Loyalty

I was thinking about the concept of loyalty as I was discussing with my friend about who should deserve to go on this glass plaque displaying honour roll participants.

Since this was a USP honour roll, he pointed out to me that there were brilliant people who had only taken 2 USP modules, nonetheless, they were still up on the honour roll.

I said that I would remove them, that they do not 'deserve' to be on this honour roll, that they righfully belong to other honour rolls, just not the USP one.

My friend that protested that this was a sign of elitism.

Then the conversation ended. I was bugged by this conversation since I've always been anti-elitism.

Is USP elitist? I would simply say that its different, as Science is different from Arts. There is no 'better' or 'worse' when it comes to different styles of education. I stray away from such direct value judgments, and would only think about efficacy depending on the specific contexts.

As for myself, I think its a loyalty issue, and how much individuals feel connected to the entire USP set-up. I've had the opportunity to go for some USP-sponsored programmes, and I've learnt a lot from there; in addition, I've become more integrated to the USP community over the past year, be it through the normal, everyday interactions, or through the participation of certain projects. Not to mention that I'm keep regular contact with the staff and administration - I guess I'm pretty much a USP denizen. I think about ways to enhance the community by thinking through projects, and since I'm starting one myself, I cannot divorce these pursuits from social, and emotional linkages. I feel a sense of belonging, but I would competely understand if other people don't feel the same way that I do, particularly if they are highly driven individuals who feel that USP is not their thing. But what I will not tolerate, and perhaps this is really what might upset people, is if these people continue to piggyback along the USP branding to add some nice stuff on their CV.

I think such activities hurt USP in the long run, in leeching resources that would benefit more deserving individuals who have given a lot of their time and energy to USP projects.

Now all of these are subjective, and prone to superficial value judgments.

Naturally, that means I'm in a bind: how do you include/exclude people from such a system, especially if there are no means of effective sanctions?

Very clearly, this is not an issue of elitism, but resource allocation and value judgements - how do you decide if one individual is more deserving than another?

I'll keep thinking about this at the back of my head.

For any institution, barriers will have to be drawn, boundaries clearly marked, in order to preclude the participation of non-contributing individuals - it has to be, or it'll be a tragedy of the commons problem.

Breaking down the term 'loyalty' as a social construct... hmm... collective effervescence...