Matthew Arnold is really a great fighter for the real culture that prevails in London society. He finds the reign of materialism that is trying to strangle the real culture. So, in this chapter, Arnold divides the society of England into three classes: the aristocratic class, the middle class, and the working class. He finds Anarchy very common in these classes and analyzes them with their strengths and weaknesses. He designates the aristocratic class of his time as the Barbains, the middle class as the Philistines, and the working class as the populace.
His three-class scrutiny of his time proves him to be a good, seasoned critic. For the aristocratic class, he considers that this class lacks the proper courage for resistance. He calls this class the barbarians because they believe in their personal individualism, freedom and doing what one wants; they had a great passion for field sports. His manly build, strength and good looks are definitely in the aristocratic class of his time. His courtesy resembles the chivalry of the barbarians, and his outward styles in manners, achievements, and powers are inherited from the barbarians.
The other class is the middle class or the Philistines, known for their worldly wisdom, skilled in industry and busy with industrialization and trade. His eternal bent is the progress and prosperity of the country by building cities, railways, and running the great wheels of industry. They have produced the largest merchant marine. So, they are the builders of the Empire. In this material progress, the working class is with them. All the keys to progress are in your hands.
The other class is the working class or the populace. This class is known crude and half developed due to poverty and other related diseases. This class is mostly exploited by barbarians and philistines. The author finds democratic excitement in this class because they are gaining political consciousness and coming out of hiding to assert an English man’s heaven-born privilege to do what he wants, meet where he wants, shout what he wants, and break what he wants. . He likes.
Despite such a class system, Arnold finds a common ground of human nature in everyone. Thus, the spirit of sweetness and light can be founded. Even Arnold calls himself a Philistine and rises above his birth level and social status in his pursuit of perfection, sweetness, light and culture. Furthermore, he says that all three classes find happiness in what they like. For example, barbarians like honor and consideration, field sports, and pleasure. The Philistines like bigotry, business, making money, comfort, and tea parties, but the rabble class, hated by both classes, likes to shout, push, smash, and drink beer. All of them maintain different activities due to their social status. However, there are some souls in these classes who wait for the culture with a desire to know the best of themselves or to see things as they are. They have the desire to follow reason and make God’s will prevail.
For the pursuit of perfection, it falls not only on genius or talented people, but also on all classes. Actually, love or the pursuit of perfection is within the focus of ordinary people. He calls the man of culture as the true nurse in the search for love, sweetness and light. He finds such people in all three classes who have a general human spirit for the pursuit of perfection. He says that the right source of authority is the best self or the right reason to be reached by the culture.
The best self or the right reason and the ordinary self:
Here he discusses the best self or the right reason and the ordinary self that can be felt only in pursuit of perfection. In this regard, he speaks of the fact that the bathos, surrounded by nature itself in the soul of man, appears in the literary judgment of some literary critics and in some religious organizations in America. He further says that the idea of the best of himself is very difficult for the pursuit of perfection in literature, religion and even in politics. The political system, prevailing in his time, was that of the barbarians. Leaders and statesmen sang the praises of the barbarians for currying favor with the aristocrats. Tennyson celebrates in his poems the glory of the great broad-shouldered genius Englishmen with their sense of duty and reverence for law. Arnold claims that Tennyson is singing the praises of the Philistines because this middle class is the backbone of the country in progress. Politicians sing the praises of the population for bringing their favors. In fact, they play on their feelings, having shown the brightest powers of sympathy and the fastest power of action. All these accolades are mere nonsense and gimmicks to get applause. It is the taste of the bath surrounded by nature itself in the soul of man and enters the ordinary self. The Ordinary Self forces readers to disorient the nation. It is more admirable, but its benefits are enjoyed by representatives and rulers.
Arnold leans in for the right reason as a supreme authority calling on the best in himself. All classes must follow it, otherwise anarchy will prevail, and they will do what they like to do. In education, he wants to prevail the best of himself because he was in danger. He is of opinion that when one man’s particular kind of taste for bathos tyrannizes another man’s, consequently the right reason or the better self must fail to rule in education. He insists on the right reason that is the authority in matters of education. The state of affairs in education arises from the lack of intellectual flexibilities in pedagogues who are neglecting the better self or right reason and are trying to appeal to the genius taste for bathos; and tearing it down to its natural functioning and its infinite variety of experiments.
Arnold wants to bring about reform in education by shifting the management of public schools from his former board of trustees to the state. Like politics, in education the danger lies in uncontrolled and unguided individual action. All actions must be controlled by the true reason or the best self of the individual. It is the opinion of some people that the state cannot interfere in the affairs of education. The men of the liberal party believe in freedom, the individual freedom to do what one wants and affirm that the interference of the state in education is a violation of personal freedom. Arnold says that such an ideal personal freedom still has an indefinite distance.
The mission of Arnold’s culture is that each individual must act for himself and must be perfect. The chosen people or classes must be dedicated to the pursuit of perfection, and he seems to agree with Humboldth, the German philosopher, in the case of the pursuit of perfection. The culture will make them perfect on their own basis. So, it is essential that man should try to search for human perfection by instituting the best self or real reason for him; culture, in the end, would find its public reason.