Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism

Arnold says that, up until this point in the text, he has spoken more about beauty, or “sweetness,” than he has about “light,” or intelligence and reason, which will now become his main focus. Before doing so, he once again returns to answering the critics of culture, in particular the charge that he is too politically indifferent and, therefore, too ineffectual. Arnold answers this charge by claiming that an emphasis on action is often misplaced and that thought and debate about whether an action is a good idea in the first place are highly valuable.

Arnold returns to the idea that the English “bondage to machinery” (210) and the way in which the English often regard “Freedom” (in the sense of individualism) as an undisputed good, is detrimental to English society. The English love of freedom often leads to a mistrust of the idea of “the State” (212, emphasis Arnold’s) and to the idea of establishments more generally. Arnold argues that many English subjects regard the state as representing the interests of whichever class it is most beholden to instead of governing for the good of the whole. Arnold speaks of how the working class have changed in recent years through the move to a more industrial society, claiming they have given up their traditional “subordination and deference” (215), which was so prominent during the time of feudalism, and have embraced the “modern spirit” (215), which is full of “the anarchical tendency of our worship of freedom in and for itself” and “machinery” in general (215).