alty leave off and jingoism begin? You come on all
patronizing when I talk about being loyal to the Tribe, and you're certainly not
loyal to V/DT, nor are you loyal to Jersey. What greater purpose are you loyal
to?"

"Well, humanity, for starters."

"Really. What's that when it's at home?"

"Huh?"

"How do you express loyalty to something as big and abstract as 'humanity'?"

"Well, that comes down to morals, right? Not doing things that poison the world.
Paying taxes. Change to panhandlers. Supporting charities." Fede drummed his
fingers on his thighs. "Not murdering or raping, you know. Being a good person.
A moral person."

"OK, that's a good code of conduct. I'm all for not murdering and raping, and
not just because it's *wrong*, but because a world where the social norms
include murdering and raping is a bad one for me to live in."

"Exactly."

"That's the purpose of morals and loyalty, right? To create social norms that
produce a world you want to live in."

"Right! And that's why *personal* loyalty is important."

Art smiled. Trap baited and sprung. "OK. So institutional loyalty -- loyalty to
a Tribe or a nation -- that's not an important social norm. As far as you're
concerned, we could abandon all pretense of institutional loyalty." Art dropped
his voice. "You could go to work for the Jersey boys, sabotaging Virgin/Deutsche
Telekom, just because they're willing to pay you to do it. Nothing to do with
Tribal loyalty, just a job."

Fede looked uncomfortable, sensing the impending rhetorical headlock. He nodded
cautiously.

"Which means that the Jersey boys have no reason to be loyal to you. It's just a
job. So if there were an opportunity for them to gain some personal advantage by
selling you out, turning you into a patsy for them, well, they should just go
ahead and do it, right?"

"Uh --"

"Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question. Jersey boys sell you out. You take
their fall, they benefit. If there was no institutional loyalty, that's where
you'd end up, right? That's the social norm you want."

"No, of course it isn't."

"No, of course not. You want a social norm where individuals can be disloyal to
the collective, but not vice versa."

"Yes --"

"Yes, but loyalty is bidirectional. There's no basis on which you may expect
loyalty from an institution unless you're loyal to it."

"I suppose."

"You know it. I know it. Institutional loyalty is every bit as much about
informed self-inter