On 27/3/05 7:11 AM, "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks for this--sorry to hear of the flu, hoping you'll soon be well.
> In fact I almost said, "but cheer up! spring's around the corner,"
> until I realized it would be a very long and wintry corner for you as
> my geographical-global-centrism had the entire world on the brink of a
> Texas spring :)

Thanks Chris - and apologies for my midnight groans. It's autumn round the
corner here, and autumn is the loveliest season in Melbourne (usually). And
I'll be in the northern hemisphere for most of our winter, anyway.

> Well, Alison, thanks so much for the encouragement and for looking into
> M.Arnold--an interesting figure
> whose rhetoric, as you point out, cannot help but be in league, if only
> by (Victorian) default,
> with imperialism and it's hypocritical agenda of colonizing with the
> excuse of serving
> 'moral' standards.
>
> My take on it all also questions what interests are being served by
> this retro business
> of reinstituting a monumental kind of value/moral system--people in
> large numbers
> seem so taken by this kind of thinking every time it rolls around.
> In my opinion it mostly provides an excuse not to have to
> think hard on hard questions. Alas.

I guess the father figure of the State is very seductive, and it's all
linked with the idea of being safe, which itself is linked to fear and
paranoia. Arnold is not simplistic; but he was certainly all for the
(ideal) State and thought rebellion, no matter how justified it might be,
was impermissible, as only the state could permit the "perfection" of human
society and stave off anarchy. Here's a quote from Culture and Anarchy:

"And this opinion of the intolerableness of anarchy we can never forsake,
however our Liberal friends may think a little rioting, and what they call
popular demonstrations, useful sometimes to their own interests and to the
interests of the valuable practical operations they have in hand, and
however they may preach the right of an Englishman to be left to do as far
as possible what he likes, and the duty of his government to indulge him and
connive as much as possible and abstain from all harshness of repression.
And even when they artfully show us operations which are undoubtedly
precious, such as the abolition of the slave-trade, and ask us if, for their
sake, foolish and obstinate governments may not wholesomely be frightened by
a little disturbance, the good design in view and the difficulty of
overcoming opposition to it being considered,--still we say no, and that
monster-processions in the streets and forcible irruptions into the parks,
even in professed support of this good design, ought to be unflinchingly
forbidden and repressed; and that far more is lost than is gained by
permitting them. Because a State in which law is authoritative and
sovereign, a firm and settled course of public order, is requisite if man is
to bring to maturity anything precious and lasting now, or to found anything
precious and lasting for the future.

"Thus, in our eyes, the very framework and exterior order of the State,
whoever may administer the State, is sacred; and culture is the most
resolute enemy of anarchy, because of the great hopes and designs for the
State which culture teaches us to nourish..."

And so on - it's a pretty familiar argument, on the whole, though we usually
encounter it in a cruder form these days. I'm not at all certain that I am a
revolutionary; but Mr Arnold seems to exclude the "Barbarians (and) the
Philistines (and) the Populace" (whoever they are) from the heritage of
culture, although they are all kindly allowed their share in perfection!

Best

A

Alison Croggon

Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com