MATTHEW ARNOLD : ‘CULTURE & ANARCHY’

VICTORIAN AGE & INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

VICTORIAN AGE & ITS CHARACTERISTICS

EVERY AGE A CONTINUATION OF OR RESISTANCE AGAINST

PREVIOUS AGE

 --QUEEN VICTORIA CAME TO THE THRONE IN 1837 AND GAVE THE

PERIOD ITS NAME

 --LASTED TILL 1901

 ---AN AGE THAT CHANGED BRITISH ATTITUDE, ACTION AND

IMPACT ON THEIR OWN COUNTRY AS WELL AS THE WORLD

 ---‘VICTORIAN’?....TERM OF PRAISE OR TERM OF ABUSE?

‘zeitgeist’...spirit of the age

 from agriculture to manufacturing-mechanisation-trade expansion-

improved roads/rails/telegraphs
 threshing machine vs farmer

 rise in labour unions- banking system-free trade and liberalist

politics-rise of the proletariat

 worker’s strike for better conditions/wages

 expansion of the middle class, rise in bureaucracy—bourgeoisie

 increase in demand for food supply

 city vs village

 urbanisation-growth in ‘conurbations’-cities merging into one

another

 rise in woman’s labour in urban/rural industries

 rise in capitalism as a state order

 Victorian bourgeoisie morality identified Rev. of 1688 from which the
English political project of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ emerged
 Prosperity lay in industrial/commercial elements and increase in
national wealth was progress in human civilization

 The Whig ideology of history relies on facts and statistics which

showed material growth, compared to pre-Industrial Revolution and
how machines have changed industry and communication

 Whig optimism was based on growth in railways, use of machinery,

rise in iron/steel production, increase in middle class wealth

 Overcrowding, squalor, lack of sanitation, exploitation of women and

child labour

 “two nations”—working class for whom leisure and amenities were

unknown—the bourgeoisie elite and the nobility who benefited from
the extravagance of capitalism

 “the condition of England” question

 Emancipation of Catholics, free trade

 Factory Acts abolishing inequities of labour and overworking

 Mines Act forbidding employment of women and children in rough

agricultural acts

 Chartist Movement of 1830’s demanded universal adult suffrage and

abolition of property qualification for voters

 Reform bill of 1832 accepted the middle class franchise as the basis of
Parliament and the country was up for bourgeoisie domination

 Bentham and Mill accounted for freedom in the

political/religious/economic sphere—balancing of individual/social
needs

 “Utilitarianism”: “greatest good of the greatest number”

 Social Darwinism put a premium on self-reliance, hard work,

independent labour and disapproved of granting doles to the poor

 A mission towards a homogenous working class population,

controlling their conduct, behavior and social choices

CULTURE & ANARCHY

 Culture and Anarchy was original in contesting precisely this elitist
view of culture as connoisseurship, or an appreciation of the fine arts.

 The word culture originated in the world of farming, as a term for

tending crops or animals, which is where we get the
word agriculture (Williams 87-93). From this, it developed a
metaphorical meaning in the eighteenth century for culturing the
mind, rather than crops.

 And in this latter sense it became associated by the early nineteenth

century with knowledge of Greek, Latin, and the fine arts. Because
these were standard elements of a gentleman’s education, the
acquisition of culture was a sign of one’s elite status.

 Arnold objects to this narrow definition of culture, calling it a

combination of “vanity and ignorance,” and attacking its acolytes as
people who value culture solely as a form of “class distinction,” a
“badge” that separates them “from other people who have not got it”
(Culture 90).

 Instead, he argues, culture is a combination of broad intellectual

interests with the goal of social improvement.

 As a dedicated poet in his early adulthood, Arnold grappled with the

problem of reconciling his love of fine art with the need for social
utility, a topic that formed the mainstay of his written
correspondence with his closest friend, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough
(1819-61).

 In this regard, Arnold was representative of an era in which many

artists questioned the relevance of art to society, even as Victorian
Britain underwent a radical social transformation, leaving behind its
agricultural past in the wake of the new industrial economy.

 In the middle decades of the century, Britain was particularly

turbulent, famously unsettled by the inhumanity of early
industrialism and the demands of a vocal working-class for political
representation. 

 In one of the most well known incidents, on 23 July 1866, a large

crowd gathered at Hyde Park in London to hear speakers on voting
rights.

 They were confronted by police when the government declared the

meeting an illegal assembly. Soldiers were called out when 200,000
people entered the park anyway, knocking down fences meant to
keep them out.
  The incident precipitated Arnold’s thinking, and its violence
represents the “Anarchy” in Culture and Anarchy.

 While staunchly opposing violence, he nevertheless understood the

need for social change. As one of his biographers notes, Arnold’s job
as a School’s Inspector exposed him “to more working-class children
than any other poet who has ever lived” (Honan 218-19). The
injection of social change into his new theory was the formula he
sought to combine his own love of fine art with social utility.

 To Arnold, its discontent represented the greatest threat of all to

British social stability, and he used the Hyde Park incident to
illustrate this.

 But the central problem was that all three groups viewed the world
differently because the perception of each was limited to its own self
interest. Barbarians want higher prices for the grain that grows on
their land to increase their wealth. But the Populace want lower
prices for the loaf of bread made from that grain. And the Philistine
factory owners fear having to increase wages to workers who could
no longer afford a loaf of bread.

 This historical conflict was enshrined in the political fight over

Britain’s “Corn Laws,” marked by massive demonstrations until their
repeal in 1846, and it serves as one example of Arnold’s analysis of
Britain’s central problem: none of the three classes understood or
acknowledged the needs of the others. Without that mutuality, society
was hopelessly locked in civil conflict.

Culture he defines as a study of perfection, that is the harmonious expansion of all the powers of human
nature. It is attained by a knowledge of the best that has been said and thought in the world, by the free
play of the mind over the facts of life, and by a sympathetic attitude towards all that is beautiful.

For a further definition of culture Arnold borrows a phrase from Swift, “Sweetness and light,” the first
word indicating the sense of beauty and the second the active intelligence.

Against this ideal are arrayed all the undisciplined forces of the age—prejudice, narrowness, the worship
of liberty for liberty’s sake, faith in machinery whether governmental, economic, or religious—in short an
unthinking individualism that leads to anarchy.

English society may be divided into three classes—Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace. The Barbarians
or aristocracy have a superficial sweetness and light but are too much concerned with the maintenance
and enjoyment of their privileges to attain a true sense of beauty and a free mental activity.

The Philistines or middle classes are devoted to money-making and a narrow form of religion and are
indifferent or hostile to beauty.

The Populace are violent in their prejudices and brutal in their pleasures. All are agreed that “doing as
 one likes” is the chief end of man and all are self-satisfied.

In a further analysis of this English preference of doing to thinking Arnold distinguishes two forces which
he names Hebraism and Hellenism.

Hebraism is concerned with resolute action and strict obedience to conscience; Hellenism with clear
thinking and spontaneity of consciousness.

Harmoniously combined they lead to that perfect balance of our nature which is the end of culture. The
excessive development of one of them results in imperfection.

Hebraism with its insistence on conduct is the more essential and it triumphed in the form of
Christianity; but the reaction from the pagan revival of the sixteenth century led to its over-development
into Puritanism, a discipline intolerant of beauty and free intelligence.

The English middle class is still dominated by Puritanism, despising art and mental cultivation as an end
in itself and adhering to a narrow and unenlightened religious and ethical standard as “the one thing
needful.”

By a revival of the best in Hellenism Arnold would bring sweetness and light into the English middle
classes; and he would overcome the unthinking individualism of all classes by developing the idea of
right reason embodied in the State. By its power of telling phraseology and its pleasing expository
method the book stimulated English society to thought and self-criticism. The evils it attacks and the
remedies it proposes are by no means out of date.

EXTRACTS:

 Deplored utilitarian philosophy and emphasis on arithmetic calculation of happiness

 Much like the Whigs, believed that the middle class were the votaries of civilization/culture

 Proposed a monolithic nationalist code of conduct

 As a school inspector he had first hand contact with the working class and the geography of their habitat
and employment

 Poet/writer/critic/liberal humanist

 In 1851 at the age of thirty, Arnold was appointed Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, a post he held for
the next thirty-five years. In his role as inspector, Arnold became intimately familiar with the
disadvantages and inequalities inherent in the educational system from the favored aristocratic upper
class to the ignored and impoverished lower class.

 Moreover, in his official capacity Arnold toured numerous schools and universities on the Continent
which had already undergone extensive educational reforms.
 In an age of universal literacy, but not of universal liberal education, Arnold divided society into
Barbarians(aristocrats), Philistines(middle class) and populace (working class)

 Barbarians relate only to outward culture; might have ‘sweetness’(charm), but not ‘light’(moral/social
intelligence)

 Populace lacks sympathy and action

 Philistines are too materialistic, puritanical, complacent about free enterprise, uncritical and lacking in
taste

 Moreover, increased immigration from different parts of the empire, augmented class divisions-crime
levels increased

 Yet Philistines are the class capable of salvation in the interest of literary/artistic health of the nation

 For Arnold, mere romantic individualism could not achieve the civilizational mission of greatness for
England

 He proposed a state-controlled ‘culture’ policy, as a mode of paternalistic guide

 He identifies in the study of Humanities, especially Hellenism, harmony, balance, beauty

 Catering to the question of standard, way of life, thought, and ethos of the Victorian middle class
—“English in taste and morals”

 Many of his recommendations featured in the Elementary Education Act of 1870 which mandated a state
run public education system

 To go beyond limited class thought into a larger, homogenized vision of intellectuality

 Restructuring of England's social ideology.

 It reflects Arnold's passionate conviction that the uneducated English masses could be molded into
conscientious individuals who strive for human perfection through the harmonious cultivation of all of
their skills and talents.

 A crucial condition of Arnold's thesis is that a state-administered system of education must replace the
ecclesiastical program which emphasized rigid individual moral conduct at the expense of free thinking
and devotion to community.

 Ideas of ‘duty’, ‘service’, ‘fairness’ that can build upon British greatness
 “Culture is then properly described 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. As, in the first view of it, we took for its worthy motto
Montesquieu’s words: “To render an intelligent being yet more intelligent!” so, in the second view of it,
there is no better motto which it can have than these words of Bishop Wilson: “To make reason and the
will of God prevail!”

 Emphasis on self-reform through the study of Art/Humanities; uncritical pursuit of religion and science
detrimental—“a study of perfection”—imperialist ideology
 Class conflict reflected in social indiscipline that hurts nationalist agenda—“ But above all in our own
country has culture a weighty part to perform, because here that mechanical character, which civilisation
tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most eminent degree.”
 He challenges mindless conformity that had turned into a moral order—he rejects the long view of
history that glorifies English ‘culture’ on the basis of elitist ‘class values’
 “in determining generally in what human perfection consists, religion comes to a conclusion identical
with that which culture – culture seeking the determination of this question through all the voices of
human experience which have been heard upon it, of art, science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as
of religion, in order to give a greater fullness and certainty to its solution - likewise reaches. Religion
says: The kingdom of God is within you; and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an
internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our
animality. …”
 rejects ‘art for art’s sake’
 to think beyond class is a difficult proposition
 “culture …all powers that make the beauty and worth of human nature…culture goes beyond religion..”
 “the idea of perfection as a harmonious expansion of human nature is at variance with our want of
flexibility, with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a thing, with our intense energetic
absorption in the particular pursuit we happen to be following.”—builds upon social Darwinism—Lotus
eaters

“Faith in machinery is I said, our besetting danger; always in machinery, as if it had a value in and for
itself. What is freedom but machinery? What is population but machinery? What is coal but machinery?
What are railroads but machinery? What is wealth but machinery? What are even religious organisations
but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things as if they were
precious ends in themselves, and therefore had some of the characters of perfection indisputably joined
to them. …”

 criticism of mechanical consumerist culture

 deconstructs English ‘greatness’ in terms of coal economy—Industrial Revolution and Democracy has
given individual freedom, but not guaranteed justice and equality
 “If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by culture, the whole world, the future as
well as the present, would inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe that our greatness
and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who must give their lives and thoughts to becoming
rich, are just the very people whom we call Philistines. Culture begets a dissatisfaction which is of the
highest possible value in stemming the common tide of men’s thoughts in a wealthy and industrial
community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being vulgarised, even if it cannot save the
present..”
 racist construction—fear of the uneducated proletariat—the Other—a savage prototype—worshipper of
 wealth with no intellectual or artistic values—a threat to British civilization
 Britain looked upon as the New Israel through which God’s plan would unfold
 Health Act—welfare of the body politic from lowly forms of entertainment viz. casinos, operas
“In thus making sweetness and light to be characters of perfection, culture is of like spirit with
poetry, follows one law with poetry. Far more than on our freedom, our population and our industrialism,
many amongst us rely upon our religious organisations to save us. I have called religion a yet more
important manifestation of human nature than poetry, because it has worked on a broader scale for
perfection, and with greater masses of men. But the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all
its sides, which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, though it has not yet had the
success that the idea of conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human nature perfect on
the moral side
– which is the dominant idea of religion. …”

 Homogenous identity of class values, to propagate something of ‘high culture’ to elevate the Philistine

“It seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current
everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where they may use ideas, as
it uses them itself, freely, nourished and not bound by them. This is the social idea; and the men of culture
are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing,
for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas
of their time; who have laboured to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, difficult, abstract, exclusive,
professional; to humanise it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still
remaining the best knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and
light. …”