Culture|Book review
Victorian poet and critique theorist Matthew Arnold defends general education and participation in the debate.
Nonfiction book
Matthew Arnold: Culture and Anarchy. Anssi Halmevirta, Finland. Basam Books. 237s.
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) were precisely those vigorous advocates of high culture and classical literature whose inflexibility would arouse both irritation and resentment today.
Arnold was concerned about the decay of civilization; that the rapidly industrializing modern world produces only a low-end pursuit of self-interest and a popular sense of style. Like Culture and anarchy translator of the essay Anssi Halmevirta even in the preface, it is a commentary on a contemporary debate.
According to Arnold, the deep lines of the prevailing culture were two forces morally pulling in different directions. Of these, Hebrew was puritanical, demanding a strong conscience, and emphasizing duty, whereas Hellenism instead represented the inherent spontaneity of man, the search for beauty and knowledge, and the harmony of forms.
Despite historically incorrect names, the confrontation can still be seen today.
When Hebrew rejects sin, evil, and moral laxity, while Hellenism fights ignorance, ugliness, and stiffness of mind.
It is known that the German concept of Bildung, education in Finnish, has not been able to be translated into English. Perhaps with Hellenism treated to the point of discourse, Arnold means open and free civilization.
Arnold makes fun of social classes instead of the traditional class division. Rather, for him, the nation can be divided into national character, represented by barbarians, reindeer bourgeoisie, and the people.
The breakdown could still be of use today.
Reindeer herders are precisely the small, narrow, and angular middle class from which Anna Kontula just published a hilarious book Little bourgeois (2021). The barbarians defending aristocratic power, on the other hand, only care about their privileges, and the working class people today would be equated with car hikes against the price of gasoline on Mannerheimintie.
In a fairly modern way, Arnold declares himself to be outside these groups, but he is no longer an anarchist. He also writes in a scintillating tone about “our liberal friends”.
Rather, Arnold himself is an English-speaking Hegelian who advocates general education, participation in the debate, and access to property as long as it exists. He often contrasts with culture and industrialization.
Although Arnold is not a socialist, he is still waking up to the rise of socialism:
“I have said that the new and more democratic force that is now displacing our old, middle-class liberalism is, for the time being, hard to criticize.”
However, the annoyance of uncivilization keeps Arnold apart from the people: Only high culture can free itself from clumsiness.
Now translated Culture and anarchy represents the difficult terrain into which a reindeer bourgeois, a barbarian, or a representative of the people accustomed to polarized debate has no longer wished to enter. That’s why Arnold’s intellectual vitality definitely has its place. For him, culture is the perfection of man.
The basic message that culture prevents self-centeredness, prejudice and narrow-mindedness, and develops people in the pursuit of infallibility, can be taken for granted today. Unfortunately, the view always only needs to reappear so that it is not grayed out and forgotten by the reindeer herders.
Perhaps the most important meaning of translating the work is that we notice how our lives are so full of different cultural experiences compared to 19th century England. In the midst of European wartime, one can become sensitive to the idea of the value of many things that seem self-evident.
#Book #Review #high #culture #free #clumsiness #19thcentury #poet #proclaims #division #covered #modern #times
