0 the idea that someone with power and influence should use their social position to help other people --
They generally supported an activist government and state intervention in the marketplace, and their policies were marked by "noblesse oblige", a paternalistic responsibility of the elites for the less well-off.
There was also a sense of noblesse oblige.
Some conservatives lamented the passing of a pastoral world where the ethos of "noblesse oblige" had promoted respect from the lower classes.
Noblesse oblige was their belief that it was the elite's "duty" to take care of society.
But it always seems to me to show a lack of noblesse oblige not to pay attention to people who are not politically organised.
If professional people or those with high incomes do not believe in noblesse oblige, they ought at least to listen to sagesse oblige.
Perhaps its sense of noblesse oblige does not quite square with the parvenu erstwhile direct grant schools, which are trying to gain status from the scheme rather than anything else.
It has a tradition of noblesse oblige.
