call the Good.
The oaths of fealty in medieval Europe, for example, were important precisely because, in that fragmented feudal system, with no overarching order to hold the various actors in check, a chronic state of war existed among the principalities. The chronic strife of the era is still mirrored in the European landscape, where we see the ruins of castles, surrounded by high walls.
Those highly fortified castles are good metaphors for the mindset in which loyalty is the supreme value. It is a world in which a great price is paid simply for protection against a hostile outside world, a world where Inside and Outside are divided into an Us and Them postured in expectation of war to the death.
The chronic war that was an inescapable objective reality for the masters of medieval fiefdoms is a psychological reality for the Bushites who have degraded the system of American politics into warring elements among whom the possibilities of cooperation are destroyed by their ceaseless strife.
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