Loyalty is nested: the unit that counts as us widens as the threat widens, and contracts again when it recedes.
Me against my brother, my brother and me against our cousin, all of us against the stranger. It states the structure of segmentary loyalty compactly: no level of the hierarchy is the real one, and which level is active depends entirely on who is currently outside.
In practice
- Two teams that fight over headcount all year present a united front the week the consultants arrive.
- A merger produces one company on the org chart and two the first time a budget must be cut.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation is nested loyalty: alliance is defined against whoever stands at the next level out, so the boundary of us moves with the threat rather than being fixed.
- In its favour
- The structure it names is documented in segmentary societies and recognisable in modern politics, where coalitions form and dissolve as the opponent changes.
- Against it
- It is a proverb without established provenance, widely quoted and rarely sourced, and it describes a pattern rather than predicting when a level will be activated.
- Standing
- Widely quoted and rarely sourced; the proverb is genuine and its date and provenance are not established. Compare asabiyyah, which gives the same observation a mechanism.
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- Proverbs that recur across cultures