Ofermōd
Building a bridge across postmodern nihilism to nobility
This is about the American ruling class. Or, more precisely, about its absence.
It is about the battle at Maldon, England against Viking invaders, on the Tenth of August in the Year of Our Lord Nine Hundred and Ninety-one.
It is about postmodernism, and Gandalf’s showdown with the Balrog at Khazad-Dûm, and the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried.
It is about the dysfunction of Harvard University, and adult developmental psychology, and the Great Stagnation.
It is about the meaning of nobility, how we lost it, and how we can rebuild it.
It is about politics: who rules and how. It is a kind of politics you may be unfamiliar with. It is not about left or right, or about elections or policies or interest groups. I don’t think any of that matters much. Not in comparison.
My nobility arc includes this post, and several related ones.
This post is in two parts, of roughly equal length.
The first is an inquiry into the meaning of nobility. It is framed by the fateful decision of an aristocratic military commander, as told in an Old English poem. It applies the analysis to various examples, including Gandalf and Sam Bankman-Fried.
The second part is in three sections. The first explains how nobility was lost and forgotten. That was the result of the changing role of elite universities, and of the advent of postmodernity. The second section sketches the consequences for current social, cultural, and economic dysfunction. The third suggests ways we may regain nobility, as individuals and a society.
The first half is free; the second is for paying subscribers only.
Dateline: Harvard, 1981
My tale begins in a Harvard English class in 1981.
The modern era had just ended. Some say it expired in 1971. However, the death was unevenly distributed. I grew up in an artificially-preserved pocket of modernity. Then, as an undergraduate, I deliberately sought them out. One I found was a Harvard English Department class in Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature.
“Modernity,” in the relevant sense, was the era in which society, culture, and our selves functioned systematically. What we thought, felt, and did was structured by a meshwork of rational justifications and logical rules, rooted in unarguable foundations.
Or, so we believed, or said we did. Over several decades, that had became gradually unbelievable; and then suddenly so. “Postmodernity” is defined as the cultural condition of “incredulity toward grand metanarratives.” Those are the overarching structures of justification, such as Progress, Democracy, Science, and the Big Daddy Metanarrative of Western Civilization: Rationality itself. Those are no longer believable. (I wrote a brief history of this in “Systems of meaning all in flames.”)
“Postmodernism,” at its best, simply acknowledges that this happened, and for good reasons. There are no unarguable foundations, and one cannot fully justify beliefs or actions using rigorous rational rules of reasoning. That is sad; but simply true. And modernity’s arrogant, reckless overconfidence—its ofermōd—killed a hundred million people in the World Wars, and very nearly billions more in the Cold War.
Postmodernism, at its best, asks what we can do or be, usefully and enjoyably, in postmodernity. It even suggests some answers.
Postmodernism, at its worst, promotes false and wicked claims that progress is illusory; that democracy is impossible; that “science” is merely propaganda for elite greed; and that irrationality in support of the oppressed trumps facts.
By 1981, pomo had largely displaced the modern humanities curriculum at elite universities. Too much of it, increasingly much of it, was of the bad sort. And now, when I say that a “liberal arts” education in the humanities used to teach you how to think, younger generations flatly disbelieve me. Here I intend to explain how that worked.
In “A bridge to meta-rationality vs. civilizational collapse” (2016) I wrote that:
This scares me. Up until the 1980s, a university humanities department did teach you how to think—and it was the standard education for the ruling class. Since then, it has taught you not to think. What happens as people trained in postmodern anti-thought move increasingly into positions of power? Without an appreciation for administrative and technical rationality—much less the ability to deploy them personally—how can they lead governments, corporations, universities, churches, or NGOs?
Recently, major institutions seem increasingly willing to abandon systemic logic: rationality, rule of law, and procedural justice. Such systems lost credibility decades ago, and are under increasing cultural/political attack from the pomo-educated. But for now they are critical to maintaining civilization. Someone has to keep the machinery running.
Nine years on, this has come to a head. The state itself is dynamiting its own machinery. Not without reason; with maintenance neglected and deferred, it has rusted out. But no one has a plan for replacement.
Rewind to 1981.
I signed up for Professor William Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Language and Literature class for three reasons.
First, the English language was already my main medium for creative expression. As an engineer and artist, I wanted to understand better how the tools work.
I knew that learning the history of methods often gives greater insight than studying their current use. “Anglo-Saxon” is synonymous with “Old English,” its earliest known form, and that seemed the place to start.
I was wrong. Old English is so different from modern English that learning it gives nearly no insight.
Þá cóm of móre / under mist-hliðum Grendel gangan / Godes ierre bær mynte se mán-scaða / manna cynnes sumne besierwan / on sele þám héan
It’s much closer to the Scandinavian languages, particularly Icelandic, which is nearly Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. When I’d learned Old English, I found I could read and mostly understand an Icelandic newspaper.
Second, I had read that J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired and influenced by Anglo-Saxon myths, particularly Beowulf. I quoted four key lines from that just above. “Where did The Lord of the Rings come from, and how, and why” was, and remains, a deeply meaningful question for me. I got an answer to that in Professor Alfred’s class. It was not “from Beowulf,” although we did read that.
Third, I had heard that Professor Alfred was “an extraordinary teacher,” and I wanted to know what that could mean. He was; and that significantly shaped me, in ways I still struggle to understand. This is a newly pressing question for me, since I have recently officially become a teacher myself, and would like to do a decent job of it.
From an obituary:
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1922, Alfred was the son of a bricklayer and a telephone operator. He was educated in parochial school and went on to Bryn College, where “all the commonplaces of my life were smashed, and thank God for that.” He served in the Army tank corps in World War II and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1954, and that year joined its faculty.
Alfred, known to generations of Harvard students as simply “The Professor,” was a specialist in early English literature and taught a seminar on Beowulf described by former students as “legendary.” He was among the most popular professors ever to teach at Harvard.
And:
“I think preeminently he brought generosity of spirit and time to undergraduates… he extended himself in ways that I have never seen University professors do. His devotion to students was without parallel.”
“There was something saintly and hallowed about it. He was funny; he was Irish; he was eccentric. He dressed like a gentlemen. He was always very formal. He was an exceptional, exceptional person.”
I remember vividly the first day of class, not for Professor Alfred yet, but for the setting. I was a student at Harvard, but not of Harvard. I was a student of M.I.T.; but the two universities have a “cross-registration” agreement, so that students of each can freely take classes at the other.
This was the first Harvard class I took. There were six of us, seated in wooden armchairs around an ovate oaken table, surrounded by century-dark oiled wood walls, on the uppermost story of a stately temple of learning, its semilunate windows overlooking a green court.
It was the Isolate Tower of the Master Namer who teaches the Old Speech at the Roke School of wizards—nearly.
My enjoyment was somewhat marred by class consciousness. What was the message of this tastefully understated, carefully antiquated, evidently but not ostentatiously expensive decor?
"Plebeians would be overawed, intimidated into awkward silence, here. But you—you are of the elect. Having attained admission to Harvard, you can feel at ease amongst the appurtenances of the ruling class. You belong here; and belong strolling the halls of state, and seated in Fortune 500 boardrooms, and standing at the helms of yachts literal and figurative."
“Tacky,” I thought. “Trying too hard not to look nouveau-riche. Are Harvard students dumb enough to fall for such transparent flattery?”
Learning the systematic mode of being
A minimal prerequisite for elite status in modernity was mastery of systematic rationality—because that was the essence of modernity. As I wrote in “A bridge to meta-rationality,” this was as central to humanities education as in STEM education. It remains central in STEM (but for how much longer?). It is no longer central in the liberal arts.1
The essence of rationality is that you can be wrong. Unambiguously, unarguably, irrefutably, utterly wrong. Without that: no rationality, no systematicity, no modern world. STEM classes give you the felt experience of being wrong may times per day. It is only when that sinks into your bones that you can know what it means to do something correctly. “Doing it correctly” is systematic rationality, which is what keeps airplanes in the air and the electric lights on.
Being wrong is unpleasant. Many people cannot tolerate STEM classes for that reason. Postmodernism to the rescue! Nothing is absolutely true; therefore nothing is absolutely false. And so, in postmodernity, you can get a PhD in English, or sociology, or political science, without having ever had the experience of being wrong in your professional field. And so, you can be an expert—or a member of the ruling class—without knowing what it means to give a correct answer. Your understanding of “right” may be “vibing with fashionable sentiments”. Then “wrong” means “offending fashionable sensibilities.”
In postmodernity, the discussion of a poem might be about how it makes students feel. You can’t wrong about that! (Unless your feelings offend fashionable sensibilities; but you probably aren’t so clueless as to admit that.) Or, at a more sophisticated level, the task may be to find a hidden meaning. Probably the hidden meaning is “oppression”; where can you locate that? The more difficult it is to interpret the poet’s lament on the death of his girlfriend’s pet sparrow as propaganda for Imperial Roman colonialism, the more impressive your answer may be. It certainly isn’t wrong, however implausible it may seem to the uninitiated.
In modernity, you could be just plain wrong about a poem. Let’s begin with meter. Meter is what make a poem verse and not prose. It is a system of rules governing patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. In Latin, it is as precise and unyielding as mathematics. Meter in English is somewhat looser; a little nebulous at the corners. For the most part, though, it is unambiguous. The word “pattern” is a trochee: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. That means it is not an iamb (unstressed then stressed). To call “pattern” an iamb is just plain wrong.
So what? Well, metrical analysis is part of understanding how and why a poem works. It’s a gritty, geeky, rational, systematic part—and therefore disdained by refined souls in postmodernity. It was a critical piece of elite education in modernity. That’s not because rulership relied on metrical analysis. It is because rulership relied on systematic rationality, and metrical analysis is one way to learn what that means—just as much as learning Newtonian mechanics can be.
Meter forms the base layer of analysis. It is the most rigid one; a nearly pure level of pattern. In subsequent, higher levels you encounter the interplay of pattern and nebulosity.
“Why did the poet use this particular word here?” There can be no absolutely definite, correct answer—the matter is somewhat nebulous. But there are plenty of wrong answers. In modernity, you were expected to give a rational justification for your answer, not just a feeling. The professor might point out why your explanation didn’t work—so you were wrong.
And then, if you recognized that, you had learned something. Not just about that word, or that poem, or that author or era or genre of literature. You added a piece to your understanding of rationality, and what it means to be modern.
Let’s do an example… one that teaches not only what it means to be modern, but what it means to be noble.
The Battle of Maldon and the changing meanings of nobility
“The Battle of Maldon” is one of the great Old English poems. It recounts events during the Battle of Maldon in 991.
England had been regularly attacked by Vikings. They were uninterested in conquest; they wanted loot, tribute. If not given to them peacefully, they would ravage the land, slaughter the inhabitants, and sack cities. The English political leaders were unsure and divided whether to pay them off or fight them off. They’d tried both, and both were unsatisfactory.
On August 10th, Viking raiders, a party of several thousand men, landed on an island in the river-mouth at Maldon on the English coast. They were met by a much smaller English military force under the command of the eorl Byrhtnoth, whose name means “bright courage.”
It is central to events that the island was, and still is, connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway. (You can see it on a satellite map here.) It is submerged at high tide and revealed at low. A messenger of the Viking commander hailed Byrhtnoth from the island end, setting out the terms of the deal, and he replied from the other.
Byrhtnoth was not unsure how to deal with Vikings. Professor Alfred was a successful modern playwright, and taught theatre as well as Old English. I still hear Byrhtnoth’s response in Professor Alfred’s dramatic voice, speaking as the haughty noble lord to a contemptible social inferior:
Gehyrst þu, sælida, / hwæt þis folc segeð? Hi willað eow to gafole / garas syllan, ættrynne ord / and ealde swurd. sege þinum leodum / miccle laþre spell, þæt her stynt unforcuð / eorl mid his werode, þe wile gealgean / eþel þysne, folc and foldan. / Feallan sceolon hæþene æt hilde.
Do you hear, sailor, what these people say? They want to give to you as “tribute” spears, poisoned spear-points, and ancient swords. Say to your people a much more hateful message, that here stands a noble of unblemished reputation with his men, who will defend his homeland, people and ground. You heathens shall fall in the battle!
Then everyone stood around waiting for the tide to go out, eager for the fight. Or so the poem claims.
Finally, as the water ebbed, the first Vikings waded in and made their way onto the causeway. (It’s referred to as a “bridge” in the poem, but apparently the meaning of bricg included causeways at the time.) Byrhtnoth commanded three war-hard warriors to hold the bridge, who “steadfastly defended against the enemies, as long as they were allowed to wield weapons.”
The Vikings, who were not particularly looking forward to being cut down one at a time crossing, asked to be allowed to pass, so that there could be a fair and formal fight on dry land.
Then Byrhtnoth, in his ofermōd, agreed. The greatly superior Viking force came across, and killed Byrhtnoth and all his men (most of whom were conscripted farmers). Not, however, before the high-born among them had time to declaim noble speeches of loyalty, courage, and Christian faith, which take up most of the poem. Oh, and also, some cowards among them ran away, which was churlish.
So, now, the question is: was Byrhtnoth right to allow the Vikings across the bricg?
There are rational arguments on either side. For example, rationally, thousands of people died horribly and unnecessarily. On the other hand, rationally, paying tribute only leads to more demands for more tribute. And, if Byrhtnoth had successfully repelled the Viking force, they would, rationally, have sailed upriver a few miles and attacked again at another, less well-defended point.
But rationality had not yet reached England in 991. Rationality may help us understand what happened, and whether Byrhtnoth was right to let the Vikings cross by modern standards. It’s irrelevant to how he chose, or how that was understood by his followers, or by the poet.
And, rationality had in 1981 already conclusively failed as a comprehensive framework for answering questions of meaning.
So now there are two questions. First, there is the geeky historical and interpretive question: how would people hearing news of the battle have evaluated Byrhtnoth’s action in 991? Or when listening to the poem, composed shortly after the event, performed by a sceop, bard? What evidence can we find in the poem, and from our background knowledge of Anglo-Saxon culture, for the sense they would have made of it? This was the overt question asked by The Professor, as a teacher of Old English literature.
But there was a second, implicit question. What will you do, as a twenty-year-old preparing to join the ruling class, when you are in an analogous situation?
By what standard, if not rationality, could Byrhtnoth be judged?
The relevant standard is “nobility.” But which nobility?
Here there is a fascinating ambiguity in the poem: two contending conceptions of what it means to be noble.
The Anglo-Saxons had converted from Germanic paganism to Christianity three centuries earlier.2 However, many aspects of the pagan worldview persisted. That included an understanding of nobility as war-glory, courage in the face of certain death, and absolute loyalty to one’s lord and battle commander. A common and defensible reading of the poem is that it extolls Byrhtnoth’s noble courage, and the loyalty of his vassals.
The other conception of nobility is a Christian one, of putting the well-being of others above one’s own—especially if they are in your care. Slaughtering the enemy in battle is justifiable only when it is unavoidable, to prevent a worse outcome. Sending one’s own people to certain death for nothing more than one’s own glory is the height of churlishness. Is that what Byrhtnoth did? That is another plausible analysis of the poet’s intent.
The critical word here is ofermōd. (“Why did the poet use this particular word here?”)
“Ofer” is just our word “over,” and pronounced the same way. “Mōd” is pronounced like our “mode.” It is the ancestor of our “mood,” but has a more specific meaning. It’s something like “confidence” or “exuberance.” The meaning of the compound “ofermōd” is not clear, however. There’s only a handful of occurrences in the limited amount of surviving Anglo-Saxon text. In every other case, it is an epithet of Satan, which suggests a strongly negative connotation. In context, plausible translations are “overconfidence,” “arrogance,” “vainglory,” and “overweening pride.”
The association suggests the judgement that Byrhtnoth, like Satan, pridefully defied his Christian duty to his people, in pursuit of personal glory.
Tolkien wrote an epilogue to “The Battle of Maldon,” titled “The Homecoming of Byrhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” as a drama in verse. It’s probably my favorite of his works after The Lord of the Rings itself. It’s accompanied by an essay, titled “Ofermōd.” Both make a strong case that the unknown author of “The Battle of Maldon” shared Tolkien’s view that Byrhtnoth should be condemned. “Magnificent perhaps, but certainly wrong,” Tolkien said. Or, in the words of The Homecoming’s protagonist:
Alas, my friend, our lord was at fault, or so in Maldon this morning men were saying. Too proud, too princely! But his pride’s cheated, and his princedom has passed, so we’ll praise his valour. He let them cross the causeway, so keen was he to give minstrels matter for mighty songs. Needlessly noble. It should never have been: bidding bows be still, and the bridge opening, matching more with few in mad handstrokes. Well, doom he dared, and died for it.
And now, particularly if you have read my “You should be a God-Emperor,” you may be thinking of Nietzsche’s “master morality” versus “slave morality.” The pagan Germanic ideal of nobility corresponds to “master morality,” and the Christian ideal that was replacing it corresponds to “slave morality.”
I don’t know whether Tolkien ever referred to Nietzsche’s discussion, but this seems to have been a central personal problem for him. As a devout Catholic, he was committed to the superiority of the Christian conception, but he couldn’t help feeling the pull of the pagan one. It is plausible to read the whole of The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien’s way of working out the mixed feelings he expressed explicitly in “Ofermōd.” The same is true of his friend C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series: it’s meant to be a Christian allegory, but the pagan ethos is right below the surface.
Although Professor Alfred did not offer his own opinion, he too was a devout Catholic, and my sense is that he thought Byrhtnoth was in the wrong.
I don’t have any factual opinion about what the Maldon poet thought. However, I think the most interesting theory is that he too felt torn. His world, like ours, was in an uneasy transition between two very different worldviews, both unsatisfactory. (Modernity and postmodernity, in our case.) I would like to believe that—like Nietzsche, and like Tolkien—he was trying to somehow combine the very different pagan and Christian concepts of The Good.
And I think this struggle is what has made the poem compelling for readers in our time. “The Battle of Maldon” can teach us to allow the tension of ambiguity. When systems conflict, they may both be right and both be wrong, at the same time, and we must respect and acknowledge that.
And then… we must choose whether to hold the bridge. Noble meta-systematicity is not dallying with ideas for intellectual entertainment, or for competitive intelligence display. It promotes visible, creative, sometimes shocking beneficent action.
To hold the bridge
And so, what of The Lord of the Rings?
A turning point in the story, arguably the tale’s moral center, is Gandalf’s death in the Mines of Moria.
Orcs pursue the Fellowship of the Ring, led by the wizard, through the Mines of Moria—Khazad-Dûm in the Dwarven speech. Running for their lives, the companions reach Durin’s Bridge:
Suddenly Frodo saw before him a black chasm. At the end of the hall, the floor vanished and fell to an unknown depth. The outer door could only be reached by a slender bridge of stone, without kerb or rail, that spanned the chasm with one curving spring of fifty feet…They could only pass across it single file.
And then the Balrog joins the enemy: an asura of malice, shadow, and flame.
“Over the bridge!” cried Gandalf, recalling his strength. “Fly! This is a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the narrow way. Fly!”
The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.
“You cannot pass,” he said.
With a bound the Balrog leaped full upon the bridge. Its whip whirled and hissed.
At that moment Gandalf lifted his staff, and, crying aloud, he smote the bridge before him. The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand. A blinding sheet of white flame sprang up. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog’s feet it broke, and the stone upon which it stood crashed into the gulf.
With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it fell it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled about the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered, and fell, grasped vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss. “Fly, you fools!” he cried, and was gone.
Tolkien experts believe that this scene is a direct repudiation of Byrhtnoth’s allowing the Vikings to cross the causeway, resulting in the slaughter of his followers.
Tolkien reworked the Maldon scenario to meet his conception of nobility, combining the courage and loyalty of the pagan ethos with the Christian expectation of self-sacrifice. There are many hints that Gandalf’s sacrifice, death, and resurrection should be understood as parallel to those of Christ.
Is that what you would do in such a situation? Is it what you’d hope you’d do?
Bearing in mind that you are neither a wizard or an eorl, probably not a warrior, will never face a fire-demon, and resurrection is improbable? That you live in the actual world, not a fantasy novel?
Ofermōd and the fall of the house of FTX
As a recent actual-world example, consider Sam Bankman-Fried and his company FTX. Bankman-Fried was extensively influenced by, and involved in, the Effective Altruism movement. Effective Altruism (EA) is, in my judgement, a generally noble endeavor. Various pitfalls have marred its course, which FTX exemplifies.
It is noble to act effectively to improve the world. Effective action requires resources, among them money. Bankman-Fried created FTX, a cryptocurrency trading firm, to produce money to use for EA purposes. That was extremely successful—for a time—and FTX made enormous donations to EA institutions and other non-profits.
Three years in, FTX collapsed following reports of extensive financial fraud. FTX had misappropriated billions of dollars in customer funds, and used them for personal enrichment, charitable and political donations, and gambling. Much of FTX’s apparent financial success was either fake or due to getting lucky on a series of irresponsibly risky bets. Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives were convicted and jailed.
Bankman-Fried’s motivations were extensively analyzed in the press and blogosphere. They seem to have been mixed. In interviews, he justified his actions as in support of effective altruism; and therefore, in other words, noble.
Some consider stealing from the rich to give to the poor to be virtuous. It might be justifiable on utilitarian grounds. Is it wise or just? That is: is it noble?
In Bankman-Fried’s legal defense, he deflected blame onto other executives. Tolkien’s essay “Ofermōd” emphasizes that risking death for glory might constitute nobility, but risking harm to your subordinates in pursuit of your own glory never does. That is his greatest criticism of Byrhtnoth. His Moria scene shows the way:
“Over the bridge!” cried Gandalf, recalling his strength. “Fly! This is a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the narrow way. Fly!”
Overall, Bankman-Fried seems to have been afflicted with a dire case of ofermōd. He was ludicrously overconfident, arrogant, vainglorious, recklessly willing to risk everything for a mistaken conception of nobility.
This is a spectacular example, but you’ve probably done something structurally similar. It could be useful to remember one, or more, and reflect on whether and how you’d act differently now.
It’s also worth considering whether Tolkien’s attempt to synthesize two Medieval concepts of nobility seems realistic or useful for your situation now.
Many have criticized EA’s conception of altruism as inadequate, misguided, or even actively harmful. It descends from the traditional Christian one, and does not differ greatly from it. Is that now outmoded?
How Harvard forgot purpose
This section relates the history of the corruption of the elite universities, exemplified by Harvard. In short:
Harvard traditionally understood its purpose to be training the future American ruling class. In each era, it taught what it then thought nobility should mean for that class.
Then, as if absent-mindedly, it forgot to do that.
The tale has been told by many, so my version is brief.3 The aim is not history for its own sake, but to help us understand the present, and point toward better futures.
Unlike most versions, I neither blame nor praise postmodernism, but offer a balanced view of its central role. And I reject left/right culture warring, so there’s nothing about DEI here.
If you care about universities and their influence, the story may otherwise be familiar; so you may wish to skim, or skip ahead to the next section.
The end of the classical curriculum
For centuries, in the Western undergraduate educational model, everyone read the same fixed set of archaic books by Dead White Men. Preferably, in their original dead languages: Ancient Greek, Latin, perhaps even Old English.
Starting in the late 1800s, Harvard took the lead in replacing this “classical curriculum,” inventing the new modern system of subject majors and elective courses covering current knowledge. This seems to me an improvement. There are those who disagree, and make reasonable arguments that this was the first step down a slippery slope into current dysfunction.
The classical curriculum did teach both systematicity and nobility to non-STEM undergraduates. (As in my examples of poetic meter and the decision of Byrhtnoth.) Although I love many classic texts (which I did read in Greek and Latin), I don’t believe they have any special value. They could be replaced with recent literary and historical works that also teach systematicity and nobility. But that is mainly absent from the current humanities curriculum. And so mostly only STEM majors learn systematicity, and nearly no one nobility.
The modern tracked system of majors makes it possible to study particular subjects in greater depth. But this increasingly transformed university education from developing personal character into vocational training, even at the most elite universities. Most students go to Harvard to fit themselves into prestigious, highly-paid slots within existing institutions. They aim for rapid career advancement in routine finance, consulting, and technology jobs.
They don’t develop personal visions of better futures through broad study of the past and present. That is a foundation for nobility.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism swept through American humanities departments in the 1970s and '80s, largely replacing the modern curriculum.
Postmodernism is often considered difficult to understand, or just nonsense. There’s several reasons:
Its originators were at the edge of their own understanding, grappling with what might seem a vast demonic force.
They deliberately wrote obscurely, responding to counterproductive academic status incentives.
Understanding postmodernity requires a thorough understanding of modernity, which even many elite university undergraduates no longer achieve.
Its implications are inherently upsetting, and we’d rather not take them in.
Stripped of mid-twentieth-century French obscurantism: postmodernism is simply the realization that rational systems cannot deliver on their promises of certainty, understanding, and control. Modernity was built on the hope that they could, and therefore failed.
The postmodern realization is correct. Everything in the actual world is to some degree nebulous, and so there are nearly no absolute truths. This means that systematic modes of culture, social organization, and psychological functioning are inadequate.
The rest of this post is in three sections. The first, which we’ve just started, explains how nobility was lost and forgotten. It was a result of the changing role of elite universities, and of the advent of postmodernity. The second section sketches the consequences for current social, cultural, and economic dysfunction. The third suggests ways we may regain nobility, as individuals and a society.
What remains is about as much text again as you have already read. It is for paying subscribers only. I make most of my writing free for the benefit of all. I paywall some posts as a reminder that I deeply appreciate your encouragement and support. It’s changed my writing from a surprisingly expensive hobby into a surprisingly remunerative hobby (but not yet a real income).