Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy - Summary

 

Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy

Summary 

The scope of the book, ‘Culture and Anarchy’ is to recommend culture as the great help out of the present difficulties of the English nation. Culture is a pursuit of total perfection by means of knowing 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 notions and habits which we now follow staunchly but mechanically. Culture does not approve of those people who mechanically serve some stock notion, and who by doing so go astray. At the same time, it is not the aim of culture to offer some rival fetish. All that culture recommends is that we should turn a free and fresh stream of thought upon the whole matter in question.

The provincialism of the English Puritans and Protestant Nonconformists is an undeniable fact. The reason for this provincialism is that the Nonconformists are not in contact with the main current of national life, as the members of an Establishment are. The English people have unfortunately developed a tendency to Hebraise, which means that they have begun to sacrifice all other sides of their personalities for the sake of the religious side.

Culture is the endeavour after man’s perfection. Therefore, it would like to cure the provincialism of the Nonconformists. The most appropriate way of curing their provincialism would be to allow the establishment of a Presbyterian Church side by side with the existing Episcopal Church in England. Men of culture look forward to the day when the Hebraising Philistines of England will be converted. There has been too much of Hebraising, and now is the time to Hellenize. That does not, however, mean that Hebraism should completely be discarded. The habits and discipline received from Hebraism will remain for the English people an everlasting possession. But the need of the present time is to take to Hellenism.

Introduction

In the Introduction, Arnold mentions two very important men of his time, Mr. Bright and Mr. Frederic Harrison, both of whom had made some disparaging comments on Arnold’s view of culture. Mr. Harrison, for instance, had said that culture might be useful to a book-reviewer or a professor of literary writing but that it was useless if applied to politics. Arnold admits that, like Mr. Bright and Mr. Harrison, he too is a Liberal but he claims that he is “a Liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and renouncement” and that he is, above all, “a believer in culture”.

An intellectual love of knowledge is not the whole basis of culture. Culture certainly demands an intellectual curiosity or the scientific passion to see things as they are, but culture also requires something more. Culture is also based on the moral and social passion for doing good. in fact, culture is a study of perfection. Culture certainly aims at rendering an intelligent person yet more intelligent; but culture also aims at making reason and the will of God prevail. Culture aims at a perfection in which both beauty and intelligence are present, a perfection which unites the two noblest of things, namely sweetness and light. The man of culture aims at sweetness and light, while the man who goes against these is a Philistine. In regarding sweetness and light to be the ingredients of perfection, culture resembles poetry. The men of culture are the true champions and supports of the social idea of equality. The great men of culture were those who felt a passion for diffusing or propagating the best knowledge and the best ideas of their time.

Culture is a means of bringing light to us. Light shows us that there is nothing very admirable in merely doing as one likes. Light tells us that the really desirable thing is to like what right reason dictates and to follow the authority of reason. If light, brought to us by culture, shows us all this, then it is clear that we have got a practical benefit out of culture. The question now is how to organize this authority and how to make the State a powerful instrument of controlling anarchy and establishing order. There are three classes in English society – the aristocracy, the middle class, and the working people. According to Carlyle, the power which should exercise authority over the whole country is the aristocracy. According to Mr. Lowe, that power is the middle class. According to the Reform League, that power is the working class.

If no particular class of society deserves to be vested with authority to run the country, the only alternative is that the whole community should be given that authority. In other words, the State should be made powerful enough to exercise control over all affairs. If that is done, the individual will not be able to do just as he likes. This will be possible only if people are urged to develop their best selves.

The best way to describe the middle class in English society is to use for it the name or designation of “Philistines”. Probably the term “Philistines” suits the aristocratic class also, because this class is by its very nature inaccessible to ideas and because the Philistines are the people hostile to the children of light. However, in order to distinguish the aristocratic class from the middle class a different designation is necessary for the former, and that designation should be the “Barbarians”. The English aristocratic class has plenty of the same individualism which the Barbarian had.

As for the working class, there are three distinct sections of it. Two of these sections can, again, be appropriately described as the Philistines. The third section of the working class is that vast section which has long remained half-hidden amidst its poverty but which is now emerging to assert its right to do as it likes, and to misbehave or agitate just as it likes. For this vast portion of the working class, the designation of “Populace” would be most suitable.

Every class in England entertains a feeling of complacency. The Barbarians are satisfied with what they are; the Philistines remain satisfied with themselves; and the Populace finds reason enough to remain satisfied with themselves too. Each class finds its ordinary self to be admirable and has no notion of its best self. The English system is defective because there is no sound center of authority here and because there is no source of right reason and no means of promoting the best self of the nation. The government in England believes that there is no such thing as a best self and no such thing as a right reason having a claim to paramount authority.

The English people, as a nation show much energy but little intelligence. Energy is one force, and intelligence another. These two forces can best be described respectively as the forces of Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism means the Hebrew system of thought and religion, while Hellenism stands for the system of thought and religion of the ancient Greeks. Neither Hebraism nor Hellenism is by itself and alone enough for mankind. The world should be evenly and happily balanced between these two forces, though in actual practice it is never so balanced.

Hebraism essentially sets doing above knowing. Christianity brought about no change in this essential bent of Hebraism. Self-conquest, self-devotion, obedience not to our own individual will but to the will of God-this is the fundamental idea of Christianity just as it is fundamental idea of Hebraism.

The simple and attractive ideal which Hellenism offers to human beings is that they should get rid of their ignorance, that they should see things as they are, and that they should, by doing so, see thing in their beauty. By virtue of this ideal, Hellenism is invested with sweetness and light. Hebraism, on the other hand, is always pre-occupied with the difficulties which oppose the pursuit or attainment of perfection.

Since the Renaissance, the English people have been showing a great inclination towards Hebraism. Their main impulse has been towards strictness of conscience. The result of this has been a certain confusion and false movement. What is needed in England is some sound order and authority. This can only be achieved if people try to see things as they really are.

The English people are quite energetic and sensible. But they have little faith in right reason, and a great faith in their own independent actions. The group of human forces are over-developed in the English people. The result is that they people are more interested in the moral side of their nature than in anything else. They attach more importance to obedience than to intelligence. For them, the one thing needful is strictness of conscience, or the staunch adherence to some fixed law of doing. They do not realize the importance of spontaneity of consciousness. Hebraism alone cannot satisfy all the demands of human nature because man has his intellectual side also and not only his moral side.

Sweetness and light which are the two principal ingredients of culture are connected with that side of humanity which has been described as Hellenism. The ancient Greeks believed in the true and firm law of things, the law of light or the law of seeing things as they are. The Puritan force in England means a care for fire and strength, for strictness of conscience, for Hebraism, rather than a care for sweetness and light, for spontaneity of consciousness, for Hellenism. The English people need Hellenism more than Hebraism. The present state of English society needs an importation of Hellenism into Hebraism in all fields of English life. The trouble with English society is that it has developed its Hebrew side too much and its Hellenic side feebly and at random. The need of the time is a fuller development of the personality, free play of thought upon routine notions, spontaneity of consciousness, sweetness and light.

The English people are, at this time, busy in removing certain evils by methods which are not quite right. For instance, they have undertaken an operation to bring about the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Now, there is no doubt that the present Church establishment in Ireland is contrary to reason and justice. But the proposal to disestablish the Irish Church has been prompted not by a love of reason and justice but by the Nonconformists’ antipathy to all religious establishments and endowments. The Nonconformists are mistaken in their decision to bring about the disestablishment of the Irish Church and to put pressure on the Liberal Party to introduced in Parliament a Bill to that effect. According to this Bill, if a man dies without making his will, his land would be distributed equally among all his children. There is yet another operation which the liberals have undertaken. This operation relates to the attempt of the Liberals to enable a man to marry the sister of his dead wife. Yet another policy which the Liberals are pursuing without due consideration is that of free trade. In fact, the Liberals have wrong notions even in regard to population. With population increasing all the time, the problem of poverty will not be solved but aggravated. It is wrong to spread the notion that children are sent into this world by God and that God takes pleasure in endlessly increasing the number of living beings on this earth.

Conclusion:

Much of the disorder and perplexity in England is due to the disbelief of the Barbarians and the Philistines in right reason. On account of this disbelief, there has been a decay and break-up of the organizations which have so long ruled the country through their ordinary self only. Culture is the most resolute enemy of anarchy. The lovers of culture are strong opposers of anarchy. The true business of the friends of culture is to encourage the spread of sweetness and light. The friends of culture have to spread the belief in right reason and in a firm intelligible law of things. In the field of education, clear ideas are very important, because education is the road to culture. In the educational sphere, the German or Swiss or French laws are sounder than the English laws.