Culture and Literature, a brief discussion

Matthew Arnold and the Liberal Idea of Culture:

Culture and Anarchy, 1869:

“The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present
difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all
the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world,
and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions
and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically (…)”.

(High) Culture vs. Anarchy:

- Anarchy: the Philistines: the working classes and “the hideous and grotesque illusions of
middle-class Protestantism” (money-oriented, conventional middle-class)
- (High) Culture: the ideal being Hellenism (the Greek culture of antiquity): “aerial ease,
clearness and radiancy”, an attitude towards life, a way of being in the world, “freedom
from fanaticism”, “delicacy of perception”, “the disinterested play of consciousness”,
“an inward spiritual activity” characterized by “sweetness, increased light, increased life,
increased sympathy.”

Culture, especially poetry, “interprets life for us”. Culture allows us to become better human
beings:

“Religion says, The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, like manner, places
human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our
humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality”.

(culture = internal condition)

Arnold argues that anyone can come under the “influence” of culture and leave behind material
pursuits. Anyone can transcend their socioeconomic limitations and acquire a taste for (high)
culture. Everyone has this particular freedom of spirit and thought. What do you think?

A few more questions to consider:

1. Arnold believes (high) culture is “timeless” and that the best cultural works stand the test of
time. Do they always? Is the creator of culture timeless too?

2. How do we decide what is “the best which has been thought and said in the world”? Who gets
to decide that?
3. Liberal humanism1 argues that “all of us are essentially free”, that we are all individuals and
free subjects. Are we? Are we not? What do you think?

A more realistic/pessimistic view on the individual’s “freedom”:

“Our civilization being what it is (…) you’ve got to spend eight hours out of every
twenty-four as a mixture between an imbecile and a sewing machine. It’s very
disagreeable, I know. It’s humiliating and disgusting. But there you are. You’ve got to do
it; otherwise the whole fabric of our world will fall to bits and we’ll all starve. Do the job,
then, idiotically and mechanically; and spend your leisure hours in being a real complete
man or woman, as the case may be (…). The genuine human life in your leisure hours is
the real thing. The other’s just a dirty job that’s got to be done.” (Aldous Huxley, Point
Counter Point)

4. Do you see any relationship between culture and power2?

1
To quote from Catherine Belsey: “The common feature of liberal humanism (…) is a commitment
to man, whose essence is freedom . Liberal humanism proposes that the subject is the free,
unconstrained author of meaning and action, the origin of history. Unified, knowing, and
autonomous, the human being seeks a political system which guarantees freedom of choice. (…) Both
liberal humanism and the subject it produces appear to be an effect of a continuing history, rather than
its culmination. (…) The liberal-humanism subject, the product of a specific epoch and a specific class,
was constructed in conflict and contradiction --with conflicting and contradictory consequences.” (the
“free individual” is a social construct, and we will return to it during the semester)
2
a further discussion on types of culture (high culture vs. low culture) and their relation to power will be
included in the theoretical approach of New Historicism, later in the semester