EDUCATORS LIKE TO SAY that education will make you a better person. Athletic coaches say the same about sports. Even cancer is supposed to be an opportunity for personal growth, which is asking a lot of people who already have more than enough to contend with.

I have been teaching philosophy and literature much too long to believe that they lift readers above petty concerns, unclogging spiritual arteries, like a kind of Lipitor for the soul. Yet philosophy and literature can offer new perspectives, sometimes from surprising sources. Who nowadays would expect valuable guidance from the writings of a 15th-Century knight who was reactionary even in his time?

Christina Hardyment does. She has written a biography of Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte D’Arthur, the greatest medieval work about King Arthur and his knights. She says, “the Morte still has lessons to teach us: lessons about taking personal responsibility, being loyal and tolerant, defending the weak — the ‘generosity of spirit’ that Sir Walter Scott saw as the essence of chivalry.”

Of course, these lessons will hardly be new to anyone who was ever a Boy Scout or Sunday school student. But Malory also offers “lessons” that go beyond our familiar moralizing and present an alternative to our society’s conventional wisdom.

One example involves pity. Pity, either for others or for oneself, is a widely disfavored emotion these days. Our society generally considers it insulting for one person to pity another.

Our conventional take on self-pity is equally harsh. It sees self-pity, especially if long lasting, as weak-willed and unhealthy self-indulgence — roughly the emotional equivalent of eating a quart of ice cream in one sitting. People routinely praise victims of catastrophes for lacking self-pity. For instance, in a New York Times review of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Richard Bernstein notes approvingly that the author, a stroke victim paralyzed except for the blinking muscle of his left eye, has “disdain for self-pity.”

Malory provides a refreshing contrast. When Sir Palomides comes upon Sir Epinogrus weeping and wailing, he can hardly recommend such modern remedies as psychotherapy or Prozac. Nor does he offer such bromides as “Count your blessings” or “Think about others rather than yourself.” Instead, Palomides thinks about his own plight and says, “Let me lie down and wail with you. . . . let us complain either to other.” And so they do.

Anyone with “disdain for self-pity” would have an extra helping of disdain for Palomides. He not only encourages Epinogrus to indulge in self-pity, but also joins him.

Obviously, Malory is not reacting against present-day ideas about pity and self-pity. But we can benefit from his recognition that it is altogether fitting and proper to pity yourself when misfortune befalls you and to pity others when misfortune befalls them. Such responses acknowledge that bad things are just plain bad — instead of seeing them as “challenges,” which we are nowadays often urged to do.

When I say these things in my classes, many students reply that, if you let yourself wallow in self-pity, you won’t have time or energy for anything else. Malory shows that pitying yourself does not mean that it is all you do. Malory’s knights engage in self-pity but also in adventures and feats of arms. Palomides’s self-pity, arising from the pain of unrequited love, even enables him to empathize with Epinogrus’s romantic anguish and moves him to help Epinogrus get his lady back.

Next time you hear someone express self-pity, why not say, “Let me lie down and wail with you,” instead of “Think about all the good things in your life” or “You should see a therapist”?

Just don’t try saying this in your workplace, or you could find yourself facing a charge of sexual harassment.

Felicia Nimue Ackerman, a monthly contributor, is a professor of philosophy at Brown University.