He's talking about a programme that Melvyn Bragg had made:
...............For now, I just want to say something about an issue raised in the first programme, about Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, because it underpins so many of the disputes about the value of culture that still rage today.
‘The best that has been thought and known in the world’
The most famous line in Arnold’s book, though as so often it tends to be repeated without the context that gives it complexity, is that culture
‘seeks to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere’.
That idea of the best quickly became a dividing line between those
wishing to defend certain cultural values and those taking a more
relativistic view of human cultures. It remains highly contested as
demonstrated by some of the less illuminating parts of Bragg’s final
programme, a public debate at the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society.
It has always seemed to me that this is a false division, as are so many drawn by opponents in our culture wars. Who, after all, does not want access to the best experiences that life can offer, at least some of the time, including the best that has been thought and known? No one seeks out mediocrity, knowingly and consistently. The problem arises because we don’t agree about what is good. And in cultural policy, or the spending decisions of Arts Councils, that problem becomes acute because some people have to make choices between available goods on behalf of others. The dilemma is pervasive in public culture: for the trustees of a museum, an everyday decision such as whether to spend more on acquisitions or on access programmes, turns on this question.
And, in a democracy where each citizen has an equal voice, it cannot be resolved by appeal to an absolute authority. Experts—those who have studied and thought long about a subject—can argue that their specialist knowledge should be listened to and, if the issue was building a bridge it would be stupid not to take the advice of an engineer. But culture is not physics (which is why a distinction between art and science exists and must be recognised). And, even if it were, the central principle of democracy remains: people have the right to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are misguided and will lead them to outcomes that they do not want.
That is the philosophical heart of Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader. The central character, faced with a critical decision about whether to act in what he sees as another person’s best interests but against that person’s wishes, is told by his father, who fortunately happens to be a professor of philosophy:
The question about culture in a democracy is not whether mother is
right but whether every citizen is treated with equal dignity in
exercising the freedom to make sense of his or her own life, in and
through culture.
...............For now, I just want to say something about an issue raised in the first programme, about Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy, because it underpins so many of the disputes about the value of culture that still rage today.
‘The best that has been thought and known in the world’
The most famous line in Arnold’s book, though as so often it tends to be repeated without the context that gives it complexity, is that culture
‘seeks to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere’.
It has always seemed to me that this is a false division, as are so many drawn by opponents in our culture wars. Who, after all, does not want access to the best experiences that life can offer, at least some of the time, including the best that has been thought and known? No one seeks out mediocrity, knowingly and consistently. The problem arises because we don’t agree about what is good. And in cultural policy, or the spending decisions of Arts Councils, that problem becomes acute because some people have to make choices between available goods on behalf of others. The dilemma is pervasive in public culture: for the trustees of a museum, an everyday decision such as whether to spend more on acquisitions or on access programmes, turns on this question.
And, in a democracy where each citizen has an equal voice, it cannot be resolved by appeal to an absolute authority. Experts—those who have studied and thought long about a subject—can argue that their specialist knowledge should be listened to and, if the issue was building a bridge it would be stupid not to take the advice of an engineer. But culture is not physics (which is why a distinction between art and science exists and must be recognised). And, even if it were, the central principle of democracy remains: people have the right to make their own decisions, even if those decisions are misguided and will lead them to outcomes that they do not want.
That is the philosophical heart of Bernhard Schlink’s novel The Reader. The central character, faced with a critical decision about whether to act in what he sees as another person’s best interests but against that person’s wishes, is told by his father, who fortunately happens to be a professor of philosophy:
‘But with adults I unfortunately see
no justification for setting other people’s views of what is good for
them above their own ideas of what is good for themselves.’
‘Not even if they themselves would be happy about it later?’
He shook his head. ‘We’re not talking
about happiness, we’re talking about dignity and freedom. Even as a
little boy, you knew the difference. It was no comfort to you that your
mother was always right.’
I listened to the Melvin Brag program ages ago - I've not read Arnold. At the minute I'm interested in the role of the individual in social actions. I was spurred on a bit by Alice and her writing about back to the future in that it feels like the split is between the individual and the collective and in some ways we have lost some of the bridges that connect us. For example the obsession with co-production and collaboration within art and research feels about the collective realisation of ideas but in the end the individual voice or the people who lead and show the way are also important. As Herbert Read said - to hell with culture- to hell with artists.
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