Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism

“[As] helpless as books and reading often prove for bringing nearer to perfection those who use them, one must, I think, be struck [ . . . ] to find how much, in our present society, a man’s life of each day depends for its solidity and value on whether he reads during that day, and, far more still, on what he reads during it.”

In this passage from his Preface to Culture and Anarchy, Arnold identifies the act of reading as an essential ingredient for “solidity and value” in a person’s life, but he adds an important caveat: “what” one reads is even more important than whether one reads at all. Throughout the work, Arnold will continuously emphasize the importance of intellectual inquiry in the quest for man’s perfection while also displaying skepticism toward the boom in mass media that dominates Victorian society. For Arnold, sensationalistic newspapers and common reading materials are not representative of the “true culture” he wishes to advocate for in the book.

“Culture, which is the study of perfection, leads us [ . . . ] to conceive of true human perfection as harmonious perfection, developing all sides of our humanity; and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society. For if one member suffer, the other members must suffer with it; and the fewer there are that follow the true way of salvation the harder it is to find.”

Arnold here offers a crucial definition of what true “culture” is: the “study of perfection,” which emphasizes both the moral aspects of Arnold’s theories and his idealized conception of what culture should be. Arnold also emphasizes that true culture benefits not just the individual but society as a whole, leading to “general perfection.” Arnold’s analogy of the “true way of salvation” reflects his habitual use of religion as a contextual framing device for cultural matters while also suggesting the redemptive qualities that true culture—like religion—can bring on both individual and societal levels.