Eyes Wide Shut: The Temptation of Blind Loyalty

Marveling at his supporters’ enthusiasm during his 2016 election campaign, Donald Trump once proclaimed, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters.” Trump’s assertion acknowledged a consequential feature of the human psyche: At high levels, the soothing light of conformity becomes blinding.

Thought experiment: Would you want supporters who would back you even if you murdered someone? This is a tricky question to answer because we all crave unconditional support on some level. Receiving others’ blind loyalty makes us feel safer (I will not be deserted) and more powerful (my people will do anything for me). We know, too, how blindly loyal followers can exert real power in the world, as those who lack doubt, restraint, or reflection can charge as one, fast, and with full force.

We also know the allure of being totally faithful and obedient to someone ourselves, the relief that comes from shedding the heavy burden of responsibility, from numbing the sharp pain of doubt. We know the elation of going all in. As the notorious Nazi murderer Adolf Eichmann put it, “Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think.”

On the other hand, we also understand that blind loyalty can be harmful and destructive (see Adolf Eichmann). To paraphrase the artist Banksy, the gravest crimes are committed by people who are obeying rather than breaking rules. It is no coincidence that bad guys in movies are often robotic, blind followers, or leaders demanding blind obedience.

Most of us realize that being surrounded by ‘yes people’ will result in stagnation and losing touch with the truth. We realize, too, that placing loyalty above all other considerations, such as integrity and honesty, creates problems. (Should we regard a favorite politician with the same admiration after they have lied?). We know that groups of blindly loyal people often turn quickly from a lively audience to a rowdy crowd to a destructive mob. We are inherently ambivalent about blind loyalty, at once craving and dreading the power it affords.

This ambivalence is not a bug in our software but a feature of the hardware, a default existential condition. We regularly entertain two opposite emotions or desires regarding the same object, person, or situation. Religious people both love and fear God. We are both happy and sad upon graduation. We look forward to and dread the birth of a child. Repulsive stuff attracts our attention. Movie bad guys both fascinate and repel us. As Freud noted, Eros (the God of love) and Thanatos (the God of death) compel us in equal measure. The force fields of ecstasy and oblivion are entwined within the core of our humanity.

Becoming aware and accepting of—rather than denying or fearing—this ambivalence is crucial for our ability to reflect on and appraise ourselves, our relationships, and our circumstances accurately. In acknowledging our inherent ambivalence, we become whole and more fully human. Yet this is no easy task. There’s often irritation in the awareness of ambivalence, as it prevents us from enjoying the comfort of certainty, undermines our desire for the balm of all-knowingness, and defies our fantasies of purity and perfection. Yet a failure to acknowledge and honor our ambivalence constitutes a flight from both truth and humanity. A leader who can do no wrong in his followers' eyes is unlikely to do the right thing. A leader who believes he's infallible possesses an inaccurate belief, not infallibility. And the costs of that are high. Human history is replete with reminders of the carnage—often in the forms of self-delusion, cruelty, and violence—that tends to follow our descent into blind loyalty, dogmatic proselytizing, absolute conviction, and unquestioning faith. And history, we are presently reminded, has a habit of repeating itself.