Philippine Pop Culture

The ‘Culture and Civilization’

Tradition
 Explain the concept of ‘culture and civilization’ tradition
 Discuss the impact of industrialization and urbanization to society with respect to culture and pop culture
Philippine Pop Culture

18th century industrialization and

urbanization

 Rapid growth in industrial

capitalism
 Developed cities
Social and  Changed the way people
cultural changes live and work
 Created the working class
 People lived close
together
 Developed new culture
Philippine Pop Culture
“Cul
t ur
socia e as a me
l co a ns o
Matthew Arnold rulin ntrol … f
swee g class is The
tness
a n d l t he
cultu ight o
re.” f

cultural critic of the late

19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

Matthew Arnold
father was the headmaster of Rugby
School (1828-1841)

family was part of the English cultural

elite
Historical
background travelled across England as a School
Inspector before becoming a professor of
poetry at Oxford

dismayed by The Reform League

(sought the extension of suffrage to all
adult males, regardless whether they
owned land or not) and the Hyde Park
cultural critic of the late
Riot of 1866 (a movement to extend the
19th and early 20th
institutions and practices of democracy)
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

Matthew Arnold
characterized the call for greater
democracy as mob anarchy

proposed culture as a means to

soothe mob anarchy
Historical
background originally wrote “Culture and Its
Enemies” and later changing it to
‘Culture and Anarchy”

cultural critic of the late

19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

Matthew Arnold
 One of the first modern
cultural critics

W port e
im th
hy a n
is t
 Among the first to study

for y of
stu lture

he
cu
popular culture in the

d
modern age

?
 Inaugurated the ‘culture and
civilization’ perspective

cultural critic of the late

19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

Matthew Arnold
 “the best thought and said” – the
ability to know the best

 “as sweetness and light” – what is

best
CULTURE  Ministers to the “diseased spirit
of our time” – the mental and
spiritual application of what is
best

 “The seeking of culture is the

pursuit of what is best.”
cultural critic of the late
19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture
 “the best thought and said” – the ability to
know the best
Matthew Arnold  “as sweetness and light” – what is best
 Ministers to the “diseased spirit of our time”
– the mental and spiritual application of
what is best
 “The seeking of culture is the pursuit of
what is best.”

CULTURE

ignorant

 envious

 brutal
cultural critic of the late
 uncultivated
19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

Matthew Arnold

 against the Reform League movement to extend

the vote to all adult males

 called the working class a “dangerous class”

cultural critic of the late

19th and early 20th
centuries
Philippine Pop Culture

exercised by the ruling class to utilize culture to

The ‘culture and police and control the working class

civilization’ tradition
a way of looking at the changing world and
trying to put it back to how it was

used as a way to prevent opposition to the ruling

class and also as a means of promoting their
forms of morality

intended to explain society’s social order and

authority and the importance of cultural
subordination to the maintenance of social order
and authority
References
Modernity: The culture and civilization tradition. 2018, May 3. https://nanopdf.com/download/modernity-the-culture-and-
civilization-tradition-introductory_pdf
The culture and civilization tradition. n.d. https://www.markedbyteachers.com/university-degree/social-studies/the-
culture-and-civilization-tradition.html
Thank you 
Prepared by
Monalisa M. Samonte (Course Instructor)