We navigate a complex web of alliances and entanglements, in the end hoping to land on solid moral ground.  It will rarely be easy, but here’s a little of what I’ve learned to help guide you…

Let’s think about our allegiances, and where those lie.  More specifically, about how we decide where to place them.      

Over the last few days you’ve no doubt come to your own conclusions about the character of Vladimir Putin, and it’s not likely you’ve decided that he’s a good guy.  So what’s Leo doing having a friendly conversation with this man in the photo above?  Let me preface by saying that the effect of these and other engagements was a very positive result.  DiCaprio and others acted entirely appropriately at the time, bringing forward their concerns about a terrible injustice under way in Russia then, and they are to be commended.  But, surprisingly, a big part of what led to a positive outcome was the personal beliefs held by Putin himself, and this is where the story gets strange.

Late in 2019, many of us in the world of cetacean advocacy were appalled by the conditions in which 97 orcas and belugas were being held at a facility that had by then become known as the ‘whale jail’.  The whales had been captured in Russian waters, with the intent that they be sold to marine parks abroad, primarily in China.  With winter closing in, the whales were held in tiny sea pens at the Pacific coast of the Okhotsk Sea, about 7,000 km east of Moscow.  Timely intervention was needed or it was feared that most or all wouldn’t survive.  An impressive number of Russian citizens had also expressed support for their immediate release.

Russian authorities had already taken excruciatingly longer than was prudent to initiate any kind of decisive action.  In the end, it was only after Putin became personally involved in the order that led to their eventual release that these nearly 100 captives got any kind of real help.  Then, late last year, Putin publicly announced that he would support efforts to permanently ban whale and dolphin captures.  We now have good reason to hope that Russia has been closed off as a source of supply for the cetaceans confined and forced to perform in the world’s aquariums and marine parks.  This would be a big win, there would be more justice in the world, and this man would have had a not-insignificant part in making it happen.  

I’ll leave it to future historians to try to untangle this paradox.  Or perhaps future social-psychologists.  How odd that a man so completely devoid of any concern for the ideals of justice, honor or valor could nonetheless recognize the need to act to bring about these very things when it applies to another species.  We’ve learned from our studies of history’s perpetrators of violent crime that one of the best predictors of violence against other people is the display of cruelty to animals, often when the future criminal is still a youth. Yet here we are.  Justice and compassion for whales, none in evidence for his fellow men and women.     

We are, each of us, flawed creatures who nonetheless can achieve things of enormous value.  The sum of our lives at the end will depend on the multitude of choices we make between now and then.  Very few of us will land at one end or the other of the continuum of good vs. bad, but rather somewhere on it.  We need to take responsibility for ourselves.  And we have very little control over what others will decide.

Given that, how do you decide with whom you will form your allegiances?  

My short answer is, if we’re talking about aligning yourself unconditionally with any person or group – don’t.  Retain your sovereignty.  Work with people who share your values on a particular issue, your enthusiasm for a given enterprise, or a passion for a specific project.  The world is built on collaboration, today more than ever.  Then move on.  I’m not saying people will always disappoint you in the end – not at all.  I’m saying that you don’t control all the choices they’re going to make, so be very careful about assigning a label to yourself which will then let somebody else speak for you.

You may have had a time in your life when you associated very deeply with some particular party, system of thought, or ideology.  Years later you find that you, and they, have landed of opposite sides of an issue that is of fundamental importance to you.  I speak from experience.  Perhaps your thinking has changed, or perhaps theirs has.  Either way your allegiance will not have best served you.

That means we need to reject a number of things.  Partisanship.  Party Loyalty. Nationalism.  In fact, any type of tribalism is toxic and won’t contribute to your life anything other than a vague sense of belonging.  

Better to join communities of ideas.  Common purpose.  A specific mission you join with others to seek and bring about.  Try to judge the quality of ideas rather than their source. 

You don’t need to be onside with everything in the party platform.  If you’ve retained the right to think for yourself, I can guarantee you that there will be something in there that you can’t abide.  I’ll even urge you to mistrust the labels other people allow to be attached to themselves.  These can make you much quicker than you ought to be to believe you know everything you need to know about them, or to anticipate where they stand on a any given issue.  

Lastly, when it comes to country, patriotic means you love your country and will fight to protect it and to make it better.  Nationalism is something else altogether, and dangerous.  It can quickly take you to ‘my country right or wrong’.  We’ve been there historically, and it ain’t good for any of us.  

Pledge your loyalty to principle over pragmatism, and make your allegiance to ideas.

For The Orca’s Voice, 

Chris, Canadian Cetacean Alliance