For a moment, let’s forget about knights in shining armor. History and fantasy have their place, but we need something more substantial for our lives. Otherwise, Chivalry-Now is just another diversion.

The world we live in is incredible. Modern technology has transformed just about everything. We hold the capacity to build an age of peace and prosperity for all.

Unfortunately, we tend to create problems that hold us back. This predisposition prevents us from keeping pace with science.

For example, the rise of angry populism has proved devastating to the politics of liberal democracies, which were otherwise successful.

Social media makes this immaturity even more obvious. There are as many frauds preying on gullible audiences as there are well-meaning truth-tellers. Because of this uncontrollable dynamic, Western culture, instead of moving forward, is losing its foundational integrity.

Cultural tremors often accompany change, but not obstinate reversals like this. Several reasons come to mind:

1. Because change is not only rapid but on-going, the more it advances, the more we lag behind.
2. Those who profit from holding us back intend to keep it that way.
3. Necessary prerequisites, like eliminating ignorance and bigotry, have failed to happen, leaving us unready.
4. We don’t even acknowledge its necessity to participate in our overall advancement.

Chivalry-Now takes a cultural perspective to remedy this. It references an evolutive timeline throughout history that has led us to where we are and points the way forward. This timeline stresses the ongoing development of two human qualities that culminate in a third. Not surprisingly, they are the qualities that makes us most human.

The first two, reason and conscience, conjoin to balance one another. They are often referenced as head and heart, intellect and compassion, rationality and love. Alone, one leads to callous objectivity, and the other to sentimentalism.

The third quality springs from their proper coupling: virtue.

By virtue, I mean honesty, justice, compassion, noble aspirations, kindness, generosity, personal integrity, courage, humility, courtesy, wisdom, and right action.

These virtues are valuable not only in themselves, but for the vices they eliminate – dishonesty, injustice, selfish disregard for others, cowardice, crudeness, ignorance, and disrepute.

This is where a cultural asset like chivalry holds value. It provides a name and context for those virtues to take root. By calling it Chivalry-NOW, we mean applicable for today. This is NOT King Arthur’s chivalry. It is yours and mine. It cannot exist without our commitment.

If we take this path (or one like it), a new humanity will emerge from the moral progress that today seems lacking. We can do that. We have to. Three hundred millennia of human evolution is waiting for our response.

Moral progress works best when inspired by noble ideals to strive for, even when unreachable. We must teach, exemplify, and infuse those ideals into our culture. The only way we start is with ourselves.

This is Chivalry-Now’s mission.