Is dual-loyalty a dirty word?
April 29, 2010, 9:09 am
Posted by Margaret O'Brien Steinfels
MJ Rosenberg has an excited piece (also in need of proofreading–aren’t we all?) at TPM Cafe about the dual loyalty debate: “Neocons, Jews & Dual Loyalty.”
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/29/neocons_jews_dual_loyalty/#more
This is a tricky topic–one that Catholics have had to contend with (see, Kennedy’s speech to Protestant ministers, 1960). In our case the question was: who are you loyal to the president of the United States or the Pope?
Any thoughts on this?
Isn’t dual loyalty built into Mt. 22:21: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”? And in Acts 5:29: “We must obey God rather than men”? But they were addressed to totalizing claims of loyalty within one political order. What of loyalty divided between two political orders, or states? It is possible, is it not, to have dual citizenship?
Dual citizenship seems to be possible for people with the necessary legal status. Does that imply or not dual loyalty. It is now possible for people to serve in the military of one country while being a citizen of another, e.g., U.S. army. This is how some immigrants aquire citizenship in the U.S., while remaining the citizen of another country.
My post the other day about Senator Schumer brought on the question: Was I implying he was exhibiting dual loyalty by demanding that President Obama align U.S. policy with that of PM Netanyahu? I hadn’t thought of it as dual loyalty. In that instance, it seemed Mr. Schumer might be a more ardent supporter of Israeli policy than the policy of the U.S., as tendered by the Obama Administration.
Americans all have dual citizenship, as Americans and as citizens of one individual state. The Civil War was technically about which state (the U. S.l or the individual states) was in some way more fundamental.
Istm that this issue is extraordinarily abstract, complex, and important. So many questions need answering before the question above can be settled. For instance, how are love, commitment and loyalty, related to duty, authority and obedience? Specifically, how do these abstract/spiritual entities differ? How are they defined in the first place? Is there any necessary relation between any of them? (Just playing Socrates, folks.)
I suppose the ultimate practical issues are: do dual loyalties always imply dual obedience? If so,then when there is a conflict of loyalties/duties/committments how can we discover which loyalty should take precedence? Is it even possible to resolve conflicts of loyalty? Or are some irresolvable, that is, are there any Sophie’s choices?
I think that the question has particular urgency when it is a question of a public official, elected on the assumption that his primary political loyalty must be to the society of citizens who elected him. I don’t believe that a US Senator can have dual political loyalties.
As far as the church is concerned the question has a different meaning today. Anyone who blindly follows the magisterium is just that. Someone with blinders on. Certainly, one must distinguish. Insofar as the Vatican reflects the gospel it merits consideration and loyalty. But the record is questionable at best. Secondly, what does loyalty mean in the church? Loyalty to having a papal nuncio in every country. Loyalty to being bribed by Maciel’s money that the Vatican closed its eyes to what he was doing? Etc….So loyalty to the gospel is the answer.
Schumer is doing what every politician from New York always did. Support Israel unconditionally because it is practically impossible to be elected in New York without doing that. So Schumer et alii have to also consider the abuse of the Palestinians by Israel. It is one thing to support Israel but it is another to support it without conditions.
Same with the US. It the government treats people unfairly citizens should protest and eventually elect someone else.
“No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.” Mt 6:24, some context for reading Mt 22:21
Why shouldn’t people with multiple political loyalties be represented by a Senator in a similar situation? On a theoretical level, it would be justified by saying “what is good for the Vatican is good for the US”; on a practical level, it would just be something to disagree about.
“On a theoretical level, it would be justified by saying “what is good for the Vatican is good for the US”; on a practical level, it would just be something to disagree about.”
Jim McK –
You seem to assume that when there are conflicting loyalties and conflicting interests, that justice *can* always be done. But this is not the case.
i don’t think such optimism is justified. Think Sophie.
“Why shouldn’t people with multiple political loyalties be represented by a Senator in a similar situation?”
Jim McK–how many political loyalties do the citizens of New York have? Can they have? Multiple, I suppose when the issues are not in conflict.
In the case of Senator Schumer’s comments on the radio show, he spoke to some of his city constituents, but not to all. If he prefers the policies of the Israeli government over those of the United States, than I guess we could conclude that we are not talking about dual loyalties at all. We are talking about a singular loyalty to Israel. I’m not sure that’s a tenable position for an elected official whether from New York–or Montana.
fyi: here is an account of Schumer’s remarks:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0410/Schumer_Obamas_Counterproductive_Israel_policy_has_to_stop.html
This has a link to the audio of the radio show.
Both.
I think the right answer is to be loyal to the one true Lord. In the case of an elected official, he or she should be as well (assuming that we are speaking of a Christian) if running for office was truly the calling of God. If one is elected on the basis that their faith is priority, then they should serve on that basis while in office.
As for private citizens, I don’t know that loyalty to a President is as much of a question as it is the other way around, since the President is like an employee of the people to me. For me, I’d still vote my conscience based on Catholic teaching.
If I were an elected official (based on the criteria of my first paragraph), then I’d serve the people according to how I’m supposed to as outlined in the Gospel. But perhaps I’d never get elected in the first place if I made that known while I was running for office.
Margaret,
Everyone has multiple loyalties, and there are a variety of ways of balancing them. Senators can be criticized for their loyalties, and for how they balance them. If enough people feel strongly enough about this, the Senator will not be reelected. Conversely we can assume that the election of the Senator means that people endorse (on some level) the way he handles his loyalties, even if they are different from our own.
Ann’s example is a good one. Sophie was loyal to both her children, and has no reason to think those loyalties will conflict. Then she is put in a situation where they do conflict, and her behavior has to change. She is distressed by the change, and has to live with her choice for the rest of her life.
Luckily, you do not have to live with your choice. You can try to elect someone with other loyalties. You can try to convince Schumer that what is good for Israel is not necessarily good for the US. You can try to undercut his influence. But whoever your Senator is, he or she will have other loyalties — church, family, homeland, etc – and that should be part of your consideration when deciding who will represent you. As I suspect it was when you considered whether to vote for Schumer.
We are citizens of the United States. We are residents, not citizens, of a given U.S. state.
Joseph J. –
Since when? Or am I just thinking like the Southerner that I am?
I think dual loyalty has a much more insidious implication when applied to Jews given their history in Europe, their history in banking and the perception of secrecy and sneakiness. Note, I am not saying any of these are true, I am simply saying that these are elements of their culture that Jews historically have had to feel. So they were under greater (self) perceived need to be loyal to the community or state over their own “tribe”.
However, I listened to a lecture by a Jewish doctor whose parents and grandparents experienced the holocaust. He shared that the trauma of that experience has become very deeply ingrained in the life of Jews (as everybody knows). However, he said that in his view that Jews in Israel have been visiting the same trauma on another people, the Palestinians, that were visited on them. He said the most if not all of the Jews he knows do not believe that or see that.
The issue is that people, in this case the US, needs to be able to look objectively at the situation and not be drawn into Israel’s and individual Jew’s trauma that is clouding their judgement of the situation. But they will never see that there judgement is clouded because there is a whole neo-con (which includes Democrats) ideological apparatus to support them.
Perhaps dual loyalty may be the wrong word. It might be that they are too traumatized to view the situation objectively and so should then recuse themselves or at least be transparent about it (as Kennedy or anybody else was).
Is it really true that those who are abused often become abusers? If so, what is the psychological mechanism and how is it exorcised?
Abused become abusers — the mechanism is easy to understand; revenge leads one to abuse the person who abused us; then in the absence of that person we may vent our rage on a scapegoat instead. Israelis cannot get revenge on the Nazis, except in lurid Quentin Tarantino-land, so they vent their rage on the Palestinians; the Palestinians cannot get revenge on the Israeli military and politicians and their US backers so they blow up young boys and girls outside a disco in Tel Aviv; etc.
Some have transferred this to the sexual sphere, in the thesis that child abusers are themselves victims of abuse. But the vast majority of those abused are girls, yet women are rarely abusers. Some claim that homosexuality is the result of abuse in childhood — perhaps the theory that being abused as a child can lead to pedophilia is equally unfounded.
Fr, O’Leary –
Your theory is a good Freudian one — the abused transfer their rage onto some other innocent or not so innocent. But Freudian theses are difficult to prove, even though they sometimes make a great deal of sense. Is there any empirical data to support this contention? For instance, do the statistics add up to a strong correlation between being abused and abusing others? If so, the Israelis have enormous unconscious motivation to be abominable to any available scapegoat.
Still, given the acute fairness of the Jews I have known, I find the whole situation mystifying.