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from Nobility
  • Maybe "nobility" isn't the right word for something that is available to all. In the historic sense, the word indicates a special class of people, elevated above the plebes. That kind of nobility (aka aristocracy) is by birth and very much not available as a free choice. (see Against Nobility )

Against Nobility

21 May 2025 - 09 Nov 2026
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    • I am not really opposed to nobility as a concept. I'm using David Chapman's definition: the intention to act for the benefit of others (or to "manifest glory", see below), coupled with the ability to actually do it. I'm all for that! Who could not be?
    • So the title is clickbait, I apologize. Nobility is fine, but there are aspects of Chapman's take that I don't like, or disagree with, or something. Disturbing things that get down to very elemental moral questions. Or make me question my own nobility or lack thereof.
    • Nobility is supposed to be something available to all:
      • Because nobility is an intention, it is possible for everyone. Everyone could be noble—and at times all of us are noble. It is not an accomplishment; it is a stance.
    • Lately the idea has morphed, it's now "the deliberately wise and just use of power". Which is also a hard thing to be against. The wise and just part of it at least. Power is a bit sus. Not everyone has the same level of power, so maybe now nobility is not quite available to all as it was before. Also that sounds...really different from "manifesting glory"? Maybe not. Maybe "power" here means something like personal mana or agency, which is not the same as social power.

    • Against aristocracy

      • The term nobility, despite Chapman's definitions, retains overtones of aristocracy. An aristocracy is a ruling class and nobility is part of its ideological self-justification. It takes nobility as the exclusive province of one social class, a quality closely associated with, if not identical to, wealth and status. If Chapman's goal is to promote nobility more broadly, these associations are unfortunate. The use of example sof fictional kings and aristocrats, and referring to the ignoble as "coerls" or churls, does not help.
      • It's a bit of grim irony that Phil Agre, Chapman's partner in the situated action rebellion, was a vocal anti-aristocracy:
        • From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy.
      • The relation and possible decoupling of aristocracy and nobility was floated by Peter Sloterdijk:
        • the spiritual chances which still fascinate us as the higher and highest possibilities of human beings: these include a non-economic definition of wealth, a non-aristocratic definition of the noble, a non-athletic definition of high achievement, a nondominatory definition of ‘above’, a non-ascetic definition of perfection, a non-military definition of bravery and a non-bigoted definition of wisdom and fidelity.
          • what was he getting at? Ask Claude
            • Sloterdijk's argument in You Must Change Your Life is essentially a democratization of excellence through practice. The list of redefinitions in the quote is doing a specific structural move: each item detaches a quality from the social institution or class that has historically monopolized it.
            • The core idea: the central notion of You Must Change Your Life is "vertical tension" — man is always subject to the tension between elevation and regression, between "excellent" and "mediocre," and is called toward living a nobler, more elevated life.
            • But crucially, Sloterdijk wants to sever that vertical aspiration from its traditional carriers.
            • He is shifting from a theory of class society — with vertical differentiation through dominance, repression, and privilege — to a theory of discipline society, with vertical differentiation through asceticism, virtuosity, and achievement.
            • So "a non-aristocratic definition of the noble" means: nobility as a quality attained through practice and self-transformation, not inherited through blood or class position. The same logic runs through the whole list — wealth redefined away from money, achievement away from athletic competition, "above" away from domination, perfection away from self-denial, bravery away from violence. Each concept is rescued from the institution that has traditionally claimed exclusive ownership of it.
            • He imagines that only self-mastery is what matters to human beings — that the training of the self is more noble and satisfying than control over others.
            • Sloterdijk is an elitist in the sense that he insists some human beings dare to be extraordinary while most do not — but he is read as avoiding Nietzsche's strong social anti-egalitarianism.
            • Where Nietzsche's aristocrats define themselves against slaves and need a social hierarchy to do so, Sloterdijk's "noble" is anyone who takes up the practice of self-transformation. The nobility is real, but it's earned and open — not a birthright or a ruling class.
            • This maps directly onto your concern about Chapman: Sloterdijk is pointing at exactly the decoupling you want. The vertical dimension (some ways of living are genuinely higher than others) doesn't have to be justified by or confined to a hereditary class. The nobility of kings and churls is a contingent historical packaging of something that could in principle belong to anyone who does the work.

    • Manifesting glory

      • The (early) definition of nobility is not just doing good, it's rather more specific.
        • Nobility is the aspiration to manifest glory for the benefit of others.
      • I do not know what that really means
        Probably not "a nice knock-down argument" Chapter VI: Humpty Dumpty
        , which makes me suspicious. It sounds somewhat like the charismatic radiance suggested by aristocratic rank. The king manifests glory, the nobleman at the head of his army manifests glory. Churls, almost by definition, do not. For a churl to have the opportunity to manifest glory, a democratic revolution is required.
      • Artists and public performers are also in the glory-manifesting business. Any good showman has to be able to do this, to attract an audience. It's a trite observation that "celebrities" are what America has instead of an aristocracy, they fill the same spiritual role, and they function as leaders because people pay attention to them.

    • Nobility as a skill

      • I think this is a core part of Chapman's stance. It's something you do, and you can learn to do it better. I'm not sure how that works, and even less sure if it can be taught. It seems like the kind of thing that can only be approached via obliquity. Perhaps you can't aim at nobility, it is not the sort of thing one can strive for. Talking about it just makes it into an achievement, a rank, a form of snobbery.
      • OTOH, if it can be learned, there is almost a moral obligation to learn it.

    • Better words for nobility

      • I am partial to the Yiddish term mensch, although I'm not sure that captures exactly the same nuances. A rough English equivalent would be "stand-up guy". Like nobility, it is something available to all. It bespeaks of character, integrity, and genuine concern for others. Someone who can be relied upon, and someone to whom right action comes naturally.
        • mensch: Someone of consequence; someone to admire and emulate; someone of noble character...It is hard to convey the special sense of respect, dignity, and approbation that can be conveyed by calling someone “a real mensch.”
          • – Leo Rosten The Joys of Yiddish
      • It has no aristocratic connotations but is unfortunately gendered. Too bad! In my experience women often are more menschy (responsible, brave) than men.
      • There's no word that directly replaces "nobility"; "menschness" is not a thing. Hm so in that way it is worse than nobility as a concept, in the sense that it sounds even more like something you are (or aren't) by nature, a quality of character, rather than a stance you can achieve or develop.

    • The opposite of nobility

      • Chapman uses "churlishness" to denote anti-nobility since he's using medival class system as a metaphor. I don't particularly like that, although it captures a few important things: ingratitude, lack of ambition, selfish low-rent hedonism.
      • There's no single perfect opposite term in Yiddish for mensch, just a wide variety of no-goodnik types. I would choose gonif, which literally means thief – someone who cannot be trusted. Churl might be best matched by schmuck or shnook, a nobody with little power.

    • Role Models and Imprimers

      • "Nobility" is an abstraction, but people who seem to embody it in some way, those become role models in a very real and concrete sense. This is how nobility replicates – along with probably everything else important, but especially so for nobility. There's a transmission from person to person, it's not available in books.
      • The term has become too trite, but try to see it afresh. They are called role models because they are enacting a drama and we want to somehow copy them, to be like them. Minsky uses the term imprimer to mean something similar, but he focuses on the emotional attachment that forms the necessary framework for learning.

    • Donald Trump as the opposite of nobility

      • Here's a thought: in a normal democracy, all parties engage in something which we might dub nobility-signalling (whether or not actual nobility is involved). They want the voters and the public to believe that they are wise, strong, courageous, and have the welfare of all at heart. This can take many forms of course. Ronald Reagan did not appeal to me at all, but his version of nobility signalling was legible at least.
      • The terrifying thing about Trump and the Trump era is that this has completley broken down. Turns out you don't need to signal nobility. Trump is basically the opposite of nobility in every dimension, he signals this loudly, and what do you know, it gets him elected. This has thrown everybody else off their game; nobody knows how to deal, and it is really an open question whether democracy can survive this revelation of the power of anti-nobility. The Democrats have a big opportunity as the sole remaining holders of the ability to convincingly nobility signal, although they will probably blow it.
      • Another thing about Trump: he breaks the noble/churl dichotomy by having the tastes and goals of a churl but the power of an aristocrat, due to wealth and some kind of demonic charisma.

    • The nobility of software engineers

      • tl;dr: nobility is proposed as the solution for the ills of the tech industry and through them, society more broadly. This rubs me the wrong way for political/moral reasons, I get mad at Chapman but feel apologetic about it. I feel this is a good test case for nobility, but for me it fails, it is not the right concept to fix the problems we face.
      • Software has eaten the world, as prophesied... Software engineers have gained enormous power outside our own discipline—probably so more than any other class... Software engineers are making civilization-level decisions. We aren’t trained for that, and often act unwisely or unjustly. Nobility—the deliberately wise and just use of power—is the missing ingredient.
      • Or to simplify even further, software engineers have enormous power and should learn to wield it well. Can't argue with that! The question is whether the concept of nobility is going to help.
      • This put me in mind of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, which was attempting to do exactly what Chapman is calling for. Although I don't think the participants in that would think of it as "nobility", more like doing a civic duty (more menschy than noble, now that I think of it). CPSR was explicitly social, nobility is an individualistic concept, even if it purports to be for the benefit of all beings. Social responsibility sounds kind of drab and boring, nobility is exciting. CPSR was leftish, nobility is kind of right-coded.
      • I find this essay goes glaringly wrong at one key point:
        • For example, it appears now that Musk’s DOGE effort has been a failure at its stated mission, and to have wreaked enormous damage—including to the science and engineering research efforts that his own career was based on. What happened?
        • I would guess ofermōd: overconfidence and lust for glory. Those are the common failure modes of nobility, according to Tolkien. Musk wanted to be the man who fixed America.
      • This is alarmingly naive. Musk had no intention of fixing American government he wanted to destroy as much of it as possible while stealing data. I mean he was videoed waving around a chainsaw, it's not like this was hidden. He's not "overconfident", he's a bullshit artist like Trump. I went off on Chapman in his comments, for, I guess, being insufficiently anti-fascist, or trying to pull off being non-partisan at a time when true nobility required the opposite. Or something.
        • Comments - Software engineers are eating the world
          • This series on nobility is generating many thoughts; I'm assembling them into a page of my own (which may or may not end up published) so as not to overburden your comments. But the more you touch on actual politics, the more angry and upset I get. I'm trying to deal with that, I am not at all sure how to express it or whether I should express it. I have no standing to lecture you on matters of morality or politics, but feel compelled to nonetheless.
          • You are, I think, trying to avoid base-level partisan politics, for good reasons (it is often dull, emotional, and ignoble). Yet this is what is happening in the world, and you can't avoid invoking it by mentioning figures like Marc Andreesen, a very visible and vocal Trump supporter. In this base world, we are in the midst of a fascist takeover which threatens the fundamental structures of a free and open society -- the rational systems by which we operate. The defunding of Harvard may be the most salient recent example but there are many others. This is real! This is what power in the real world is doing right now! And it will be stopped only by an opposing power. This is the real political situation and if nobility is the wise use of power then it has to figure out what side of this battle it is on.
          • I may have a different interpretation of nobility than you, but in my mind it is incompatible with fascism. Fascism is definitionally not for the benefit of all, it is for the benefit of a particular group at the expense of outsiders. The Trump regime is about hurting people – trans people, immigrants, foreigners, government workers, scientists. It likes to pretend to nobility though. Donald Trump in particular, in his person is an avatar of ignobility, lacking all aspects of the wisdom and character. But he like gold leaf and parades.
          • In my mind, a minimum qualification for nobility in our current real-world situation is being opposed to this authoritarian takeover. Andreesen, whatever his merits as a software engineer, investor, or writer of manifestos, vocally supports Trump and so is off the nobility list.
          • These considerations block (for me) consideration of the more interesting point of this post, about the possible role of software engineers in exercising wise political power. Andreesen is a singularly bad example. Aside from his support of Trump, he and his firm are heavy backers of cryptocurrency, which I'm guessing you would agree is not a particularly beneficial use of software.
          • Sorry to be so negative, but you can't talk about politics without dealing with this kind of stuff. I like that you mention Stewart Brand, who (while not a software person) I think of an avatar of nobility in the sense of hacking systems for the greater good. Who are some software engineers who exhibit nobility? Terry Winograd comes to mind. A weirder example: Richard Stallman. Not a particularly pleasant or attractive person, but he actually did lead a major software policy hack with great positive (IMO) social implications.
        • And a followup
          • ... It should not have taken much wisdom to know that aligning with Trump was a bad idea. A very tiny amount of nobility would have sufficed. How much metarationality does it take to not entrust the country to a convicted conman? One thing you can say about Trump, he is pretty much exactly as advertised, so the people who support him are not doing it out of mistaken belief, they know what they are getting.