Culture and Anarchy · Theme
Machinery vs. Ends
How Culture and Anarchy develops Machinery vs. Ends.
The tendency to worship 'machinery'—such as freedom, population, wealth, or industrial production—as ends in themselves, rather than as means to the true end of human perfection and the development of the 'best self.'
Where it surfaces
- Sweetness and Light
Arnold criticizes the overvaluation of machinery (e.g., religious organizations, industrialism) as a means, losing sight of the true end of human perfection.
- Doing as One Likes
Freedom is treated as an end in itself (machinery) rather than a means to perfection.
- Porro Unum Est Necessarium
Critique of treating religion, business, and other pursuits as mechanical, absolute laws (machinery) rather than as means to a larger human perfection.
- Our Liberal Practitioners
Critiques the treatment of free trade and population growth as absolute goods (machinery) rather than means to human perfection (ends).
- Chapter I
Arnold criticizes the Nonconformist maxim against Church establishments as a 'mechanical rule' or 'fetish,' arguing that it prioritizes a rigid means over the true ends of reason, justice, and human perfection.
- Chapter II: Doing as One Likes and the Real Estate Intestacy Bill
Arnold contrasts the 'machinery' of stock notions and legal reforms with the true end of human welfare and perfection.
- Chapter IV: Hebraism, Hellenism, and the Social Question
Free trade and population growth are treated as mechanical ends in themselves, rather than means to human perfection.