Matthew Arnold is really a great fighter for the real culture that prevails in London society. He finds the realm of materialism that is trying to strangle 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 shows him to be a well 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 as one wants; they had a great passion for field sports. His manly fitness, strength and good looks are definitely in the aristocratic class of his time. His courtesy resembles the cavalry of the barbarians, and his external 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, experts in industry, and engaged in industrialization and trade. His eternal inclination is the progress and prosperity of the country through the construction of cities, railways and the operation of 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 mob. This class is known crude and half developed due to poverty and other related diseases. This class is mostly exploited by the barbarians and philistines. The author finds democratic excitement in this class because they are becoming politically conscious and coming out of hiding to assert the heavenly privilege of an English man 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 the level of his birth and social status in his quest for 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. Philistines like fanaticism, business, making money, comfort, and tea parties, but the mob class, hated by both classes, likes to yell, push, stomp, and drink beer. All of them maintain different activities due to their social status. However, there are some souls in these classes who await the culture with the 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. In reality, love or the search for perfection is within the focus of ordinary people. He calls the man of culture as the true nurse of 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 correct source of authority is the best self or the correct 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 right reason and the ordinary self that can be felt alone in pursuit of perfection. In this regard, he speaks that the bathos, surrounded by nature itself in the soul of man, is presented 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 oneself is very difficult for the search for perfection in literature, religion and even in politics. The prevailing political system 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 Englishmen of genius with their sense of duty and reverence for the 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 populace for bearing their favors. In fact, they play on his feelings, having displayed the brightest powers of sympathy and the quickest power of action. All these compliments are mere nonsense and tricks 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 mislead 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 appealing to the best of 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 the opinion that when one man’s particular kind of taste for the bathos tyrannizes that of another man, consequently 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 genial taste for bathos; and tearing it down to its natural workings and infinite variety of experiments.
Arnold wants to bring about reform in education by shifting the management of public schools from their former board of trustees to the state. Like politics, in education the danger lies in individual action without control and without guidance. All actions must be controlled by 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 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 persons or classes must devote themselves to the pursuit of perfection, and he seems to agree with Humboldt, the German philosopher, in the case of the pursuit of perfection. Culture will make them perfect on their own basis. So, it is essential that man should try to seek human perfection by instituting his best self or real reason; culture, in the end, would find its public reason.