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July 01, 2008
Matthew Arnold on the True Apostles of Equality
Don Boudreaux
I love this insight from Matthew Arnold; it's from his Culture and Anarchy.
This is the social idea; and the men of culture are the true apostles of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time; who have labored to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanize it to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned , yet still reaming the best knowledge and thoughts of the time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light.
(HT to my close friend Lyle Albaugh.)
Posted by Don Boudreaux in Education | Permalink
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Comments
Just more "right wing Republian Christian" propaganda!
Posted by: jpm | Jul 1, 2008 9:32:17 PM
I like culture myself (I mean 'high' culture of the kind that Arnold advocated), but culture is the opposite of quality-promoting. Because one can only be cultured by immersion, especially at an early age - but by prolonged contact, so that one absorbs the correct manners, style, accent and attitudes. Therefore an emphasis on culture always (albeit often unwittingly) promotes class rigidities.
Posted by: BGC | Jul 2, 2008 11:39:23 AM
Re: my comment above - I intended to write equality-promoting, not quality-promoting...
Confusing, I expect...
Posted by: BGC | Jul 2, 2008 4:09:45 PM
God himself decreed inequality by allowing those to be born with differing intelligence, physical capabilities.
Posted by: FreedomLover | Jul 3, 2008 1:05:40 PM
The cultured person is a curious person. He/she wants more knowledge.
Book for students who are curious about economics:
New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought
by Todd G Buchholz
Posted by: jorod | Jul 23, 2008 4:44:18 PM
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