The concept of loyalty in movies. An analysis of 'Interstellar' and 'Walk the Line' E-Book

Felix Zappe

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, Technical University of Munich (Carl von Linde-Akademie), language: English, abstract: This paper discusses various concepts of loyalty, mostly as depicted in Michael Sandel's 'Justice' and applies these concepts to the main characters of the movies 'Walk the Line'and 'Interstellar' and their actions. Starting from three slightly different opinions on what loyalty is, each of three groups discussed their approach with an excerpt of Michael Sandel’s “Justice” (pp. 234 – 243) and added significant layers to a process we could name ‘the loyalty check up’. After having gained this deep understanding of loyalty and its’ patterns, we applied to the excerpt of Michael Sandel’s 'Justice' to derive loyalty patterns and to understand what loyalty is based on and if this is just as a matter of fact.

Leseprobe

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Table of Contents

Table of figures

Part 1:  Basic understanding of “Loyalty”

Towards a definition of “Loyalty“

The inner hierarchy of loyalty patterns

The loyalty check-up

Part 2:  Loyalty in the movie “Interstellar”

Plot outline of “Interstellar”

The concepts of loyalty as applied by a selection of single characters

Cooper

Prof. Brand

Murphy

Amelia

Mann

TARS

Conclusion and further discussion

Part 3:  Loyalty in the movie “Walk the Line”

Plot outline of “Walk the Line”

The concepts of loyalty as applied by a selection of single characters

Johnny Cash

June Carter

Ray Cash

Conclusion and further discussion

Part 4:  Final comparison

Sources

Table of figures

Figure1: Attribution of loyalty patterns towards given reference cases and explanation (own depiction)

Figure 2: The loyalty Check-up process as derived in the seminar

Part 1:  Basic understanding of “Loyalty”

The following paragraph tries to summarize the basic understanding of loyalty as derived in the seminar on 5/23/15.

The outcomes of the seminar can be briefly summed up in the graphic the participants derived.

Starting from three slightly different opinions on what loyalty is, each of three groups discussed their approach with an excerpt of Michael Sandel’s “Justice” (pp. 234 – 243) and added significant layers to a process we could name ‘the loyalty check up’.

Towards a definition of “Loyalty“

An example for one of those opinions was a two layered approach where loyalty is related oneself (also known as integrity when acted out over several time or confidence in short terms of time) and to others. Loyalty here is understood as:

“[I – To yourself]: Sticking to your own given rules; [II –t o others]: Helping others, even in case of doubt.”

This definition holds some significant insight:

I: Loyalty to yourself means to apply a self-given set of rules and behaviour patterns to your actions. It also involves the assumption that you and your actions underlie only your own judgement. Neither instances nor people have any influence on that.

This definition of loyalty describes a special case, the loyalty to yourself, also known as integrity.

II: This definition describes loyalty in common understanding. It focuses on the fact that loyalty is applied to others by providing help in forms of guidance, aid or support etc.. It emphasizes that loyalty even can be applied when the providing person disagrees with the recipient’s actions or intentions but has a somewhat higher trust in his / her person.

What this definition lacks is of course a description what should be understood as “others” or who loyalty is applied to. This is a special topic as there are different kinds of people in terms of more outgoing or more introverted and it depends a lot on what kind of trust-bases people have to each other and how fast they can build them up.

The inner hierarchy of loyalty patterns

After having gained this deep understanding of loyalty and its’ patterns, we applied to the excerpt of Michael Sandel’s “Justice” to derive loyalty patterns and to understand what loyalty is based on and if this is just as a matter of fact.

Sandel proposes 3 different cases where loyalty is shown:

1. The former Unions’ General Robert E. Lee, who chooses somewhat patriot feelings for his confederate homeland over the fact that slavery is against his understanding of humanity and became the General of the Confederated Army during the American Civil War.

2. The case of the Bulgar Brothers, where a somewhat high ranked politician choose not to help the state to investigate against his brother, an evenly high ranked member of organized criminality. Over this the politician had to finally abandon his career.

3. The case of the Unabomber, where a brother helped to investigate against his brother, a notorious bomber that killed several innocent people. This went decidedly against the beliefs of the first mentioned brother and this ultimately leads him to help the investigation against the Unabomber.

These three cases have shown that there are different reasons why you can be loyal to something, furthermore referred to as (I) emotive, or being loyal as the result of an emotional bond to something, normally family, siblings or yourself; (II) virtuous; or being loyal as the result of a higher belief in a higher, non-tangible instance like home, humanity or religion; (III) normative or the loyalty to a set of rules agreed upon by an social entity such as people or community.

Arranging the mentioned cases leads to an understanding of these loyalty patterns as shown below.