ľtirl t Jut: H>f '<'utturr Mtii I h'du.j/n m' ÍM-ŕilloM
Notu
irmild, Pottry and Pnne, London; Rupert Hart Dtvut \9S4, pp. U>i I hiiMikl, ( i.fufii'i-fi /-•.íl U'htAi, vii]  111, Aľ.n Arliii-: Uiuvrniti i.l M i. i iľ. ■:
J-77, pp. 43-4.
ŕfflirjn JmJ thŕ Rtadmg PlibJŕc, London: ChattO & Windci*, í 97»,
70.
1 □ Culture arid Anarchy
Matthew Arnold
[ I
I lie whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help run (if iimi present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting
■ míľ. . ľii ill thŕ ni.iitc-ťs which most concern us, the hcht which has been thought and said in the world; ,ind through this knowledge, turning ,i stream of Irrsh .mil hrrc thought upon our stock notions and h.ihitt, which we now follow staunchly hm Mldmririll), vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following ihi-m staunchly which makes up for the mivchurl oi following them mechanically. This, ami (hi» .dime, is the scope of the following essay. I say again here, what I have said in the pages which follow, that from the faults and weaknesses of bookmen a not km. of
......clhirlg huuklsh, pedantic, arid futile has put usclt umu.n lis-, niniiľited with
the word culture, and that it is a pity we cannot use a word more perfectly free in mi .ill shadow of reproach. And yet, futile .is are many bookmen, and helpless .is hooks and icmlIiuji often prove for bringing nearer to perfection those w In-, mt iru-m, nm must. I think, be struck more and DMN, the- longer one lives, to bod how much, m mlii present society, a nun's life of ejeh day depends for its solidity and value on whcthrr lir reads during that day, and, far more still, on wb.n he reads during it. Mi in- and more he who examines himseH will find the difference it makes Id him, n tbr rud ol any given day . whether or no he has pursued his avocations throu^hiuii it isirlmui ri-.uliľici at all; and whether or no, having read Mimriliiug, In- h.n. n id the newspapers only. This, however, is a matter fur each man's private conscience and experience. If a man without bmiks or reading, or reading nothing but his leltel i and ihe newspapers. Rets nevertheless a Irish and free play of the beM thoughts upon his stock notions and habits, he has got culture. He has got that for which nc pri/e arid resommend culture; he has (Lot that which at the prrsmi HMNMM Wl Hck culture that it may Rive us   I his inward operation i\ the very Ide and essence of
I nun   V 1,1,1,1   M , < iWrnn- .i-iť   \n.,r. <-Vl ( jmbnd|ir \ Diversity I'ress. Imiil..... I'M.'.
pp. 6-7, «1-71, 7i-7» 10-12. 10«-«, 206-7,
I
MMftmv Arnold
culture, as we conceive it. Nevertheless, it is nor easy so to frame one's discourse concerning the operation of culture, as to avoid giving frequent occasion to a misundersi andmg whereby the essential inwardness of the operation is lost sight of.
[-..]
Culrure [. ..] run one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light. It has one even yet greater! - the passion fur making them prevail. It is not satisfied till we at! come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the few must he imperfect until the raw and unkjndled masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light. If 1 have not shrunk from saying that we must work for sweetness and" light, so neither have 1 shrunk t'rom saying thai we must have a broad basis, must have sweetness and light for as many as possible- Again and again I have insisted how those are the happy moments of humanity, how those are the marking epochs of a people's life* how those are the flowering times for literature and art and .ill the creative power of genius, when there is a national glow of life and thought, when the whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by thought, sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be r«j/ thought and real beauty; real sweetness and real light. Plenty of people will try to give the masses, as they call them, ;in intellectual food prepared and adapted in ihe way they think proper for the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular literature is an example of 1 his way of working on the m.isscs. Plenty of people will try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of ideas and judgments constituting the creed of their own profession or party. Our religious and political organisations give an example of this way of working on the masses. I condemn neither way; but culture works differently. It does not try to teach down to the levrl of inferior classes; it does not try to win rhem for this or that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords. It seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; 10 m iU ;il men live in ;iri 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 hmI idf^i and the men of culture are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture arc those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the <rther, the best knowledge, ihe best ideas of their lime, who have laboured to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanise it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the lust knowledge and thought of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light.
[...]
For a long time, |. - .| the strong leud.il habits of subordination and deference continued to tell upon the working class, The modern spirit has now almost entirely dissolved those habits, and the anarchical tendency of our worship of freedom in
* discourse O (0 I : sight of.
. k has one
Mf&cd till WC
fit few must •wvched with ■bx work for V kive j broad ti a$*in [ hive ; the marking ( and jn and t jnd thought, t, sensible | beauty; ir j,' n they call proper for is an rill ley to the creed ii give an but culture ; it does ' judgment 4 jnd - ■ h.i% been ■ten live in an em them itself.
of equality. 5., for making iledge, the of ill that was it, to nuke lining the best ,et sweetness and
and deference almost entirely ^pAf of freedom in
Culture and Anarchy 4
and for itself, of our superstitious iaiih, as I say, in machinery, is becoming very manifest. More and more, because of this our blind faith in machinery, because of our want <it light to enable us to look beyond machinery to the end for which machinery is valuable, rhis jnd that man, and this and that body of men, jiII Oftt the country, arc beginning to assert and put in practice an Kngjishinan's right to do whai he likes; his right to march where he likes, ittpet where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot at he likes, threaten as he likes, smash as he likes. Atl this, I say, tends to anarchy [.|
[ .1
He [the Hyde Park rough] has no visionary schemes of revolution and trans-icirrnjirirtn, though of course he would like his class to rule, as the aristocratic class like their class to rule, and (he middle class theirs. Bur meanwhile our social machine is a link out nil order; there are a good many people in our paradisiacal centres of hiiitivthalism and individualism taking the bread out of one another's mouths. The rough has not yet quite found his groove and settled down to his work, and so he is just as**Tting his personal liberty a little, going where he likes, assembling where he likes, bawling as he likes, hustling as he likes. Just as the rest of us, - as the country squires in the aristocratic class, as the political dissenters in the middle class, - he has no idea of a Stale, of the nation in its collective and corporate character controlling, as government, the fret swing of this or that one of its members in the name of rhe higher reason of all of them, his own as well as thai of others. He sees the rich, (he aristocratic class, in occupation of the executive government, and so if he is stopped from making Hyde Park a bear-garden or the streets impassable, he says he is being butchered by the aristocracy.
His apparition is somewhat embarrassing, because too many cooks spoil the broth; because, while tin- afbtOCFUiC and middle classes have lung been doing as they like with great vigour, be has been too undeveloped and submissive hitherto to join in the game; and now, when he does come, he comes in immense numbers, nui r- 1 11 rift r,ivt .in J mi ugh Hut hi- dm s 1101 b"i..;'-: iv,v;, i.tu s. m: :HH in.iir, H one time; and, as our laws were made for very different circumstances from our present (hut always with an eye to Lnglishmen doing as they 1ikc)(>]
[...I
|Moi(-i>ii-r| u is evident our laws give our playful giant, in doing as he likes, considerable advantage. |...] So he has his way, and if he has his way he is soon satisfied for the lime. However, he falls into the habit of taking it oftener and OTtencr, and at last begins to create by bis operations a confusion of which mischievous people can take advantage, and which ar any rate, by troubling, the common court? of business throughout the country, tends to cause distress, and 10 increase the son of anarchy and social disintegration which had previously commenced. And thus that profound sense of settled order and security, without which a socien lik*- ours cannot live and grow ar all, sometimes seems to be beginning to threaten us with taking its departure
10
Matthew Arnold
Now. if culture, which simply means trying to perfect oneself, and one's mind as part of oneself, firings us light, and if light shows us that there is nothing mi very hL-ssed in merely doing as one likes, that the worship of the mere freedom to do .1-onc Jik«s is worship of machinery, that (he really blessed thing is to like what right reason ordains, and to follow her authority, then wt have got .1 practical benefit nut of culture, We have got a much wanted principle, a principle of authority, to Counteract the tendency to anarchy which seems to be threatening us.
[Arnold redefines the aristocracy as Barbarians, and the middle class and labour aristocracy as Philistines.] flut that vast portion, lastly, of the working class which, raw and half-developed, has long lain half-hidden amidst its polity and squalor, and is now issuing from its hiding-place (0 assert an llnglishman's heaven-bom privilege of doing as he likes, and is beginning m perplex us hy marching where it likes, meeting where it likes, bawling what it likes, breaking whai it likes, - to this vast residuum we may with great propriety give the name of Populate.
I...I
And as to the Populace, who, whether he be Barbarian or Philistine, can look at them without sympathy, when he remembers how often, - every time that we snatch up a vehement opinion in ignorance and pavsion, every time that we long to crush an adversary hy sheer violence, every time that we are envious, every time that wt arc hrutal, every time that we adore mere power or success, every lime that we add our voice to swell a blind clamour against some unpopular personage, every time that we trample savagely on the fallen. - be has found in his own bosom tin- eternal spirit of the Populace, and thai there needs only a little help from circumstances to make 11 triumph in him uniamcably? (...] All of us, so far as we ate Barbarians, PhihstiiKTS, or Populace, imagine happiness to consist m doing what urns ordinary self likes. What one's ordinary self likes differs according to the class to which one belongs, and ha* its severer and it* lighter side; always, however, remaining machinery, and nothing more, [he graver sell of the Barbarian likes honours and consideration; his more relaxed self, field spoils and pleasure. 1 he graver self of one kind of Philistine likes fanaticism, business, and money-making; his more relaxed self, comfort and tot-meetings. Of another kind of Philistine, the graver srlf likes rattening; the relaxed self, deputations, or hearing Mr Odger speak. The sterner self of the Populace likes bawling hustling, and smashing; the lighter self, heer. But in each class there arc born a certain numl>er of natures with a curiosity about then best self, wiih a bent for seeing things as they are, for disentangling themselves from machinery, for simply concerning themselves with reason and (he will of Ciod, and doing their best to make these prevail; - for the pursuit, in a word, of perfection.
[...]
Natures with this bent emerge in all classes, - among the Barbarians, among the
jr* i mind as Étng so very
ixn co dfl Si
EC what right benefit ouc thotiiy, 10
<tiv> and labour
;dass which, jnJ squalor, heaven-born ■jt.Mii>; * here it ■ttn, - cm this
. can look at thai wt sn<iiL.h I long to crush cirr> Eime lii.it we ■r that wt udd , every rime (he rl em ;l I circumstances to * jrc Barbarians, ■ one's ordinary i\s ro whit h ii 11l itier, remaining hies honours jnd graver self of one his more relaxed graver sell likes The sterner tell self, beer. Bur in ■our) about rheir g themselves from ■■, ill of God, jnd ird, t>f perffilnni.
mans, jimtin^ the
I I
Philistines, pruning ihr Populace. And this bent always tends, ro make them our of Their class, and to make their distinguishing characteristic not [heir Barlu nanism or their Philistinism, hut Eheir humjmiy.
[...)
Therefore, when wc speak of ourselves as divided into Barbarians, Philistines, and I'.:p-il.ue. "Hi M br understood always 1n impb rh.il wilhm r.n'- i>r ihoc Jj^-s there are a certain number of dftffli, if we may so call them, - persons who are ::.niilv led, no: hy rlitrir class spifir, but by a general humane spirit, by (he love of human perfection; and that this number is capable of being diminished or augmented. I mean, the number of those who will succeed in developing this happy instinct ■■■ill be greater O* smaller, in proportion both eo the force uŕ ihc original msiiuĽi within them u and to the hindrance or encouragement which it meets with from w i[hour. In almost all who have It, it is mixed with some infusion of the spirit of .m ordinary self, some cpjamiiy of dass-insjiinct, and even, as hag hem shown, of more than vite class-instinct at the same timet so that, in general, the extrication "I ihe best stir. eIk- p it-dominance of the hattttittt instincr, will very much depend upon its meeting, or not, with wh.it is fitted ti> help and elicit it.
And so v, i Ii-       I.. :im ľinl :<. h;il we hjid [hi say ill praise ol CulEnre, artd in ŕvidŕilĽÉ
of its special utility for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and the confusion which environs us. Through culture seems to lie our way, not only to perfection, but even 10 safety,
[ I
I Culture te:uhes ih.it) the framework of BOdciy, ih:ii tbcatK On which this august drama has to unroll itself, is sacred t and whoever administers it, and however we may seek to remove them from Eheir tenure of adminisEraEion, yet, while they administer, we steadily and with undivided heart support them in repressing anarchy and disorder; because without order there can be no society, and without society there can be no human perfection.
With me, indeed, this rule of conduct is hcnditary. I remember my father, in one of his unpublished letters written more than ferry years ago, when the political and social state of the country was gloomy and EroubJed, and there were riors in many places, goes on, after strongly insisting on the badness and foolishness of the government, and on rhe harm and dangerousness of our feudal and aristocratical constitution of society, and ends thus: "As for rioting, the old Roman way of dealing
« ilh thill\\ always lhi: right imp- flog ihr nirik ;ind filf, and limp the lHngle»d*fS from
the Tarpeian Rock!' And [his opinion we can never forsake, however our Liberal iriciidv may ilnrik .1 link- riming, and [hat [hey call popular demonstrations, useful scjrriftinies to iheir <iwn interests and to the interests of ihe valuable practical operations they have in hand M [•••] And even when they artfully show us operations which are unduubtedly precious, such as Ehe aboliEion of the slasc-irade.
■■1
Malthttw Arnold
and ask us if, for their sake, foolish and obstinate government* may nor wholesomely be frightened by a little disturbance, the good design in view and the difficulty of overcoming opposition to it being considered, - still we say no, and that monster processions in rhe streets and forcible irruptions into the parks, even in professed support of this good design, ought to be unflinchingly forbidden Hid repressed; and that far more is lose than is gained by permitting them.
Because a State in which law is authoritative and sovereign, a hrm and sealed course of public order, is requisite if man is to bring to maturity anything precious and lasting now, or to found anything precious and lasting for the future.
5 hus, in nu- eyts, ihc vers frame"'il- . ■ .1 exterior <inin ot the St.iu . ufioL-scr may administer the State, is sacred: and culture is the most revilute enemy of anarchy, because of the great hopes and designs for the State which culture teaches us to nourish. But as, believing in right reason, and having failh in the progress ai humanity towards perfection, and ever labouring for this end, we grow to have clearer sight of the ideas of right reason, and of rhe elements and helps of perfection, and come gradually to fill (he framework of the State with them, to fashion its internal composition and all its laws and institutions coníomiablh to them, and to make the State more and more the expression, as we say, of our best self, which is not manifold, and vulgar, and unstable, and contentious, and ever-varying, but one, and noble, and secure, and peaceful, and the same for all mankind, - with what aversion shall we not thru regard anarchy, with what firmness shall we not check it, when there is so much that is SO precious which it will endanger!
[...]
1 here-fore, however great the changes CO be accomplished, and however denve lh* array of Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we will neither despair on the one hand, nor, mi ihe other, threaten violent revolution and change. But we will look forward cheerfully and hopefully to 'a revolution*, as the Duke of Wellington said, "by due course of law'i though not exactly such laws as out Liberal lri<-nds arc now, with their actual lights, fond of offering to us.