Known-unknowns: Matthew Arnold, F. R. Leavis, and the government of culture

ABSTRACT

This essay reflects on the lives of two people whose publications, pedagogy, lectures, and crucially, whose experiences helped set the terms of the debate about so-called high culture in Cultural Studies: Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) and Frank Raymond (F. R.) Leavis (1895–1978). Who was Matthew Arnold? F. R. Leavis? What were the conditions of possibility of their work and words – that is, for the practices and positions for which they advocated? What new questions might emerge by sharing in detailed and perhaps unexpected stories of individuals who, presently, seem to function in Cultural Studies mainly as known-unknowns? The argument is that the details of both Arnold and Leavis’ lives are integral to understanding the conditions of possibility of their work, both individually and collectively, and indeed to more fully appreciating the meaning and implications their work holds for Cultural Studies. Apropos, this piece refines the methodology of keywords introduced by Raymond Williams [1958. Culture and society, 1780–1950. New York, NY: Columbia University Press; 1983. Keywords : A vocabulary of culture and society. Rev. ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.]. It also challenges some of the theoretical, historical, and analytical claims underpinning Tony Bennett [1996. Putting policy into cultural studies. In: what is cultural studies? A reader. London: Arnold, 307–321] and Ian Hunter’s [1988. Setting limits to culture. New Formations, 4, 103–123; 1994. Rethinking the school: subjectivity, bureaucracy, criticism. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin] work on culture as governmentality.

KEYWORDS:

• Matthew Arnold
• F. R. Leavis
• culture
• governmentality
• keywords
• high culture

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank the faculty and graduate students in the University of Colorado Boulder's Department of Communication for feedback on an earlier version of this essay. He also thanks Lawrence Grossberg and Phaedra Pezzullo for supporting this endeavor both personally and intellectually.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ted Striphas is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, part of the newly created College of Media, Communication, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. He is author of The late age of print: Everyday book culture from consumerism to control (Columbia University Press, 2009) and co-editor of the journal Cultural Studies.

Notes

1. On Arnold's racism, elitism, etc., see Ismail (2015, p. 13–37).

2. My uncle, cousin, maternal grandfather, and maternal great-grandfather all share the name John Bright, apparently in honour of the famous MP. I have yet to verify the claims of a familial connection.

3. ‘Democracy’ originally appeared as a section of a report Arnold prepared, in 1861, for the Newcastle Commission on Elementary Education. He subsequently published it as a stand-alone essay in 1879 (Collini 1993, pp. xxxii–xxxiii; see also p. xii).

4. I would add that the history recounted here is intended to answer to Viswanathan’s (1993, p. 227) challenge to write the history of colonialism back into Williams' chronicle of the culture and society tradition, and also then to make manifest the ‘reciprocal and determinate relation between culture and imperialism’.

5. The quote goes on to acknowledge the part played by I. A. Richards in helping to secure Arnold's intellectual legacy.

6. Two years earlier, in Mass Civilization and Minority Culture, Leavis (1930, p. 5) used the language of ‘fine living’. Evidently he felt compelled to lower the bar.

7. The passage anticipates, by almost 25 years, Heidegger’s (1977, p. 12) Question Concerning Technology, specifically the claim that the essence of technology is alētheia, or the revelation of truth.

8. This vignette is included in a memoir authored by Q. D. Leavis, fragments of which appear in the Singh book. On Leavis' decline, see MacKillop (1995, pp. 406–407).

9. Leavis (2013, p. 73) would reaffirm the point later in his career, stating, ‘I am not a Luddite’.

10. It is worth mentioning that, even there, Leavis (1930, p. 31) states that ‘it is vain to resist the triumph of the machine’.