According to Matthew Arnold Concept of Culture And Meaning of Anarchy in Society

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Name:Gohil Poojaba S

Roll No.:18

Std:M.A.Sem:2

Sub:Paper No 6

The Victorian Age

Assignment Topic:According To Matthew Arnold Concept Of Culture & Meaning Of Anarchy In Society

Submitted To:M.K.Bhavnagar University

Year:2015:2017

“Culture is properly described as the love of perfection;it is a study of perfection”.

Brief about Matthew Arnold:

Matthew Arnold was a poet of Victorian period.he was born on 24^th of December,1822 in England.he was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of school.he was the son of Thomas Arnold,The Headmaster of Rugby School.he had two brothers namely Tom Arnold &William Delafield Arnold.Tom Arnold was a literary professor and William Delafield Arnold was a novelist and colonial administrator.he was famous in genres such as poetry:literary social and religious criticism.Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a Saga writer,a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.

Culture And Anarchy is a series of periodical essays by Matthew Arnold.which was first published in Cornhill magazine in 1867:68.Anarchy is a controversial philosophical work.the essay argues for a restructuring of England`s social ideology.it reflects Arnold`s passionate conviction that the uneducated English masses could be modeled into conscientious individuals who strive for human perfection through the harmonious cultivation of all their skills and talents.Arnold`s famous piece of writing on culture established his high Victorian cultural agenda that remained dominant in debate from the 1860s until 1950s.a cultural condition of Arnold`s thesis is that a state administrated system of education must be replace the ecclesiastical programmed which emphasized rigid individual moral conduct at the expense of free thinking and devotion community.

What is Culture:

In Culture And Anarchy,in the essay Matthew Arnold tries to say the idea of culture.he introduces Culture as,

“The whole scope of essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties;culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know,on all the matters which most concern us,’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 stock notions and habits,which we now follow staunchly but mechanically.”

To show the significance of culture he gave an example of American culture.he proposes to try and enquire in in the simple unsystematic way,what culture really is,what good it can do,what is our own particular need of it.and he seeks to find some plain ground on which a faith in culture may rest securely.Arnold believes that culture is a study of perfection.

He further adds that,

To conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious perfection,as a general perfection,developing all sides of our humanity and as a general perfection,developing all sides of society.

Culture is considered not merely as the endeavour to see and learn this,but also to make it prevail,the moral,social and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest.as religion,culture is also places in an internal condition.character perfection is recommended in culture.perfection of culture is not possible while the individuals remains isolated.

Thus,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:Sweetness and Light’.

Arnold connects his ideas of sweetness and light with culture and try to explains with the Greek words Aphuia and Euphoria.because of that central idea,this first chapter is called Sweetness an Light,which is about the introduction of culture.

Sweetness and Light:

The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity,sometimes,indeed,they make its motives mere exclusiveness in vanity.the culture which is supposed to plume itself on a smattering of Greek and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing so intellectual as curiosity;it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance,or else as an engine of social and class distinction,separating its holder like a badge or little from people who have not got it.no serious man would call this culture or attach any value to it,as culture at all.

But there is of culture second view,in which not solely the scientific passion,the sheer desire to see things as they are,natural and proper in intelligent beings that appear as the ground of it.there is a view in which all the love of our neighbours,the impulses towards action help and beneficence the desire for removing human error,clearing human confusion and diminishing human misery,the noble aspiration to live the world better and happier than we found it,motives eminently such as are called social come is as the part of grounds of culture and the main and pre eminent part.

Then culture is properly described not as having its origin in curiocity,but as having its origin in the love of perfection,that is the 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 well.

The movement for culture is of service,culture which believes in making reason and the will of God prevail,believes in perfection,is the study and pursuit of perfection that is no longer debarred by a rigid invincible exclusion of whatever is new from getting acceptance for its ideas,simply just because they are new.

Religion says:

The kingdom of God is within you.

Like manner culture places human perfection in an internal condition,in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper as distinguishing from our animality.it places it in the ever increasing efficiency and the general harmonious expansion of those gifts of thought and feeling,which make the peculiar dignity,wealth and happiness of human nature.

The idea of perfection as an inward condition of the mode and spirit is at variance with the mechanical and material civilization.the ides of perfection as a general expansion of the human family is as variance with our strong individualism,our hatred of all limits to the unrestrained swing of the individual`s personality our maxim of every man for himself.

Doing As One Likes:

Culture is to be study and pursuit of perfection that of perfection as pursued by culture,beauty and intelligence.on the other words,sweetness and light are the main characters.

Arnold`s theory of sweetness and light is full of antipathy against the rougher or coarser movements going on around him.

Matthew Arnold started to speak of culture,by insisting on our bondage to machinery,on our proneness to value machinery as end itself,without looking it to the end for which alone,in reality,it is valueable.in our common notions and talk about freedom,we eminently show our idolatry of machinery.

Our middle class,the great representative of trade and dissent,with its maxims of every man for himself in business,every man for religion,dreads a powerful administration which might somehow interfere with it.

After then to our working class.that pressed constantly by the hard daily compulsion of material wants,is naturally the very center and stronghold of our national idea,that it is man`s ideal right and felicity to do as he likes.

Culture which simply means an attempt to perfect oneself,if we light it shows us that there is nothing so very blessed in merely doing as one likes.worship of the mere freedom to do as one likes is worship of machinery,that really blessed thing to like what right reason ordains.

Culture confers upon us,if in embarrassed times like the present it enables us to look at the ins and outs of things in this way,without hatred and without partially and with disposition to see the God in everybody all round.

Two excellent rules of Bishop Wilson`s for man`s guidance:firstly never go against the best light you have,secondly take care that your light be not darkness.

Anarchy in Society:

Anarchy in Society:
Three Classes:
Barbarians	Philistines	Populace

In the very beginning Matthew Arnold says that from a man without a philosophy no one can expect philosophical completeness.therefore,he observes that in trying to get a distinct notion of our aristocratic,our middle and our working class with a view of testing the claims of each of these classes to become a center of authority.

Philistines conveys a sense which makes it more peculiarly appropriate to our middle class than to our aristocratic.Aristocratic class called The Barbarians.The Barbarians had the passion for asserting one`s personal liberty and the great natural stronghold.

Arnold Says that it is notorious that our middle class liberals have long looked forward to this consumption when the working class shall join forces with them.division of English society two things are to be borne in mind.the first is that since,under all our class divisions,ther is common basis of human nature.the second things to be borne in mind that so far as we are Barbarians,Philistines,or Populace,imagine happiness to consist in doing what one`s ordinary self likes.

Finally,we can summaries that from every walk of life some people must dedicate themselves to the pursuit of perfection.the doors of perfection and culture are wide open to any really dedicated soul from any three great divisions which Arnold finds proper to sort out the people of England.

But then it is essential that man must strive to seek human perfection to establish his best self,and culture would in the end,can find its public recognition.

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