Eric Felten

Eric Felten’s newest book is a witty, provocative, story-filled inquiry into the indispensable virtue of loyalty—a tricky ideal that gets tangled and compromised when loyalties collide (as they inevitably do), but a virtue that is as essential as it is impossible.

A prize-winning culture columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Felten illustrates the push and pull of loyalties—from the Ancient Greeks to Facebook—with stories and scenarios in which would-be moral trump-cards clash, locking the unlucky in painful ethical dilemmas.The foundation of our greatest satisfactions in life, loyalty also proves to be the root of much misery. Can we escape the excruciating predicaments when loyalties are at loggerheads? Can we avoid betraying and being betrayed?

When looking for love and friendship—the things that make life worthwhile—we are looking for loyalty. Who can we count on? And who can count on us? When is loyalty right, and when does the virtue become a vice? These are the essential (and uncomfortable) questions loyalty poses.

As Felten writes in this thoughtful and entertaining book, loyalty is vexing. It forces us to choose who and what counts most in our lives—from siding with one friend over another to favoring our own children over others. It forces us to confront the conflicting claims of fidelity to country, community, company, church and even to ourselves. Loyalty demands we make decisions that define who we are.