As a follow-up to a previous essay on the demise of noblesse oblige over the past few centuries, I have some thoughts on bringing it back in our own lives.
To recap: noblesse oblige (French for “nobility obligates”) is the old idea that those who with power, wealth, status, and prestige ought to do good to those with less. Much like chivalry, it has a deeply Christian character, captured by the words of Baltasar Gracian: “Tis the chief glory of the high and mighty to be gracious, a prerogative of kings to conquer universal goodwill. That is the great advantage of a commanding position—to be able to do more good than others.”
Noblesse oblige matters because it is the answer to the challenges of human inequality. However much we might want to believe that perennial hierarchies can be quashed by the feel-good pronouncement of egalitarians, nature is hard to overwrite, and nature is hierarchical. Rather than breezily wishing it away, the aim must be to moderate the potential excesses of hierarchy and cultivate its advantages. A culture of noblesse oblige reminds the powerful that their blessings are to be used for good and not for plunder—and it attaches prestige and honor to good conduct, shame and disgrace to bad conduct.
The ideal has been in severe decline in recent centuries, and we need it back. Everything is riding on it.
But simply calling for billionaires who are anything but noble to change their ways is folly. (I distinguish billionaire philanthropy from actual nobility—a subject for another essay.) Any real revival is going to have to start on a lower level: sensitive young men have to take it upon themselves to embody noblesse oblige, in whatever small ways they can.
The first step is to understand the twin aspects that make noblesse oblige such a powerful ideal: aspiration and generosity. This is about much more than just being nice or being a [EXPLETIVE] decent person or even just giving money away to this or that cause. It’s about 1) becoming as strong as you can be, as metaphorically noble as possible, and 2) proving your quality by helping others. These two—strength and help—are intertwined with a mutually reinforcing effect. A man’s strength and nobility grows with the help he gives to others, and his growing strength also provides him with more to give. As William the Marshal’s medieval biographer noted, “It is in the house of largesse that nobility is nurtured.”
I’m assuming that most readers don’t have millions—much less billions—of dollars to be doing good deeds with, like building beautiful churches and parks, or funding an Academy of St George, run by yours truly, where young learn the chivalric arts. (Please DM me if you do!) My aim is to offer more understated possibilities for all men of talent and enterprise, regardless of portfolio size. Most of these are things that I myself need to recommit to.
Francis: “You’re thinking of reopening [the mine]?”
Ross: “I’d do almost anything to help those poor devils from Wheal Reath.”
Francis: “You consider them your responsibility?”
Ross: “You don’t?!”
