THE LOYAL & THE DISLOYAL

SOCIAL BOUNDARIES OF PATRIOTISM & TREASON

By

Morton Grodzins

 

The World Publishing Company

Cleveland, 1966

 

PART ONE: MOST MEN ARE PATRIOTS

Chapter One --- Introduction: The Competition of Loyalties … Pg. 3

            An indignant thief called the FBI to report that what he had stolen seemed to be full of military and blueprints.  A thief can be a patriot.  Can traitors be honest men?

            If George Washington hadn’t won his name would be traitor. 

            National loyalty is neither purely intellectual nor purely irrational.  We shall look at loyalty as a social fact.  It, and treason, must be analyzed as the products of social situations and of human reactions to those situations.  We will find the sources.

            There is no such thing as a man without loyalties.  Loyalties sustain and are sustained by mutual rights and duties, common beliefs and mutual obligations. 

            We structure our activities.  Our very perceptions affect what we hear and smell.  Drivers of cars that have collided have very different stories to tell.  Chinese music and Islamic paintings are displeasing or unintelligible to those who have not acquired the framework necessary to make them beautiful and meaningful. Life is a Rorschach ink blot.

            During the first years of life the family is the dominant molding agency.  Later, play groups, school, church, job, social class and government all take active roles.  These groups become eyepieces through which we view our lives and loyalties. 

            One is loyal to the groups that provide gratifications because what serves the group serves the self.

            The nation as the capstone of other loyalties and as the largest entity to which most men under most circumstances give effective allegiance is a modern phenomenon. 

            In Greece and Rome duty to the state was a moral duty of the highest order.  Thucydides, Herodotus and Plutarch parade many heroes and traitors in front of us.  Plato’s community of wives was done to tie us closer to the state.  Cicero also said the nation should come before the family. 

            To Christians these ideas were totally alien.  The emperor could be obeyed only if his commands were consistent with the law of God. 

            Machiavelli, in the 16th, declared that “he preferred his country to the safety of his soul, people considered him guilty of blasphemy.  A Jesuit called patriotism “a plague and the most certain death of Christian love.”  But from the decline of the Roman Empire to modern times, there was no national loyalty.  The masses were considered scum and their loyalty was to the small (town, manor or lord) or the large (Christian universe).

            Rousseau’s argument in favor of a “civil religion” as a substitute for Christianity was an argument for patriotism.  The 18th brings back the primacy of political institutions over other groups.  

            Now we teeter in the other direction.  The whole world is every man’s neighborhood.  Patriotism lives largely on differences.  These are dropping. 

            The great state services have made more and more folks dependent on the state.  Fostering dependency is one way of fostering loyalty. 

            Pg. 13 Before the industrial revolution, Western man lived his life in a network of relatively inflexible social, largely familial, relationships.  His status was established by virtue of his membership in a family, a community, a guild, or a manor.  Populations are now fluid through space, occupations and social classes.  This means that modern man has a variety of groups, causes, and leaders to choose from.  Scientists, professional workers, artists of all kinds, and even businessmen may find their strongest colleagues in other nations. 

            Previously men defined themselves in relationship to traditions.  The modern industrial man is other directed.  His attitudes and actions are influenced primarily by his peers.  He is now less likely to be the bold traitor, but an easy collaborator.

            William Joyce, AKA “Lord Haw-Haw” did radio broadcasts for Germany during WW II.  He said he labored to save Britain against the USSR and in friendship with his fellow German Anglos. 

            Marxists view the nation as a weapon in the hands of the ruling class.  There are those who believe that the achievement of peace, dignity of man and continuance of the species require letting go of nationalism.  

            The good patriot is not necessarily a good man.  Look at NAZIs. 

 

Chapter Two --- National Loyalty as the Supreme Loyalty … Pg. 20

            What makes national loyalty so strong?  The whole social structure tends to promote the relationship, binding human satisfaction to national welfare.   The meanness and pettiness of everyday existence becomes more tolerable because the nation is involved in enterprise of grandeur.  The mechanism is one of identification: of accepting the nation’s symbols and achievements as one’s own. 

            Ironically, we fight for justice and they fight for conquest.  The sardonic Sumner said that the masses are always patriotic.  [But do national cultures have no difference?  Do they offer no value?]

            National rather than other loyalties are also partly the result of objective facts---common language, common traditions, common suffering and sacrifice, a common territory.  And that tie of individual fate to the national fate. 

            Through direct and indirect control of the schools, government has a crucial lever for encouraging some character traits and discouraging others and for molding individuals to standards of thought and action.  The military, news developments, national holidays and festivals also foster patriotic organizations and citizens. 

            Totalitarian governments attempt to create situations in which individuals receive all their cues for action from a state.  Democratic values and traditions do not countenance this. 

            George Washington in opening quote says patriotism must be supplemented with self- interest and a promise of reward to keep people going through a campaign.  The nation cannot exist if it does not provide satisfaction for its citizens. 

            In democratic states, the principal life-satisfactions are experienced in the face-to-face relations of everyday living, with friends and neighbors.  If such relations are good, the identification with the nation will be good. 

            Trotsky noted that if revolutions were caused by poverty they would be going on all the time.  Loyalty being premised on life-satisfactions does not mean the rich are loyal and the poor not.  Life-satisfactions and life-goals are achieved within the framework of the group.  A threat to the nation is interpreted as a threat to the groups within the nation and the gratifications derived from those groups. 

            Our patriotism comes from linking the nation to the joy we derive from all the diverse activities in life.  There are differing levels of satisfaction.  Most are not zealots for the nation but loyal because they are not disloyal. 

            Pg. 31 If folks are not happy with their personal situations they generally move on.  Some become anti-social, many are just tired and complacent.  Some are super patriots because they are otherwise bored with life. 

            In the political sphere, democratic society allows for easy protest.  Outside of acceptable protest venues there are those that are on the fringes of being disloyal.  But clear disloyalty is rare.  There are so many other things for the malcontent to do. 

            When the state asks a lot of its citizens the opportunities for being disloyal are many.  But when the state doesn’t, there aren’t many situations, actions that are disloyal.  Historically democracies are rather light in their impact on the lives of citizens. 

            And those who are really discontent can reform the system from within without jeopardizing their many other spheres of happiness.  Thus the scales are heavily weighed against disloyalty.  Finally disloyalty is rare because of the stigma attached to it. 

            Life may be hell.  But disloyalty is the last way out.  By inclination or by default, most men are patriots. 

 

PART TWO: DEMOCRATIC AND TOTALITARIAN NATIONAL LOYALTY

Chapter Three --- One Life, Many Loyalties: The Democratic Allegiance Network  … Pg. 39

            Loyalties are common to all cultures.  Some subcultural loyalties support each other and some compete.  Religion and freedom of religion support each other.  Some families may feel that national policy runs contrary to their interests, then family loyalty means rejecting government loyalty. 

            Non-national loyalties thus play a paradoxical role.  They may support a positive attitude towards the nation or be a threat to the nation. 

            Individuals derive their greatest satisfactions and pay their most direct allegiances to primary groups.  Members of the same primary group tend to look at fellow members with love and affection; they share the group’s joys and sorrows without asking, “What’s in it for me?” 

            Virtually every adolescent crime is a crime committed in a group.  He is a successful member of his gang.  That is his primary group.   To him to be called a thief is an honorific.  Those who deal in junk bonds have different norms than those who deal in real bonds.  German troops fought to the end where face-to-face contact with group members was strongest. 

            Of all primary groups the family is the strongest.  Abraham’s choice was weird.  Usually when folks choose between family loyalty and larger, the larger loses.  In disasters the rescue leaders are usually visitors who know their families are safe. 

            Some groups do not require face-to-face contact.  You can be born into such an affiliation by race, or status (veterans, doctors) or all being fascists or Rotarians.  There is great variation to the extent to which these group identities cause you to act with reference to them. 

            The whole process of immigrant assimilation is one of shifting away from face-to-face groups towards reference groups.  The immigrant is ashamed of his parent’s accent.  William James noted many years ago, the group can be strong enough to dictate action even though it only exists in the imagination.  “The good of mankind” and “unity of religions” have force. 

            To borrow from G. H. Mead, reference groups are “significant audiences.”  Their opinions are the most important ones, their disdain the most feared, their appreciation the most sought.  When powerful, the person takes the group mores as their own.  Without a “we” there would be no “I.”  Personal happiness comes through the group. 

            Gratifications are, however, mean compared to the penalties a group can impose.  These penalties are ever present and pervasive, in contrast with the infrequent penalties of law. 

            William James said a man has as many social selves “as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares.” 

            What is more important, your loyalty to your golfing buddies or church? 

             

 

Chapter Four --- The Strength of Democratic National Loyalty … Pg. 51

            What happens when the family says yes and the nation says no?  When the church and nation collide? 

            In most situations the strains here are easy to tolerate.  Over conflict never arises because it is in no means clear, in a democratic nation, what loyalty requires. 

            What is that loyalty to?  To the government in power?  Is it to the system of government?  Is it the moral creed or historical ideas upon which government rests?  Is it the enduring cultural complex?  The answer is that national loyalty is all these things and more. 

            A coal worker strikes during wartime: freedom of labor is a democratic principle more sacred than wartime “strike-breaking” laws.  The conscientious object goes to jail rather than serve in the armed forces.  Poles in Chicago urge condemnation of Russian aggression in Poland.  The free market is the American way, so damn rent control. 

            In law loyalty is only defined negatively.  It only talks of disloyalty: treason, espionage, sabotage and related crimes. 

            When tensions and national fears rise, this is not true.  The Smith Act of 1940 made disloyalty conspiring to “teach, advocate, or encourage overthrow or destruction . . . [of government] by force or violence.  But under most situations loyal is an elastic demand.  

            Diverse spheres of public life are blanketed with national symbols.  Bootleggers said that they reflected the real America.  The Urban League’s goals of equalization are said to be American.  Business success is good for America. 

           Politics do not loom large in the activity or thinking of most Americans.  We are concerned with family, job, business, hobbies and entertainment. 

            Democratic governments have immense resources for forging direct nation-person ties.  The government has a monopoly on legal force.  The groups that one enjoys can be said to exist because of state protection.  The citizens come to believe that the state is a  shield against internal foes.  Family life is destroyed by fascism, privacy and private property are destroyed by communism.  [Gay rights at any level would disappear with the West]. 

            The FDR tactic is a typical one.  The state does many things for many people and thereby buys national allegiance.  State programs become the sale price of loyalty. 

            Democratic government is party government.  Government, is a prize to win, not a threat to avoid.  Parties out of power make promises to some groups and parties in power institute programs to preserve and widen group support.  In both cases the effect is to align national loyalties with non-national ones. 

            The American party in power connives with the party in opposition so that the latter will have sufficient time in Congress to criticize the former.  Under such a system, extremism is discouraged.  Both parties are equally committed, and neither can completely condemn the other. 

            Pg 59 Schools have resisted national control!!!  You’d suspect that they would not be patriotic.  Not at all.  In 19th century textbooks, arithmetic sums were done patriotically.  The patriotic motif is still dominant.  A survey of 400 texts showed that they say other countries are bad in contrast with ours. 

            The schools conform to Rousseau’s dictum that they should make man “patriots by inclination, by passion, if necessary.” 

            A nation’s flag, to most citizens, is a thing of beauty.  Napoleon said: “Give me a button and I will make men die for it.” 

            The most effective symbol system promoting national loyalty are the least apparent, the ceremonial calendar of the US.  On memorial day Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Greek Orthodox are involved in a common ritual in a graveyard with our common dead. 

            Having a common currency also binds us.  Common language and definitions of style unify us too. 

            In other periods the church competed with the nation as the most inclusive group.   But this is no longer the case.  Churches are handmaidens of national policy.  

            Citizens will perform patriotic duties even in the absence of any direct identification with the nation.  Many WW II soldiers did not know why they were there.  The primary group is primarily concerned with its own preservation. 

            Pg. 66  The Pole claims to be loyal to America and Poland.  And he is because both loyalties are only indirect.  In fact, his ultimate allegiance is to the Polish – American society, and Poland and America are necessary allies.  One gives him his culture and the other his economic and political security. 

            Loyalty is akin to love.  There is no fixed quantity of either.  Loyalty to one does not necessarily diminish loyalty to another.  The two loyalties may be reinforcing. 

           

 

Chapter Five --- One Life, One Loyalty: The Totalitarian Manipulation of Life … Pg. 69

            Loyalty to nation in democracies is built upon the non-national loyalties to family and other primary groups, to church and other reference groups.  Loyalty to nation under totalitarianism is forged directly between individual and state, between led and the leader. 

            Leaders of totalitarian states have uniformly recognized that free identification with non-national groups can weaken national loyalty.  Whether glossed in racial strength or classless brotherhood, they seek to bond the individual directly to the state. 

            The state seeks affirmative displays of this attachment. 

            Where the NAZI party is strongest and busiest  is in its attempt to destroy the family as a self-functioning social unit.  Children were trained to put the precepts of the state before those of the nation.  They were to turn in parents who were disloyal, thus the parental authority is undermined. 

            The ideal family is one where the father is a member of the party, the mother the Association of Nazi Women, the girl in German Girls and boy in Hitler youth.  They meet once a year in Nuremberg. 

            Unions contracts have not been written in the Soviet Union since 1935.  Soviet youth are told that it is a fallacy to think his personal life is his own concern.  Treason here and in Nazi Germany can be seen in slack work habits. 

            In democratic states it is easy to maintain loyalty because the definition of loyalty is so ambiguous.   Not so in totalitarian states. 

            The importance of terror needed in such systems is overrated.  Like garlic in a salad, a little bit of terror goes a long ways.  Brain washing based upon utter fatigue, and the use of family members as hostages are usually effective. 

            Violence attracts as well as repels.  The ruthless are admired as well as hated by the cowed. 

            Pg. 78 Dictatorship violence is all the more terrible because it is established within no system of orderly law.  [Really??  I’d think compliance more likely if all given the guise of law.  This would create a built in justification for compliance].

            The totalitarian state cares less for loyalty-as-attitude than loyalty-as-action. 

            One girl’s whole Czechoslovakian family was killed by the Germans.  They made her into a German and taught her to hate Czech’s too.  In the three years.  Once all her personal contacts were destroyed it was easy to mold her to the state’s desire. 

 

Chapter Six --- Attractions of Totalitarian Loyalty … Pg. 82

            The alienation that disrupts old loyalties can be seen as a step towards building new ones.  The policy of totalitarian states is precisely one of controlled alienation.  They create the disease and the cure. 

            The leader can make you sensitize to your unhappiness and the happy alternatives he can offer.  This has been the role of mass leaders – religious, military and national – throughout history.  Stalin was presented as a scientific genius and man of unlimited love and implacable will in the USSR. 

            Whatever frustrations are encountered due to control from above can be discharged against those below.  The lowly can get revenge by turning in higher ups.  For many in totalitarian society life becomes better.  No one in Germany was alone with his troubles.  The party was always there to help. 

            In some German cities during the Nazi period an individual was expected to salute and say “Heil Hitler” at least 150 times a day.  In order to be a perfect actor one needs to be the role.  Only by becoming the perfect subject of the totalitarian state can one feel sure that one obeys all its orders.  

            The hatred for the regime soon may turn into hatred for one’s self.  You can hide your dissatisfaction with the government by turning it inward.  The alternative is destruction. 

            In nations with a long history of self-government non-national loyalties do not run counter to the national loyalty.  It is in nations where national formation has been recent that non-national loyalties tend to be divisive. 

            Early on the USSR saw other loyalties as competing.  The family was destroyed via recognizing common law marriages, lessening the responsibility of spouses, establishing full rights for illegitimate children and legalizing abortions.  From 1936 on this changed.   All was reversed and in 1944 “motherhood medals” were established and divorce was made much harder.  Soviet leaders felt that their regime was sufficiently established to allow competing loyalties. 

            Primary groups are controlled in every way by the state.  All non-party organizations are made a part of the state.  In democratic countries non-state groups appear “naturally” and their allegiance to the nation is an unforced byproduct. 

            Folks in the USSR did internal emigration.  They sought jobs that were not political and had minimal supervision.  Those in high slots had to watch themselves and cultivate cronies.  Refuge from the state is even possible in harsh totalitarianism.  Sometimes this takes the form of radical detachment from self and over professionalization.  People do their jobs well and leave the state to the state.  The Fermis despised Mussolini, but loved Italy and were dedicated scientists under his rule.  They work for their own advancement and holidays without reference to the larger implications of the society. 

 

PART THREE: THE LOYALTY OF DISLOYALTY

Chapter Seven --- Making Un-Americans: A Pathology of Disloyalty …Pg. 105

            In 1942 in Manzinar, in Independence California, a speaker was urging those in the center to protest against bad camp conditions.  He was wounded in WW I and now spit at his own scars.  

            More than six thousand American citizens during WW II formally declared that they were not loyal to the US. 

            Whatever the conditions they were undermined by barbed wire fences. 

            The American Japanese were divided by wide gaps in education, occupation, and income; by differences in the extent to which they adhered to Old World cultural patterns. 

            The situation brought power to elders and those who were more Japanesey and less American. 

            American Legion folks believed that the Japanese had excessive birth rates and the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West passed resolutions urging separation of the sexes so that we would not have to use tax dollars to pay for their offspring.  Court cases were initiated to strip them of their citizenship.  California groups claimed, periodically, that the Japanese were being coddled in their barrack cities. 

            There were some groups that thought the relocation was a mistake. 

            Citizens over seventeen at these camps were asked, “Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the USA and forswear any form of allegiance or obedience to the Japanese emperor?” 

            When the program was over almost thirty-one thousand Japanese Americans had answered “Yes” and more than six thousand answered “No.”  Three thousand others qualified their answers or refused to answer. 

            Many said no as a protest against their wartime treatment.  Some cried as they did it.  Some wrote explanations.  Those persisting in disloyal answers were scheduled for “Segregation” in special center; all others became eligible to leave the centers. 

            [He has verbatim transcripts of the Nisei discussions around this issue.  None seem to appreciate that there is a war going on, sacrifices are needed and many are making far more drastic sacrifices.]

            Some negative answers were a result of the loss of freedoms, some resentment over lost property, some answered based on a desire to be reunited with their alien status family members, they would say yes if they were given assurances that their family members would be taken care of and paid compensation, many worried that if they said yes they would be automatically drafted.  This might mean they couldn’t take care of their aged parents.  Some had parents that told them of the glowing future they would have if they went back to Japan.  If Dad goes back home, the son must follow in a strong familial culture like the Japanese. 

            So loyalty to family sometimes clashed with loyalty to nation.  It meant additional burdens on the family. 

            During the registration it was rumored that those who answered “Yes” would be forced to leave the camps and that those who said “no” could stay.   The outside world seemed hostile.  And, for all their gross unattractiveness, the relocation centers offered shelter, safety, food, friends and cultural compatibility.   The rewards of continued residence within a center seemed more valuable than the punishment of being considered disloyal. 

            Some parents pressured their children to say no because they had big hopes that the Japanese would win. 

            P. 117 A number of citizens who had been educated in Japan and spoke Japanese expressed a fanatical devotion to the Japanese political system and a fanatical hatred of the US.  They followed the Emperor and organized to impress their views, sometimes with violence, upon those who were loyal to the US.

            This was a fourth definition of disloyalty: an expression of preference for Japanese life-ways.  All these considerations combined in all who answered. 

            If the Japanese had not been so bluntly faced with making a choice, few, if any, would ever have declared themselves not loyal. 

            When asked if they would forswear all foreign allegiance, aliens could not really say yes.  And they were barred from becoming naturalized citizens by law.  Aliens were then asked if they would abide by the laws of the US and take no action that would interfere with the war effort.  In this form most aliens answered yes.  But at Tule lake almost two thousand even refused to register even when the new question was being used. 

            P. 119 Immediately following the loyalty question was a question about service in the military.  To say you wouldn’t fight after saying you were loyal seemed inconsistent.   To answer yes to both was, gasp, tantamount to volunteering.  And by far the largest number who wished to declare themselves loyal did not wish to volunteer.

            They wanted to be able to say they were loyal, but didn’t want to serve in a segregated unit or until their full citizenship rights were restored.  NO UNDERSTANDING AT ALL!!!!  They also resented being asked if they would “forswear” allegiance to Japan, because this implied that they actually held such an allegiance. 

            There were striking differences among the answers at the different relocation centers. 

            At Manzinar 52% of the adult males answered no, qualified their response, refused to answer or register at all.  At the Minidoka center in Idaho, these groups were only 8%.  At Tule Lake, Gila center and Jerome center at least on out of three refused to declare themselves loyal. 

            Manzinar’s high disloyalty can be traced to the poor community conditions.   It was physically bad and nearby residence were hostile.  The community itself was torn by factional splits and gang warfare was intermittent.  Some arrests were made by the FBI and those taken out were often regarded as heroes.  Two moths before registration a riot erupted and inexperienced soldiers fired into the crowd.  Nine were wounded, two fatally. 

            Registration at Manzinar was conducted without explanation. 

            In contrast conditions at Minidoka were far less grim.  Barracks were strong and local communities friendly.  When the registration policy was announced, a series of meetings was immediately organized where the registration was explained.  Five days of consultation preceded the registration.  

            Three points:  One the differences show how life situations effect loyalty.   Second, the life-situations were subjective as well as objective.  Third, face-to-face relationships were of the first importance in determining loyalty. 

            Social and economic factors were also important. 

            Americans of Japanese ancestry were more likely to answer no if::::::::

1)      They had been educated in Japan.

2)      They were members of the Buddhist church (rather than Christian or atheist)

3)      Their pre-evacuation residency was in an unfriendly area to non-Caucasians.

4)      Their previous occupations involved little contact with non-Japanese.

Harder to statistically demonstrate, but true also, loyalty was associated with low fluency in Japanese, losing little in the evacuation and maintaining a strong tie with a non-Japanese outside the camp.

Exceptions:  Some who had been in Japan a lot answered yes just because Japanese culture advocates submissiveness.  Those from Japan who had had a bad time there and had no hopes there volunteered for the American army enthusiastically. 

Like few Americans, these people were asked to make a public declaration of their loyalty.  The disloyalty was in a very specific situation.  Most with their attitudes would be indistinguishable from “loyal” Americans in daily life. 

Japanese Americans of Hawaii, when asked to volunteer, responded in great numbers.  One of three offered their services.  On the mainland one out of 14 eligible did.  In Hawaii they were asked while free.  On the mainland they were asked from behind barbed wire enclosures. 

Life situation is important.  Loyalty is not a matter of pure conviction. 

Nor were those disloyal due to deprivation.  People endure incredible deprivation for loyalties they believe in.  Suffering on behalf of a nation cements loyalty; suffering as a result of national policies destroys allegiance. 

P. 129 There are strong suggestions that a far greater number of Japanese Americans would have declared themselves disloyal to America if they had been able to visualize a viable existence for themselves in Japan.  Disloyalty only becomes an issue when there is an alternative.  Without alternatives, unhappiness just produces withdrawal and obstructionism or the urge to reform. 

The most blatant traitor does not look upon himself as such.  Brutus said, “not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” 

 

Chapter Eight --- The Achievement of Treason … Pg. 132

            Discontent contributes to disloyalty, but it is hard to say what makes a satisfying life.  Is it Wine Women and song or Plato’s temperance and justice. 

            Dissatisfaction happens when small group loyalties are weak.  Marx called this alienation and Durkheim, anomie.  This is a state in which the individual feels no sense of belonging. 

            This path to disloyalty is the exact opposite of the path that is brought via other competing group loyalties tearing you away. 

            There are differences in the goals the disloyal seek.  At one extreme is the person who rejects some part of his society, though accepting it on the whole: the conscientious objector, for example.  The opposite is the saboteur that seeks justice by creating another world.    Society recognizes a difference between these sorts of disloyalties. 

            The evasion of price fixing by butchers during WW II skirts these extremes.  25 to 90% did.  They said they had responsibility to their client and their family and business career.  Selling at regulated prices could especially mean hardship for small butchers, it was a touch choice. 

            Robert E. Lee had another conflict of loyalties.  He loved America but would not raise his hand against his relatives, children and home. 

            Lord Haw-Haw was made into an outsider in Britain by their class distinctions.

            The alienated person need not be disloyal.  He may become indifferent or withdrawn.  He may alter his expectations for life.  He is most likely to turn disloyal if he can find a face-to-face group to support and promote the expression of his discontents.   They often become communists by sheer happenstance.  Many join out of loneliness or boredom. 

            Klaus Fuchs gave info to the USSR about atomic secrets.  He turned himself in because he fretted over being disloyal to his professional colleagues and friends, not Great Britain. 

            These groups become the disloyal person’s world.  Outside of the group they are despised and rejected.  This is also why it is so difficult to break from such groups.  It means a return to emptiness.  When conformity to the deviant group is established, the basis for overt disloyalty has been laid.  The society disapproves of this and so a vicious circle sets in.  As in with early Christians, radicalism sets in. 

            Being rejected by America makes Japanese have no loyalty but to their group. 

            Alcibiades of 5th century Greece led the Athenians against Sparta, the reverse and then the Persians against the Athenians.  He said he wanted to let them know he was still alive. 

 

Chapter Nine --- Totalitarian Disloyalty … Pg. 153

            Totalitarian governments seek to control or destroy the disloyal and so seem to have the problem licked.  At the same time they use controlled alienation as a positive tool for binding the individual to the state. 

            It can be argued that the totalitarian state must destroy itself.  Modern economies require a sense of rationalism that is incompatible with the irrational and terrorizing methods of their leaders. 

            But man can simultaneously be a “god in technology and an ape in life.”  This compartmentalization is seen where men are charming husbands and absolute slobs and on the job where the love of the paycheck is balanced by the resentment of the job. 

            These examples illustrate that loyalty and disloyalty can exist side by side within an individual or a group. 

            Many Soviets hate their government, but love their homeland, family, work, status and way of life. 

            Pg. 157 Even those who receive the least benefit from society are integrated into it in many ways. 

            From the outside such a life looks intolerable.  But this is not the case.  People insulate themselves.  They find life tolerable because they find non-political niches in which to act. 

            Higher ups are more carefully watched.  The prestigious may thus bottle up hostility which can explode.  The top folks may be the most likely to commit a disloyal act. 

            Totalitarians try to justify themselves by appealing to the intellect.  Plato and Aristotle can be used to this affect.  Marx proclaimed “objective” laws.  Yet totalitarianism is essentially anti-intellectual. 

            Medieval towns and aborigines might exist at one time undisturbed and content with their lot, but that is only because they have nothing to compare themselves to.  The loyalty under propaganda is unstable because it thwarts conversation. 

            Loyalty to a nation can be heightened by adversity and sacrifice for it. But duress and crisis cannot be permanent states. 

            In the USSR the large population group least tractable to control by the state is the peasantry.   The state has reacted with more control that has created death and more resentment.  During the war whole villages welcomed the Germans as liberators. 

            One Nazi wanted a medal before turning against Hitler.  Another was going to join an anti-Nazi general strike, but his wife was 200% for the Nazi party.  People have their petty loyalties that keep them from going against bigger ones. 

            A totalitarian state faces loyalty because citizens put other loyalties first.  Democracies try to make them compatible. 

            One obvious difference between democratic and totalitarian societies is that the democratic citizen can find little political relevance between his dissatisfactions and the state.  He blames other things.   But where the state attempts to control all of life, every discontent can be attributed to the state. 

            Our allowing multiple non-national loyalties makes us stable.  When family isn’t important we bury ourselves in business, when this isn’t, there is the American Legion or church.   The totalitarian situation is markedly dissimilar.  There exist many fewer memberships and therefore many fewer ties. 

            The strengths of totalitarian governments hide many weaknesses. 

            The totalitarian states may die of their own excesses.  Their economy being strong makes this less likely.  A wise totalitarian leader could create more indirect avenues for loyalty.  Or warfare between factions could crack these states. 

 

PART FOUR: WHERE ARE THE DISLOYAL?

Chapter Ten --- Disloyalty and the Social Structure …Pg. 179

            Are some groups more likely to contain traitors than others?  Can these groups be identified?  The relationships set forth in the analysis of groups are probability statements.  The fact that some people out of 100 will live to be 90 doesn’t say which ones.  

            The framework for group analysis consists of three questions:

1.      What are typical group satisfactions and dissatisfactions for a given group?

2.      To what extent can these happinesses and sorrows be related to the nation-state?

3.      To what extent are alternatives to national loyalty available?

 

P. 180 -181

For some time he goes through all of the permutations of the three questions to ask when trying to predict loyalty. 

 

For example which group is more likely to be loyal?  Group one is dissatisfied, but this cannot be linked to the nation and an alternative to National loyalty.  Group Two has no dissatisfaction, it therefore cannot be linked to the nation and it has no alternative thing to be loyal to.  Group one is more dissatisfied, links it to the nation and has an alternative.  It is more likely to be disloyal. 

Group three is interesting.  There is no dissatisfaction, but a dissatisfaction with the nation and no alternative loyalty.  This will produce a dilettante who works with politics, but is not likely to be disloyal. 

Group four says that if the person is personally satisfied, links their happiness to the government and has an alternative source of loyalty.   This will create a radical dilettante, but no one dangerous. They are satisfied.  Satisfaction is the pump. 

Group five has dissatisfaction, the dissatisfaction is linked to the nation, but there is no alternative.  Few groups will stay in this position because of modern communications.  They will find a group for alternate loyalty. 

This is a crude instrument of analysis.  There was a study of waiters in 1952.  They were profoundly dissatisfied as this is the lowest of low jobs available to man.  These men were only friends with other waiters and talked mainly about their dissatisfaction.  The dissatisfaction did not come from low income.  They had a folklore of attacking the enemy customers.  They tied their dissatisfaction to the national government, but had no alternative for loyalty.  With cultivation they could provide a strong source of disloyalty. 

Post high school adolescents have no community suddenly and no audience to be known by.  He is in a lowly position in terms of the rest of the country.  He is alienated.  Anti social manifestations – street corner gang, bohemianism are politically neutral.  Widely cherished attainments not being attainable, he prefers to be precisely what he is not supposed to be.

In contrast, college student radicalism is more likely to be tied to the nation due to professor’s influence.  German youths after WW I were told to be dissatisfied with the bourgeois world of their elders.  Their discontent was mobilized for the state during war. 

Islands that control a person can create dissonance with the national mission.  Sometimes these have been ethnic, but the passing of years has diminished the potential for clashes between ethnic identity and that of the nation. 

The danger of a nation-religion clash is not acute when it is limited to not saluting the flag.  It is worse when a religion is against military service [or border enforcement].  Often their universal principles are considered more worthy than national ones.  Catholicism does not make one loyal to another state.  Religious affiliation and national one needn’t clash. 

Marital infidelity can be described just as national infidelity.  Unhappiness, related to the marriage and alternatives to marriage make infidelity likely.   

 

Chapter Eleven --- Accidents, Personality, And Ideas  ... Pg. 198

            Chance plays a big part in whether or not folks are attracted to communism or disloyalty.  When one finds themselves in a state conducive to disloyalty and they just happen to come in contact with a disloyal organization or book. 

            Many Germans did not foment against Hitler because no one asked them to. 

            Authoritative parenting styles can lead to young folks that believe in the importance of power.  This person may cling to their power base and denigrate “the other”  Communism appeals to hostile personalities. 

            But personalities themselves cannot make political movements.  And it is unlikely that personality type is decisive in producing loyalty or disloyalty. 

            Political action is often a means of meeting personal problems.  This is most obvious when the bedroom sadist becomes the public executioner.  Your social situation seems a much stronger factor in what party you vote for and what allegiances you hold.  Folks from the same background believe the same thing. 

 

 

Chapter Twelve --- The Tratriot ...Pg. 208

            Mr. N believed that all Japanese – Americans would have retained their loyalty to the US if they had been treated with honor, justice, and humanity instead of harshness, injustice, and oppression.”  He tried to so hard to be good, but was just rejected.  Thus he rebelled against America in the name of American values.  The strongest love turns to the strongest hate. 

            The improvement of self is the great American game.  The American injunction is “Better thyself.”  “Go West, young man.” Shows that we have a social life that requires flexibility of loyalties.  We drop old ones and seek new ones.  Disloyalty is, in some regards, an American virtue. 

            The prototype is that of the immigrant’s son who finds his parent’s accents, food habits and living conditions embarrassing.  They change their names.  Our fluidity of classes and melting pot break loyalties. 

            Thus we are, at one level, likely to be disloyal.  The USSR citizen in the same boat can only rebel against the state.  We have more loyalties to find remedy in.  But all of us can join a crowd when lost.  Small loyalties are the building blocks of the larger loyalty in a democracy and when the smaller ones are threatened the whole edifice is.

            We must even tolerate outright disloyalty.  It is a part of our absorption of discontent.  No person is a complete traitor or complete patriot.  We are complex. 

 

PART FIVE: SOME POLICY CONCLUSIONS

Chapter Thirteen --- The Reverse Consequence of National Loyalty Investigations ... Pg. 219

            Social science cannot compete with the recent accomplishments of physical sciences in influencing social policy.  The results here cannot tell who will be disloyal, but it can tell which groups to look out for.  This information can also be used to build loyalties.  How good are we at this?  How do our current loyalty programs work?

            The high status of scientists and their dependency on public funds is likely to make them loyal.  They are also listened to by politicians.  On the other hand, scientists are not really bound by nations.  Their relation to nations is filtered through their careers and this is where loyalty programs hit the hardest. 

            Loyalty searches against them make it difficult for them to trust and make new friends.  It makes them dissatisfied and so weakens bonds to nation.  Loyalty/security programs also restrict the free interchange of scientific information.  These run counter to the scientist’s creed.  

            Dr. May gave away atomic secrets because he thought the world safer if both sides had access to the bomb. 

            Few traitors have been found by loyalty programs and much discord.  The scientist in a public inquest knows this is not the whole of the US against him.  He will get support somewhere.  If it only comes from disloyal groups his loss to the nation becomes probable.  It is healthy that the accused gets sympathy from many groups. 

            Finally, scientists are likely to stay loyal because the alternative, the USSR is unpalatable.  These programs are not likely to do much good and can do harm. 

            What is true for scientists is true for other groups.  Civil servants being screened and rescreened by loyalty programs is likely to make them demoralized, suspicious and unhappy.  Teachers are unhappy with loyalty screening due to the belie in academic freedom and their not seeing themselves as being closely related to national security. 

            One joked that the investigative committees made them feel as if they should go out and give some secrets to the Russians. 

            This dissatisfaction leads to the withdrawal of competent civil servants and increased conformity and a decline in initiative and critical ideas. 

            Teacher timidity is seen in places where teaching about the UN is forbidden. Others may not teach about the USSR. 

            This might be justified if the investigations turned up individuals who were disloyal and there were no better method.  Neither of these conditions is fulfilled.  None have been found.  The Rosenbergs were found by regular law-enforcement (the FBI). 

            Some info turned up has probably been useful.  But this is rare. 

            The security loyalty programs of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman have been more sensitive to the rights of those being investigated than the congressional ones have been.  But folks just, often, lump them together as “the government.”  The nation is intimately tied to the persons unhappiness. 

            Those that investigate should recognize that loyalty is a situation based thing and what one did in the past is not necessarily relevant.  They should notice that their investigations can undermine loyalty.  They should note that it is normal for those in democracies to have multiply loyalties.  Absolute loyalty is not real and leads to sterility. 

            Loyalty programs are not good at creating loyalty.  They should realize that the best investigation is the quietest one.  These loyalty investigations are not efficient. 

            National loyalty comes easily to an individual if his job and career are secure.  If he and it are isolated under suspicion, it will not foster loyalty. 

 

Chapter Fourteen --- Democratic Values and Democratic Loyalty ...

Pg. 238

            The pre-industrial way of life was a community (Gemeinschaft) and the industrial society is (Gessellschaft).  The gemeinschaft grouse is the criticism of modern life by those who find it unhappy. 

            Life has been reduced to a rat race of meaningless work and conspicuous consumption for may.  C. Wright Mill said the white-collar worker is the “new Little Man.”  He is in a “frantic hurry” because “he does not know where he is going.”   Many political scientists agree.  They think we are weak because we are disintegrated.  But these folks miss something. 

            America’s complexity is its strength.  We are a crazy quilt, but it would be far more appalling to be caught in a society where we could do only what we were told.  The social reformer wants to create order.  True wisdom dictates another course.  We need more ideas and organizations. 

            Our goals may seem selfish, petty, and unrelated to national interest.  Yet these groups relate themselves positively to the nation.  They build democratic loyalties. 

            Our society does leave room for loneliness.  But our multiple outlets are a better cure than the order of a totalitarian state.  Many folks do not belong to organizations.  But many of life’s joys are not organized.  You drink beer and complain about tv commercials.  This is the basis of a happy life.  And if it isn’t your cup of tea, diverse societies provide serious political engineer meetings and literary circles.   

            Only a few folks vote.  Those who do vote often do it based on class or ethnic group, not principle.  Voters do not distinguish important issues and often vote based on personality, not policies.  But political apathy in a democracy is a good thing. 

            New voters are impatient and unsophisticated.  The largest Nazi gains came from the newest crop of voters.  Apathy and economics can lead to demagogues. 

            But for large numbers apathy in politics often indicates satisfaction and preoccupation with things outside of politics. Non-participation also leavens controversy.  Total mobilization is a sign of totalitarianism.  Apathy is a sign of democracy.  Apathy can also make change easier.  But this change requires that some are politically interested.  They propose policies and the apathetic don’t get in the way. 

            The apathy we have described might also be much more apparent than real.  There is tremendous activity by interest groups that folks don’t do anything for, but still exist. 

            The apathetic also hold the latent power of rejection that plays an important role in politics.   Political power is important even when not mobilized.  This causes leaders to look over their shoulders. 

            Apathy is an acceptable political posture in a democratic society. 

            Social criticism often results in socially creative things.  It makes for change.  For example, the Communist Manifesto has been institutionalized in the US in some ways.  Critical examination also helps the individual.  A trip to the Communist party can, in the long run, create a stronger attachment to democracy. 

            This all argues in favor of the inalienable right of all Americans to youthful radicalism.  Social processes encourage this.  It is desirable in a democratic society.  A trip through radicalism strengthens allegiance in the long run.  Loyalty-security investigations have totally overlooked this. 

            Democracy implies that national loyalty will be limited.  We must be careful to create demands that will make national demands for loyalty clash with others.  The state should promote social diversity and preserve the ambiguities in the meaning of national loyalty. 

            Burke said, “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle . . . of public affections.” 

            Slightly off topic, he mentions, it is worth noting that the limited loyalty of democratic nations is the only model for building a world state that need not be a slave state.  The only alternative is to destroy lesser allegiances.  Even if such a government could make for world peace, it may not be worth it. 

            The strategy best for creating a world state is to create indirect links between individuals and world government.  No man on horseback, but relating to the wide range of human lives.  “Nationalism and the split atom cannot co-exist on this planet”

            In a democracy you have “the right to be left alone.”  Equal opportunity and an impartial court system, when identified with the nation, create a direct linkage from individual to state. 

            Democratic values play a dual role.  As ideas in common they create a vision of life that can be realized.  They establish the individual - not the leader, not the blood principle, not the state - as the highest value.

            Where the indirect tie is nurtured, freedom of religion is as important as belief. 

            Today’s stylish patriot sings songs of xenophobia and conformity.  It is unfashionable to sing the praises of diversity and disinterest and divided loyalties.  Today’s vision leads to totalitarian models of loyalty.  The democratic looks weak, but it is preferred.  It is more stable. 

            Loneliness can occur in our state.  But it is better that we are mature and do not seek the state to serve as our therapist or father substitutes. 

            If we cannot deliver freedom and educational equality and opportunity we must show that it is being sought.  The achievement may be postponed, but the achievers must always be able to proceed with the method of achievement.  Totalitarian states do great thigs, but the citizen is a cipher. 

            What endangers us is not treason, but that it does not lead to personal satisfactions via economic productivity and freedom that lead, indirectly, to strong national loyalty.  The danger is not that we will fail on our merits.  The danger is that democracy will fail because it fails to be democratic.