Culture & Anarchy by Mathew Arnold with special reference to Cultural Studies

What is Culture?

The ‘culture’ derives from ‘cultura’ and ‘colere’, meaning ‘to cultivate’.it also means ‘to honour’ and ‘to protect’. It is a social phenomenon tends to regularize the mind-set and beheviour of people which is set on ancient rules and regulations and experiences. It is the ways of living and represents lives of people. It is not having any origin. Nobody can own but within the culture there is origin of perfection.

Culture and Anarchy was original in contesting precisely this elitist view of culture as connoisseurship, or an appreciation of the fine arts. This was the current sense of the word when Arnold began writing. 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.

Culture is the study of perfection in society and morality. It is the development of human beings. “It is an experience of human race in general”. The culture is an inward operation. Culture is the study of perfection leads our perfection as a harmonious perfection, developing all parts of our humanity and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society. It is something which is not natural but it is something which is ‘learned’. It’s the habit or the way of being social in the society. As a synonym of civilization, culture belonged to the general spirit of enchantment with its cult of secular, progressive self-development. Civilization largely a French notion-then as now , the French were thought to have a monopoly on being civilized-and named both the gradual process of social refinement and utopian telos towards which it was unfolding. Mathew Arnold may have believed in culture as a social improvement but he also refuse to take sides over the slavery question in the American civil war.

It is being pursuit of total perfection by means of getting to know, on the all matters which most concern us,” the best which has been though 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 which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. In this essay culture is showen as great help out of our present difficulties. For Arnold if one member suffers, the other members must suffer with it; and the fewer there is that follow the true way of salvation, the harder that way is to find.

Culture is considered not merely as the endeavour to see and learn this but as the endeavour, also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. Culture places human perfection in an internal condition, I the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our aminality.

“The notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites ‘the two noblest of things’ as Swift most happily calls it in his Battle of the books-‘ the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.”

Culture is connected with the idea of sweetness and light. He uses the Greek word aphuia & euphuia’. The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection. Culture shows the single minded love of to perfection, its desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it insists that it is machinery.

Both personal and social factors contributed to Arnold’s redefinition. He was the son of a famous educator, Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), who insisted that, whatever goals one pursued in life, they had to be socially useful. It was not enough, in other words, to pursue one’s interests for selfish reasons alone. 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.

For Arnold, the opposite of culture was “doing as one likes,” his term for individuals who act out of self-interest, without regard for the greater good. He did not see this as a choice so much as the consequence of an inability to imagine a world beyond one’s limited, subjective perspective. He agrees with the prevalent notion that ‘it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes. But the problem is, “ on what he is to do when he as thus free to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress.” Even though the liberal practitioners like Mr. Bright say that “the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of liberty”, yet Arnold fears this very right and happiness of an individual of as Englishman to do what he likes may drift the entire society towards Anarchy.

The word anarchy comes from the Greek word ‘anarchia’ which means contrary to authority or without ruler. The anarchies tradition has been linked to the four major thinkers.  The first was willium Godwin, who in the late 18th century wrote a treatise called a Enquiry Concerning Political Justice which argued against government, the law, property and institutions of the state.

The next was the French thinker Pierre Joseph Proudhon says ‘Property is theft’. He was also the first person to describe himself as an anarchist and once declared:’ My conscience is mine, and my freedom is a sovereign freedom’.

“ Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived  without government- harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups” these are the words of the later anarchist Kropotkin. He had wrote this definition for Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition.

   The culture of Arnolds time is blind to the evils of the society. The culture is being danger to the reformers then the culture is bound to be changed. In England people become slave of machinery due to rapid industrialization.  Arnold agrees with the prevalent notion that ‘it is most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes,. On what he is to do when he is thus free to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress’.

According to Arnold language is also a culture. So whatever texts are there; are the representative of the culture they belongs to. He was the first person who started to study the culture. Then the faculties of Cultural Studies come into existence.

1.    Cultural studies bring to everyday life the same tools in literary study. For example the advertisement of the things of daily usages; the advertisement of salt. It directly emphasis the moral of ‘honesty towards the master’, it depicts the mindset of slave.

2.        As in literature, so in culture, meaning is borne by signs. They embody codes that are shared by cultural communities. White Tiger is the example of the literature having the footprints of culture. In the novel Tiger is the sigh of the protagonist who wants the freedom. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is another one in which the protagonist had fought for freedom from enslavement.

3.      Culture consists of texts, institutions and practices. Culture means the way of living India has great heritage of historical texts in form of carvings of cave, ancient sculptures of Buddha and other God & Goddesses, Ashoka’s Stoop with Pali language and of course the Vedas, Upanishads, and Epics like Ramayana & Mahabharata. A time is preserved n it. Whatever we do and live constantly reflected in our educational institutes. The different faculties of studies suggested economic, social and political life of the country.

4.     Cultural studies began with the study of popular literary forms. There are two types of culture :popular culture and mass culture. Here I want to quote by the use of word Culture Arnold, “‘does not mean a precise body of knowledge or art but rather a psychological attitude of mental freedom, driven by the motive of intellectual curiosity”. The Popular literary forms appeal to the lowest class of the society and popular amongst them which is naturally larger in number then upper and Elite class.  It represent the society very well, from the downside view.

5.    Culture is a realm of power. Those with economic power are able to make cultural products. Culture is decided by the ruling class. Whatever they do is considered as Culture. Here we can see the conflict that if the working class, the lowest class do according to their will and which is not harmful to the society, considered as Anarchy. Because it snatches away the right of ruling class to establish the Culture and Tradition whatever suitable to them.

In his essay Culture & Anarchy, Mathew Arnold Depicted the problem of working class people and guide them to do ‘doing as one likes’.