Noblesse Oblige

The recent news that the Food Bank was running out of donations, both of food and money, started a conversation on the golf course the other day. While lamenting the sad state of affairs in our community vis-a-vis the poor and the hungry, one fellow commented that there were at least 500 millionaires living in North Bay. He suggested that if each of them kicked in a thousand dollars the Food Bank would be in a much more comfortable position for some time to come. The quick math shows that he is correct.

Considering that not all of these ‘millionaires’ believe in Noblesse Oblige, a term coined by Balzac, we might weed out a few of the paper millionaires, but that would still leave about a 100 of them to pick up the torch for the Food Bank. And even if these 100 stalwart citizens wrote a cheque for half the thousand, the Food Bank would breathe easy for a long time.

The question arises whether we still believe in that old concept of Noblesse Oblige. The bailouts of companies here and south of the border indicates that we, through our governments, now believe in Largesse Oblige as we use public funds to shore up private companies. I suppose our value systems have changed since 1837 when Balzac charged his young man with the idea of Noblesse Oblige. For one thing, our nobles have been thinned out and replaced by entrepreneurs and self-made millionaires. We also seem, for the large part, to be more concerned about ourselves than we are with the other person – at least until some major disaster strikes and we all pitch in to help.

That leaves the small disasters of family break-up, loss of jobs and homelessness to the people who run the Food Banks and the Soup Kitchens. The idea of Noblesse Oblige was not that only the wealthy of ‘nobility’ had an obligation to help the less fortunate, but that anyone who had the means should help others. It is one of the basic tenets of society. If our 100 millionaires have committed their Noblesse Oblige funds elsewhere, that leaves the 5,000 or so of the rest of us to write the cheques. Gee, even a cheque for ten dollars would go a long way if we all wrote them. Perhaps we ordinary folk will answer the call for a little societal Oblige – forget the Noblesse.