Arnolds Conception Of Culture
 

[SIZE="6"]ARNOLDS CONCEPTION OF CULTURE [/SIZE]
[SIZE="4"]WHAT IS CULTURE?[/SIZE]Culture, Arnold holds, does not merely mean a desire after the things of mind for their own sakes and for the pleasure of seeing them as they are. For Arnold this is simply not an endeavor “ to see things as they really are”. It is a study of perfection which has its origin not only in the passion for knowledge but also in moral and social passion for doing good, or a desire to augment the excellence of our nature and in the words of Bishop Wilson,” to make reason and the will of God prevail”. It is one of the main concerns of culture to make the truth prevail, apart from seeing and learning it. A man of culture aims at” endless expansion of powers endless growth in wisdom and beauty that the spirit of human race finds ideal, further perfection is not possible for isolated individuals. The man of culture must carry “others along with him in his march towards perfection.
[SIZE="4"]SOCIAL AMD MORAL ASPECTS OF CULTURE[/SIZE]
As has already been said, the scientific passion to know things as they are is not at all. There is also a social aspect of culture which includes moral and social passions for doing good the love of our neighbor, from the desire for removing human error, clearing human confusion and diminishing human misery. Further, what distinguishes is that it demands worthy notions of reason and the will of God and does not readily suffer its own crude conceptions to substitute themselves for them. Real culture inspires a person to leave the world better and happier than he found it.
As it is the endeavor of culture to make the moral and social order prevail, the inspiration for this endeavor comes from religion. The character of a man of culture is moulded by religion. According to Arnold, it is “greatest and most important of efforts by which human race has manifest its impulse to perfect itself”. Religion is the “voice of the deepest human experience”. Culture brings inward peace and satisfaction by subduing our animality and draws us near to a complete spiritual perfection. But culture goes beyond religion in its pursuits of perfection. Its disinterested study of human nature and human experience, the idea of perfection is an inward condition of the mind and spirit as well as general of expansion of the human family.
[SIZE="4"]DISNTERSTEDNESS [/SIZE]
The most important trait if the man of culture, according to Arnold, is disinterestedness. The man of culture can maintain this disinterestedness by keeping himself aloof from the practical view of things and those interests which in any way tend to hamper the attainment of the intellectual and moral perfection; as well as by following the law of free play of mind on all incompatible with Arnold’s conception of culture.
A man of culture must not be influenced by the Barbarians or the aristocratic class who have spirit and politeness but not sweetness and light. Culture shuns the falsification of ideas of Philistines or the middles class. It must also shun the bawling, hustling, smashing of the Populace or the working class.
[SIZE="4"]CULTURE AS A FOIL TO MACHINERY[/SIZE]
Again, a man of culture looks beyond machinery such as social political and economic, population, and wealth etc. culture is against middle class liberalism and eschews all kinds of narrowness and hatred. It teaches people not to be so much materialistic. Culture is free from all passions, save one i.e. the passion for sweetness and light. A man of culture delights in spreading sweetness and light among the raw and unkindled sections of the society. Culture’s task, Arnold says is “to make all men like in an atmosphere of sweetness and light, where may use ideas, as it uses them itself; freely—nourished and bounded by them.