Culture and Anarchy is a book from which you can read different messages, depending on your inclinations. Conservatives often took it to heart because they shared Arnold’s horror of “anarchy,” specifically the public disorder and street demonstrations that were a feature of British life at the time of publication. Privileged himself, Arnold could see no call for people to behave in such an uncouth and unharmonious way when they could be reading Horace instead. Yet some of what he says is remarkably forward-looking: he is against exclusivity, and open-minded in his support of critical and
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