J103-Reading Analysis-3/10: Culture and Anarchy; 10th October 2006.

In this reading Matthew Arnold explains from the start that this essay will only concentrate on the ability of culture as a means of spreading “the best which has been thought and said in the world;” He discusses the disadvantages people put themselves under when they only experience the world through reading and the lack of questioning he sees when it comes to “stock notions and habits”. He argues that a man simply has culture if he “examines himself”. He clarifies this by saying that this examination is the “essence of culture”.
“Culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.” In this essay he mentions this several times. It is his theory that culture works towards a perfect utopian future that will be reached when the “masses of humanity are touched with sweetness and light.” In this utopia the class system will no longer exist and all people will have access to the best and brightest ideas of the moment.
This egalitarian approach to a way out of our current situation is the noblest thing that this essay alludes to. But there is little feeling behind the words of this essay. The sources of belief in these theories seem to be personal and with little physical or objective proof to make them any more than theories. His theories are cast like a net over all of the populace from the position of the middle classes. This position comes off as smugness when you start looking at his life and career. Rugby School followed by Balliol College and on to a fellowship elsewhere at Oxford just seems to reek of pomposity.
His time in history is one of relative peace but one of land grabbing. The European Imperialist forces are carving up Africa and the risks of expanding the empire are starting to come into light relief. These risks are stemmed by the opinion that ‘if you have no culture, you don’t deserve power’. This gives light to the fact that he speaks from a position of privilege and not one of poverty.
This theory although seen now as one of conservatism, was at the time seen as exceedingly radical. The traditional homes of power were in a state of flux as democracy spreads across nations where their structures were leaning towards more aristocratic methods of governance. Arnold welcomed this democratic shift as we see in his egalitarian ideals that he wanted to be shared across the world.
The scope for this argument made by Arnold is too narrow. All it did was show that essentially Arnold believed everyone should become middle class before the greater goal of ‘sweetness and light’ was strived for. It goes some way to explaining what a monumental struggle it must have been to start from almost nothing trying to implement or encourage the implementation of these theories. But as a theory worthy of implementation on its own, it does little to encourage faith to that end.