Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1869

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6-Conclusion

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapter 6-ConclusionChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 6 Summary

In Chapter 6, Arnold explores at length the concept of freedom and the importance of inward perfection and communal perfection. He begins the chapter by once again musing on the tensions between the Nonconformists and the established Anglican Church of England, once again arguing that the established church has many merits and that the Nonconformists are too rigid and literal in their views.

Arnold then moves on to a discussion about liberty and rights. He treats the idea of inherent “rights” or freedom with skepticism, asserting, “For my part, the deeper I go in my own consciousness […] the more it seems to tell me that I have no rights at all, only duties” (404). Arnold’s view takes on a more explicitly political dimension when he argues that trying to force social change—such as the working class’s fight for greater equality and representation—is not as effective as gradual change based on the influence of true culture and right reason. He argues that gradual change is natural, whereas abrupt, radical change is not. He uses feudalism as an example, claiming that “the abrupt, absolute stoppage of feudal habits” has resulted in “harm” (413), whereas the dissemination of true culture brings slower but surer results: "sweetness and light make a feudal class quietly and gradually drop its feudal habits because it sees them at variance with truth and reason” (413-14).

Furthermore, Arnold’s conception of freedom is based more on communalism and service to the greater good than an unchecked individualism based on furthering one’s own ends. He argues that “the only perfect freedom is, as our religion [Christianity] suggests, a service” (418, emphasis Arnold’s). This service is, Arnold explains, “an elevation of our best self, and a harmonising in subordination to this, and to the idea of a perfected humanity, all the multitudinous, turbulent, and blind impulse of our ordinary selves” (418-419). In nurturing the “best self,” culture improves society as a whole by promoting true freedom, which is service and not selfish pursuits.

Arnold goes on to discuss how Victorian society’s obsession with economic success ignores the poverty and ignorance it creates among the working class, who are more populous than ever but also more impoverished and exploited than before. Arnold denounces what he calls “our [the English’s] faith in the staunch mechanical pursuit of a fixed object” (431) in place of a more expansive view of human worth and well-being. He once again equates this narrowmindedness with the influence of Hebraism. Arnold asserts the communal nature of perfection once more, claiming, “individual perfection is impossible so long as the rest of mankind is not perfected along with us” (437).

Arnold’s sympathy for the harsh living conditions of the working class does not, however, equate to endorsing direct political action on their behalf. He writes that the believers in culture “must still decline to lend a hand to their [Liberal reformers’] practical operations until we [the believers in culture], for our own part at least, have grown a little clearer about the nature of real good” (453).

Conclusion Summary

In the Conclusion, Arnold finishes Culture and Anarchy with more reflections on the nature of anarchy, authority, and the relationship between true culture and public life. He again argues that, while injustices do exist in Victorian English society, they are nevertheless never a justification for mass demonstrations and disorder. He says that believers in culture and right reason must unfailingly “support them [the state and its members] in repressing anarchy and disorder; because without order there can be no society, and without society there can be no human perfection” (458). He says that even demonstrations in favor of a worthy cause, such as those that helped end the slave trade, “ought to be unflinchingly forbidden and repressed” (459) in the name of upholding the wider social order and ensuring the security of the state. He calls the state “sacred” (460), asserting that “culture is the most resolute enemy of anarchy” (460) because true culture teaches the individual to respect the state on account of the “great hopes and designs for the state” (460) a believer in true culture always has.

Arnold closes with some thoughts on the role believers in true culture play in society. He emphasizes that, while the cultural believer always supports the state, this does not mean that they actively participate in the workings of the state or in public life more generally. If anything, Arnold expressly discourages believers in culture from direct action, writing, “if despondency and violence are both of them forbidden to the believer in culture, yet neither, on the other hand, is public life and direct political action much permitted to him” (466). Instead, the role of the believer in true culture should be that of observer, thinker, commentator, and influencer—someone who promotes the worth of true culture in order to pursue both their own perfection and that of society more generally.

Chapter 6-Conclusion Analysis

In the sixth and final chapter and Conclusion of Culture and Anarchy, Arnold addresses the wider political implications of his cultural theories in more detail. There are three main facets to his arguments in the closing parts of the text: the true nature of freedom, the sacredness of the state and public order, and the believer in culture’s avoidance of direct political action.

In prior chapters, Arnold has already repeatedly denounced the English conception of “freedom,” which he believes is little more than unchecked individualism and an invitation to anarchy. When Arnold claims, “I have no rights at all, only duties” (404), his insistence on “duties” over “rights” speaks to his deep dislike of the Victorian era’s emphasis on greater individual rights and political emancipation. Arnold does not believe in any universal notion of “human rights” and regards any and all liberties as contingent upon the laws of a particular nation, such as the previously mentioned laws that guarantee English liberties to Englishmen alone. Furthermore, in asserting “the only perfect freedom is, as our religion suggests, a service” (418, emphasis Arnold’s), Arnold once again emphasizes the spiritual dimension of his cultural and social theories: The influence of religious thinkers, such as Bishop Wilson, upon his thought has led Arnold to formulate both culture and the idea of political “rights” along traditionally Christian lines.

It is also in Chapter 6 and, especially, the Conclusion that Arnold formulates his strictest and most explicit ideas of the state’s authority. Arnold calls the state “sacred” (460) and argues that any believer in culture will always support the state’s authority without question, calling culture “the most resolute enemy of anarchy” (460). Arnold here sets up a strict dichotomy, in which the state, order, and culture exist on one side, and anarchy exists on the other. For Arnold, there can be no middle ground, as the Liberal reformers he criticizes suggest. Arnold believes there is only ever authority or anarchy because he regards any challenge to the state’s authority as already a manifestation of anarchic impulses. He insists that all “monster processions in the streets” should be “unflinchingly forbidden and repressed” (459) because the risk they bring of disorder is simply too great. This does not mean, however, that Arnold is opposed to all change on principle: Instead, he argues that change must always be gradual, as “[e]verything teaches us how gradually nature would have all profound changes brought about” (413). Since change needs to be gradual, radical political action can play no role in bringing it about.

Instead, the surest way of bringing about safe, gradual change is, according to Arnold, the influence of true culture. Arnold claims that feudalism successfully ends when “sweetness and light make a feudal class quietly and gradually drop its feudal habits” (413-14), suggesting that change always needs to come from the top down to ensure the preservation of social stability and the state’s authority. Arnold’s views also suggest that culture alone can effect change, as “sweetness and light” can lead the privileged classes of society to reject their privileges as “at variance with truth and reason” (413-14) even when it is against their own interests to do so. Arnold’s argument throughout Culture and Anarchy that true culture transforms both individuals and mankind at large leads him to conclude that this inward transformation can, with time, manifest itself in political and social ways as well.

Finally, Arnold’s insistence that the believer in true culture should avoid direct involvement in political life reinforces his notion that inward transformation is, ultimately, the most important and the most effective. Arnold does not deny the charge of his critics that he is inactive on the public stage—rather, he openly admits it. He does dispute, however, the idea that he is ineffective as a believer in culture. Arnold affirms at the end of Culture and Anarchy that the propagation of true culture is the most crucial mission of all, as it is within “the fermenting mind of the nation” (472)—the inner realm of each English subject—that the greatest transformations can take place, and he who gains access to this inner realm holds the “real influence” (472) after all.