SOURCE: Lipman, Samuel. “Why Should We Read Culture and Anarchy?” In Culture and Anarchy, edited by Samuel Lipman, pp. 213-27. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Lipman comments on the importance of Culture and Anarchy as a seminal text in helping form a society that has abolished anarchy.

This essay is written by way of both conclusion and introduction, though it may well be said that I am using each of these words in a curious way. It is a conclusion in the sense that I have attempted to summarize Arnold's views in his time, a time different, like all times past, from our own; it is an introduction in that I have attempted to go on from Arnold's time to ours, that we might apply his wisdom to our problems. My initial question, then, is but a restatement of what I have just written...