As algorithms divide us, who should we be loyal to?

An ethicist’s answer, shows we need courage and wisdom too.

Isaac Frisby

Isaac is a PhD candidate in Theology at Durham University and preparing for priesthood in the Church of England.

Three people sitting looking out over viewpoint are silhouetted against the sky.

Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash.

What is loyalty? As we plunge into this new year of 2025 it seems as pressing a question as ever. The war in Ukraine rumbles on, a fresh Labour government continues to struggle with public opinion, and America returns to the unpredictable rule of the first president in its history to be a convicted felon. The algorithms of social media continue to segregate and amplify different audiences into ever more closed feedback loops and echo chambers. This may bolster loyalty to a point of view, but estrange us further from our friends and neighbours whose loyalties lie elsewhere. All of these and many other cases highlight the conflict of loyalties in our society and wider world. What is even more obvious is that if we are to make peace, cultivate love for enemies, and pursue the common good, then perhaps the most in-demand virtue of 2025, at the top over every wish list, might just be loyalty.

But what really is loyalty?

I was struck by a persuasive answer given by Dr Tony Milligan, research fellow in philosophical ethics at King’s College London, during his appearance on a recent episode of The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4 that asked ‘is loyalty a virtue or a vice?’ He said loyalty is, “Sharing another person’s commitments and the willingness to go through various kinds of adversity in order to pursue those commitments and to further them.” Under cross examination and asked if loyalty is then an absolute virtue he responded, “I think that it’s absolute in the sense that we absolutely need to have it, that it’s basic to the human condition and not optional.” His second interrogator, Giles Fraser, then suggested a ‘high doctrine of mates’. In this doctrine you are loyal to your mates in all circumstances, even if they are ‘wrong-uns’. Dr Milligan’s response, when asked how he would characterise this ‘doctrine of mates’ position, was fascinating: “Addiction.” Fraser then asked if that addiction could be love. “It’s a case of love, and we don’t get to choose the people that we love. We find ourselves in the predicament and then try to make the best of it…I love my wife Susanne, I’ve been with her 31 years, and it’s love, and it’s also addiction. I just can’t envisage a world in which I would be without her.” This framed Dr Milligan’s final powerful point: love, and the loyalty which love entails, gives us our sense of value.

I can bear witness to the truth of Dr Milligan’s intertwining of love and loyalty. Last autumn I became a father for the second time. My love for my eldest is so great that there was a real question: ‘if my love for my eldest is so total, so all encompassing, how can I possibly love a second as much?’ This question melted away as I gazed into her screwed-up face, moments after she entered the world. I am completely dedicated to ensuring that she flourishes and I would “go through various kinds of adversity in order to pursue” her flourishing. As Dr Mulligan also said, loyalty “is basic to the human condition and not optional.” Of course, how this total and non-zero-sum loyalty of love to both of my children actually works in practice requires of me thoughtful negotiation. If one wants to go to the park and the other wants to go to the swimming pool I cannot split in two and do both things at once. Loyalty, as finite human beings, requires wisdom in living in the middle of a messy network of demands and desires, of the preferences and needs of others.

If loyalty is then one thing, it is the willingness to recognise that we are tied to other people, whether we like it or not. Cain’s question to God, when God came looking for Abel, is still pertinent: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Perhaps the greatest disloyalty is the implied ‘no’ in Cain’s rhetorical question. In denying that he is bound to his brother he is disloyal not only to Abel, but to himself because he denies his own humanity and isolates himself from the humanity of other people. If we isolate ourselves, having loyalty only to ourselves, we lose the joy of being fully human. If we simply kill those we dislike, whether literally (in war or murder) or metaphorically (‘unfriending’, cancelling, pretending they do not exist), then we follow Cain. Loyalty, as the tie that binds us to the messiness of the real world where people vehemently disagree all the time, requires not only wisdom then but courage also. It takes courage to commit to one person in marriage. It takes courage to raise a child. It takes courage to continue to talk with and to love those with whom you deeply disagree.

When practising our 2025 New Year’s resolutions let us make sure that amongst the commitments to get back to the gym and practice that new hobby that we remember to practice loyalty. Loyalty not only to those we love, but to those we might come to love. Let us be wise enough and brave enough to be fettered to those with whom we disagree, loyal to the humanity that binds us together.

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Development

Politics

25 February 2025

4 min read

Downsizing in DC undercuts the lives of millions in Nigeria

Nigeria’s Christian communities will bear the brunt of USAID’s demise.

Chris Wadibia

Chris Wadibia is an academic advising on faith-based challenges. His research includes political Pentecostalism, global Christianity, and development.

Patient wait in a street clinic beside a sign.

A health project clinic in Lagos, Nigeria.

Christendom, the global community of over 2.5 billion Christians living worldwide, has many geographical capitals. Nigeria, like the United States, is one of them. Upwards of 100 million people living in Nigeria identify as followers of the Christian religion. These Nigerians belong to Christian denominations like Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Baptist Christianity, and Pentecostalism. On 6 February the Trump Administration announced plans to downsize USAID, the US government agency that administers foreign aid. In 2023 it managed over $40 billion, and has played a significant role in delivering aid and development support in Nigeria for decades.

Nigeria has one of the world’s lowest levels when it comes to spending on social issues. Its government’s underspending has trapped tens of millions of Nigerians in horrific, inescapable mazes of poverty. The significant challenges Nigeria faces are well-documented -socioeconomic, geopolitical, and religious ones. The protracted and infamously bloodthirsty Boko Haram insurgency (headquartered in the northeastern corner of the country) has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Nigerians and displaced over two million people, disproportionately affecting vulnerable women and children.

Abandoned by the government, many Nigerians look to their ethnic communities, religious groups, and even other state’s agencies and charities for the support and solutions they require to survive.

In 2021 USAID commemorated 60 years of providing development assistance to Nigeria. Its historical activity has prioritised agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights, and governance, public health, and energy production. In just 2021, USAID provided Nigeria with more than $787 million in development and humanitarian assistance.

Whilst USAID support for Nigeria has historically been blind to religion, the Trump-led downsizing of development and humanitarian assistance for millions of people living in Nigeria will especially impact tens of millions of Christians, They struggle to lead lives in a country rife with Christian suffering that is ignored by powerful global actors with the financial, political, and military resources to intervene in substantive and peace-generating ways.

Southern Nigeria is disproportionately developed compared to the North. Lagos, the economic capital responsible for a third of Nigeria's GDP, sits in the southwestern corner. The south contains a majority of the leading private universities, many of which are owned and funded by Christian churches, and is home to Nigeria's largest international airport. Literacy levels among Christians in Nigeria dwarf literacy levels among Muslims, especially when compared to Muslims living in the religiously archconservative northern states.

The southern region of Nigeria has an appetite for development and the political will needed to implement an inclusive development vision that simply does not exist up north. Downsizing USAID activity in Nigeria will disproportionately affect Christians in Nigeria who for historical and contemporary reasons have been able to benefit from USAID assistance in ways developing themselves to help Nigeria compete in the global economy.

In the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant.

Muslims in Nigeria, if unbridled by extreme religious dogma, could just as easily undergo the processes of self-development needed to excel in 21st century economic marketplaces. However, as Nigeria's religious landscape stands today, tens of millions of Muslims simply lack access to opportunities to gain the education, training, and work experience that could unleash the full potential of the legendary Nigerian human capital famous globally.

Millions of educationally and professionally ambitious Nigerian Christians view their work in vocational terms. Inspired by scripture and theological resources like Catholic Social Teaching and the Pentecostal Doctrine of Prosperity, these Christians intentionally seek out educational and professional opportunities because they believe their faith in Christ commands them to provide for their households and invest into their communities. They believe contributions to their homes and communities double as offerings to God himself. For over six decades, USAID has administered development and humanitarian assistance in Nigeria in ways hugely benefitting millions of Christians ignored by their government.

Administering USAID aid in Nigeria has never been perfect. Bad actors, many of them government officials exploiting the authority of their offices, have stolen development funds intended for marginalized Nigerians and used it to fund their kleptocratic networks and lavish lifestyles. However, in the current 21st century geopolitical climate US-Nigeria relations are far more likely to become more rather than less relevant. USAID support provides a valuable source of American soft power able to win over the hearts of vulnerable Nigerians whose children might one day seize the reins of state power. It also continues the postcolonial project of assisting in the sociopolitical and economic development of the Giant of Africa.