The Individual, Society, and the State in Matthew Arnold’s Culture andAnarchy and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty

This paper is an analysis of Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy and Mill’s On Liberty based on theirconsideration of the individual, society, and the state. While Arnold and Mill were concerned about humanityand its confrontation with the industrial age, they prescribed their own approaches to save the society. Thispaper provides a close reading of the above works to shed light on their individual way of the same problem.It will be argued that Arnold, as a man who believes in order and authority, does not approve ofindividualism and personal liberty as, he believes, they would mislead society from its correct path toperfection. On the other hand, Mill stands against the supreme authority of the state and tradition because,he points out, they endanger freedom and originality of thought

Keywords:

Freedom , Authority , The individual , Society , The state