The key points that I have found in the readings are:
The essay discusses the role of culture in the world. Arnold claims that every culture strives for sweetness and light, which is the ideal combination of beauty and intelligence.
“Culture as a great help out of our present difficulties”
“A man’s life of each day depends for its solidity and value on whether he reads during the day and, far more still, on what he reads during it.”
“Culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light”
Arnold claims that every culture strives for sweetness and light, which is the ideal combination of beauty and intelligence.
“The great men of the culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge , the best ideas of their times.”
“We have to get a much wanted principle of authority to counteract the tendency top anarchy which seems to be threatening us”
He notes that there are three classes in culture, the barbarians, the philistines and the populace. He defines the upper classes as barbarians, the middle classes as philistines and lower classes as the populace.
According to him the Barbarian likes honours and consideration, Philistine likes fanaticism, business and money making, comfort and tea meetings and the Populace likes bowling, hustling and smashing; the lighter self, beer. He also notes that within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens.
Although this reading is from 1869, but the fact of dividing the culture in classes still exist. I personally feel that now each of these classes has sub classes. But now the integration of the social media networks in our life helps us to communicate with each other without the worrying about showing our classes.
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