"At the root
of every form of fidelity is a commitment. Whether it's
friendship or love - marital fidelity is a typical example here - or in
the oath of allegiance of a vassal to his lord, one only can strictly
say that a person is faithful, or unfaithful, if this person
has previously committed to a promise or a certain consistency.
It may be that
this commitment is implied, such as friendship, which can also be a
source of misunderstanding.
The fidelity
commits to the future, so it may take the form of a promise or
an explicit oath, that is to say things which by definition may be, as
we say, betrayed. Note carefully that
this is not a secondary characteristic or "accidental" fidelity: it is
precisely because we can never be absolutely sure that it will respected
that the commitment of fidelity have its own meaning. Fidelity is
constantly to be confirmed and can permanently, or at least regularly,
be broken, and one misstep is enough here: fidelity is total or is not.
Therefore,
fidelity in its original form, that is to say when there's fidelity to a
person, is based on thetrust of this person and, as
trust, is usually reciprocal, at least "officially". Some push it
very far actually : in the New Testament, Jesus says that "whoever
looks at a woman lustfully has already committed in his heart, adultery
with her. "(Gospel of Matthew,
5, 28). In another sense, the
so-called "faithful" to a particular religion commits himself, to
himself that he considers as a person to what he regards as a person,
except that the "person" in question is a deity. Note that "infidelity"
takes a peculiar shape. 
It is therefore
required, to be faithful to what we pledged. Some couples
- some would say modern, depraved would say others - agree on a mutual
consent of adultery, a sort of "polygamy" mutually consented, and no one
can be therefore be described as infidel, whatever that we also think
of their conduct. There is infidelity if
there's a break-up of commitment, and a betrayal of trust
given by the person to whom it has been promised to be faithful.
It's
different for the second form of fidelity: the one which is not wpmmited
to a person but to values, morals or politics, for
example. What, then, in this case,
the infidelity? It can be either the
recognition of a mistake or of a bad choice in the initial commitment of
fidelity, and sometimes is done in favor of a commitment towards new
values, either a "lurch" which should then be regretted. The first
case can be illustrated by the political activist who leaves his party
for another, the second by an ecologist who, through laziness and for
once, throws his glass in a bin not provided for this purpose.
If this
second case can be compared to someone's infidelity, although perhaps
less severe, the first shows that there is little sense to commit to be
faithful forever to a cause or values. That would
mean to give up the freedom to think - and more specifically to change
mind - and if one wants to be faithful no matter what happens, the risk
of one day being so, without sincerity: if one must be consistent in his
values, not because they committed in the past to be faithful
to them, but because they are worthy of being followed.
We can then
note that "being faithful to ourselves" may not really mean anything
else than having a life, a behavior entirely coherent with his
thoughts, even if, because of changes of mind, coherence involves
changes in life or behavior, including frequent. Thus the
member of a sect that, in an unguarded moment, or after careful
consideration, has pledged to be faithful to his guru forever and who,
become lucid, regrets and breaks this commitment can be considered
unfaithful to this guru, but not to himself, on the contrary,
it's by staying faithful to his guru that he would have become
unfaithless to himself. Here appears again the
delicate problem of the relationship between fidelity and freedom: how
to commit to be faithful, in any way, without abdicating freedom?
Who can say he
will never think that the commitment of allegiance he took was a
mistake, even a "mistaken identity"? But if we
admit that we are wrong about people as on values to
whom we have pledged to be faithful, can we not conclude that the only
fidelity that we should engage to, and the only one actually, is
fidelity to ourselves? "
From
http://philo.pourtous.free.fr/index.htm MA
