The cult in culture

An organization’s culture is its ego. Since ego is utterly obdurate, well-intended efforts to change the culture go nowhere. Whistleblowers are professionally slain while conformity is elevated to a virtue and called loyalty.

To thine own self

The first loyalty—loyalty to one’s innermost self—obviates all other loyalties.

Loyalty

There are two kinds of loyalty—wise and, well, otherwise. Wise loyalty is a connectedness to one’s deepest essence, to the inner I AM. “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

Drinking the Kool Aid

We drink the Kool Aid when our first fealty is not to ourselves.

Speaking to the deaf

Loyalty is not a virtue—unless omerta is, unless conformity, accommodation and codes of conduct are, unless the virtues are strategic, personal and exclusionary. Make no vows, Jesus said, speaking to the deaf.