noble action

Knausgaard pushes back against those who believe fiction should only portray noble action and sentiment: the professional takers of offense, the mismanagers of ambiguity.

"The candidates are doing the right thing. It is a noble action."

Jim Crow segregation, with African Americans relegated to second-class citizenship, came next, leading eventually to Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement that, Gates notes, sought to turn the prison system on its head by portraying going to jail for a cause as a noble action.

I had thought your mind, Sir, Had been set forward on some noble action, Something had truly stir'd ye.

That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes The noble action of the will;— All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet if we would gain In the bright fields of fair renown The right of eminent domain.