The Knight in Rusty Armor

The self-help genre that 21st-century readers are familiar with “grew out of radical working-class organizations like labor cooperatives and mutual aid societies” (Wilson, Jennifer. “Useful Books.” The Nation, 2020). However, this best-selling genre now bears little resemblance to its grassroots origins. Through the latter 19th and early 20th century, various social factors pivoted self-help toward an audience of the “aspirational middle classes,” who believed the genre’s advice might help them “remake themselves so that their manners, interests, and values reflected those of the aristocracy” (Wilson). This turn associated the self-help genre with capitalism and the New Thought movement, which posited that disenfranchisement is individual rather than systemic, and “any individual could achieve prosperity,” gain capital, and climb socially with enough motivation and self-betterment (Wilson). The Knight in Rusty Armor pushes back against this trend in contemporary self-help literature: Merlin explicitly critiques ambition from the mind, which fosters competition and betterment for the accumulation of material goods and wealth. He instead promotes ambition from the heart, which serves communities and spurns social advancement and the accumulation of material wealth.

Many therapists and psychologists continue to recommend The Knight in Rusty Armor, first published in 1987.