Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy (published in 1869) – handout

I. Political and social context:

1. the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica (after the passing of the British Emancipation Act
which led to the emancipation of slavery in 1838 former slaves gained the right to vote;
however most black people remained desperately poor and the high poll tax prevented them
from voting and excluded them from the franchise. In 1865, after economic conditions
hardened, rumours began circulating that white planters wanted to restore slavery.
Circumstances led to uprisings and the struggles for gaining real civil and economic rights
ended in indiscriminate massacre by the British soldiers.)
2. the riot of the working class in London’s Hyde Park (1866) – members of the Reform
League marched to Hyde Park from different parts of London with a view to holding a
meeting in a park which was considered exclusive to the middle-class. The gates of the park
were closed and the demonstrators tore down the railings and invaded the park to the great
consternation of the bourgeois walkers.
3. The Reform Act of 1867 – doubled the electorate and allowed for a shift of power which
gave rise to debates whether this would eventually lead toward a true democracy or to the
death of high culture and anarchy.

II. What is culture? What is anarchy?

Culture = “the study of perfection” (p.xvi), “the best which has been thought and said in the world”
(p.viii) - see high culture (those aspects of culture which are most highly valued and esteemed by a
given society's political, social, economic, and intellectual elite; generally, the most powerful
members of a society are the ones who have the most influence over cultural meaning systems, and
therefore the more powerful classes tend to enjoy the privilege of defining "high culture.") vs.
popular culture (the culture of the masses; cultural practices employed by the majority classes in a
society e.g. opera vs. the number one song on the Billboard charts, a film of art and the movie with
the biggest weekend gross box office total). Arnold believes that culture should not be the
‘property’ of any one class in society but the good of the society as a whole. Consequently, culture
should be viewed as a sort of disinterested enlightenment produced by the exercise of reason and
the only authority to allow this enlightenment to happen is the State.

“The disparagers (= detractori, denigratori) of culture make its motive curiosity; sometimes,
indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The culture which is supposed to
plume itself (= a se impauna, a se lauda) on a smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is
begotten by nothing so intellectual as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance
or else as an engine of social and class distinction, separating its holder, like a badge or title, from
other people who have not got it. No serious man would consider all this culture, or attach any
value to it, as culture, at all.” (p.5)
“But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the scientific passion, the sheer desire to
see things as they are, natural and proper in an intelligent being, appears as the ground of it. There is
a view in which all the love of our neighbour, the impulses towards action, help, and beneficence,
the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing human misery, the
noble aspiration to leave the world better and happier than we found it, come in as part of the
grounds of culture, and the main and pre-eminent part. Culture is then properly described not as
having its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of perfection; it is a study of
perfection. It moves by the force, not merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure
knowledge, but also of the moral and social passion for doing good.” (pp.7-8)
Arnold’s view of culture as involving such characteristics of perfection, beauty (‘sweetness’),
intelligence (‘light’), goodness hints at the existence of several abstract values (defining culture)
which are the same for all human societies and which should be pursued by everyone irrespective of
his/her social position.

Anarchy = unbridled (= slobod, fara frau) democracy bereft of (= lipsit de) standards and a firm
sense of direction. To equate freedom with being able to do what you want is an error which leads
to anarchy. True freedom is liberation from what is "rough" and "coarse" to pursue culture which is
“the study and pursuit of perfection”. The instrument of social perfection is, of course, the state,
defined as: “the nation in its collective and corporate character, entrusted with stringent powers for
the general advantage, and controlling individual wills in the name of an interest wider than
individuals.” (pp.55-56) Arnold's theory of the benefits of a strong state can be understood in
relation to his account of social classes. The aristocracy (the "Barbarians") is the class which he
most dislikes and they (or their power) are to be replaced by the state. The working class (the
"Populace") is the one which most concerns him and they are to be civilised by the state. He is less,
here, concerned with the middle class whom he famously named the "Philistines.”

III. Who should benefit from culture?

Arnold differentiates between three groups of people (the three main classes in English society) in
which the benefits of culture were imperfectly realized, rejected or absent: the Barbarians, the
Philistines and the Populace. The defects in the ‘consciousness’ of these classes derive from their
sectional self-interested perception in which they relate to society as a whole.

The Barbarians (“to whom we all owe so much”) = aristocrats who have “a kind of image or
shadow of sweetness” (p.99) they are not fully imbibed by the ‘sweetness and light’ of culture; they
are only superficially acquainted with culture. “The Barbarians brought with them that staunch
individualism (…) and that passion for doing as one likes, for the assertion of personal liberty…”
(p.100) But “this culture (…) of the Barbarians was an exterior culture mainly: it consisted
principally in outward gifts and graces, in looks, manners, accomplishments, prowess; the chief
inward gifts which had part in it were the most exterior, so to speak, of inward gifts, those which
come nearest to outward one: they were courage, a high spirit, self-confidence.” (p.101) In an age of
change and expansion, the aristocracy, whose virtues are undoubtedly real, start to be increasingly
anachronistic as they can no longer “supply the principle of authority needful for our present wants”
(p.74).

The Philistines (“The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by
our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich …” pp.19-
20) (mentioned in the Old Testament as a pagan group of people; from the 1820s the word is also
used as a derogatory term to refer to a person who undervalues or even despises art, culture and
spiritual values; hence, philistines are said to be materialistic and shallow → first and foremost the
philistine is a cultural category) = the middle class imprisoned in the in the technology of
capitalism (the unrefined bourgeoisie who places profit i.e. self-interest, mercantilism, utilitarian,
market vagaries and standardization i.e. uniformity, sameness, conformity, mass production/culture
or industrial massification of culture → art is appreciated not for its special ability to communicate
truth and beauty but for its marketability / or modern consumerism = attachment to material values
or possessions / above culture and aesthetic achievement); they are identified with the forces which
transforms society (the forces of progress) but are also said to disastrously undermine society
cohesion (anarchy = philistinism).

The Populace (“vast portion … of the working-class which, raw and half-developed, has long
lain half hidden amidst its poverty and squalor, and is now issuing from its hiding-place to
assert an Englishman’s heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes … his right to march where
he likes, meet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot as he likes, threaten as he likes, smash
as he likes. All this, I say, tends to anarchy;” pp.104; 58) = the working class; due to the poverty
and ignorance they are forced to live in (largely as a result to the laissez-faire economic policies)
but also partly because they are led-astray by ‘well-intentioned’ agitators, they are perceived as a
threat to social order and human well-being and a source of anarchy = loss of authority and social
fragmentation. The Populace are insensible to “sweetness and light” because they are deprived of it.
Arnold’s proposed antidote to this state of menacing anarchy was the propagation of ‘high culture’
at all the levels of society especially among the Populace. Literature is viewed as a means of
propagating high culture among the Populace; not popular fiction written for mass consumption
which perverts the soul of the reader (and is to blame for the social crisis England has to face) but
‘canonical’ literature: Shakespeare, Milton, Byron etc.

Conclusion: Matthew Arnold’s notion of culture refers essentially to the disinterested pursuit of
beauty and harmony counterpoising the utilitarian, material civilization and the dehumanizing
‘spirit’ of industrialism / industrial modernization.