Nobility

Nobility: Seek great stature of character by holding to the virtues and duties of a knight, realizing that though the ideals cannot be reached, the quality of striving towards them ennobles the spirit, growing the character from dust towards the heavens. Nobility also has the tendency to influence others, offering a compelling example of what can be done in the service of rightness.

"Holding on to virtues" seems old fashioned doesn't it? Isn't society more or less pluralistic now? Is there still room or right to influence others that your path is right? Aren't we beyond that? Isn't absolute morality outmoded?

Yes society has become pluralistic, every one disclaims that their truth is gospel truth, they just present their humble opinion. Don't misconstrue them they are not claiming to be right, just a possibility. Very tolerant isn't it?

Unfortunately, when some old fashioned folks make a stand they are declared wrong by people who can't even proclaim themselves right. Granted there are many megalomaniacs that bask in the glory of being "The One" but everybody can't be right. That ends up with contradictions being equally right and equally wrong.

To be noble in the sense of knighthood is to bravely face stigma when one stands for his rights, or rather one one stand's for what is right. People hide behind the legal to ease their conscience in what is moral.

Want to smoke pot legally? Move to a state that allows it.
Wanna score with a hooker? Go where it's legal.
Still a virgin? What kind of mutated freak are you?

You can be an underachiever and be "proud of it." You can be a school dropout and be "proud of it." You can be a bum that got lucky, struck it rich, score chicks, and find yourself crunked and be "proud of it."

But stand for right, respect women, your fellowmen, go to church, pray in school and you are declared a threat to democracy. Where's the justice?

Speaking of respect for women, there is nothing in the code of chivalry that assumes that women are the weaker sex. It may have been the practice of the times and even practiced by some knights, but chauvinism is not a by product of chivalry.

That is why to be noble is seen as funny. People imagine a prude, an inflexible person who has his head in the medieval ages.

But nobility goes beyond having it in your blood, it's having it in your soul. It's not selling out, it's doing what you believe in because you have always known it to be right. As much as that sounds like a Saturday cartoon, that is how things are. Or rather should be.

Without a stand we fall for the next fad and later research proves that to be wrong. Nobility is beyond rationalizing, it is based on an absolute morality. Whereas absolute morality is questioned because times are dynamic and that the original rational for the moral is no longer known, it does not invalidate the purpose of what was once a good practice.

Nobility is to stick to what is good as opposed to what is new, modern or in fashion.
If modern society truly respects a person's rights, then it shouldn't only be the right to mess up. It should include the right not to change as well and to change with what is better.