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During some time periods nobles were terrible yes, especially right before the revolutions. Before that though they contributed to art, religious theory and knowledge. The Renaissance and the enlightenment both directly came from noble classes pursuing knowledge, and at least in the case of Alexander vin Humboldt and Darwin, they claimed that giving back and helping society were a strong motivation.
From a consequentialist point of view even if they didn’t care they drastically improved the lives of peasants over the long run.
Anachronistic justification. They didn’t think their station in life was justified by scientific, philosophic or artistic accomplishments. When they dabbled in those things, it was more often as patrons than practitioners.
Not nobles: erasmus, spinoza, leonardo, luther, shakespeare.
How are nobles responsible for the renaissance and the enlightenment?
Maybe I’m just romanticizing the past, fuckduck. I’m simply deeply disappointed in the political class of today.
Indeed Dag, that would be my guess. Alhough I can’t entirely exclude the hypothesis that the french education system did such a great propaganda job on me that rolling back the revolution seems inconceivable. Clearly peasants now are better off, but it's hard to disentangle that from technological progress. That leaves us with concurrent societies and, all else being equal, imo societies with entrenched blood-based 'sword aristocracy' didn't do well against more liberal competitors (best example being india).
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