Loyalty to the Realm

Mike Pence once said, "I am a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican--in that order."

The order part is what I find interesting. Although his actions often said otherwise, I think it's supposed to mean that his identity has a hierarchy. If he is faced with a situation where he has to choose between being a conservative and being a republican, he chooses the former (supposedly).

Many Republican politicians choose being a Republican when it conflicts with being a conservative. So rather than advance conservative policies, like free markets, they will do whatever it takes to win power for their party, like showing solidarity with Trump even if it means supporting his anti-market tariffs.

A lot of progressives like to describe capitalism as being inherently racist and oppressive. But these ideas can separate. 

Suppose you are a racist loan officer. A black family comes into your bank to apply for a mortgage for a home in your white community. Their credit and references are excellent. You are certain to make money off of this loan. But you are also a racist. Your identities are in conflict. Do you choose to be a capitalist and make money or do you choose to be a racist and deny the loan? I guess it depends on the hierarchy of your identity.

Jesse Singal believes that when lies are spread about a journalist, other journalists have a duty to come to their defense. Jonathan Rauch spoke of the University of Chicago's belief that an attack on one faculty anywhere, is an attack on all faculty. So if there is pressure to fire someone for political reasons, it is incumbent on other faculty to come to their defense.

Rauch also wrote about the concept of "professionalism." In A Time to Build, Yuval Levin expands on this idea from politics to careers like journalism or education. 

"Journalism gradually became a profession - with some broadly accepted general standards ... the development of a journalistic code of ethics, layers of something like peer review in the editorial process, and procedures for punishing, shaming, or ostracizing violators... The professions exist in large part to handle knowledge responsibly."

The reason this concept does not exist anymore, and people like Rauch and Singal are shouting into the void, is that modern professionals have reordered their identity hierarchy. They are antiracists first, journalists second. So if someone tries to get you fired for appearing on Joe Rogan, your professionals are not coming to your aid just because you share a career. You oppose their top identity (eg progressivism) and that is all that matters.

So how are my identities ordered?

Serving the Realm

In Game of Thrones, Ned Stark asks:

"Tell me something, Varys. Who do you truly serve?" 

To which Varys replies:

 "The realm, my lord. Someone must." 

Most characters are loyal to a ruler or a family. But Varys says his loyalty lies with the realm (ie King's Landing). It is difficult to determine Varys motivation throughout the series. He aligns with different factions, seemingly when convenient. But if I take him at his word, I think he describes how I feel.

Between Fairness and Power

In Freedom, Sebastian Junger writes "...civilians had to be willing to give up leadership when they were overruled by a majority, because they presumable valued having no power in a fair system more than they valued having all the power in an unfair one."

I read somewhere that today's GOP has to be willing to give up short term political gains in order to not sacrifice long term democracy. In other words, they have to be like the civilians Junger describes, valuing a fair system with fair elections rather than amplifying conspiracies to keep their base active even if they end up overthrowing the government after another election loss.

I have certain policies I favor. I would like a public option for healthcare. I would legalize all drugs and release all non-violent offenders from prison. I would end exclusionary zoning. I like all these things, but not as much as I like democracy. I would not favor ways to put my policies into action now if it threatened the stability of our society. 

I serve democracy first. After that, I serve the abolition of the war on drugs and all my other pet projects.

My Twitter bio says I am a rationalist, humanist, localist, and apatheist. I don't know which order those appear in my hierarchy. But I know they are all secondary. 

My loyalties are to the realm.