Jamal Awil

← Islamophobia and the Novel

Nineteenth-century liberals doubted whether art education empowers or pacifies the excluded. [connection]

By implication, Baxter and the other outsiders and untouchables of this world are excluded from these benefits but can be "brought in" through education and exposure to their power. Like a boy with his nose pressed against a sweet-store window at Christmas, Baxter can only look on in spellbound wonder at the goodies being tantalizingly dangled before him. The therapeutic qualities of Arnold's work suggest that the excluded may be transformed by exposure to art and literature, although—as with Arnold and his fellow nineteenth-century liberals—there is always some doubt as to whether the aim is to empower or to pacify them.

DEFINE: Clarifies the dual intent behind Arnold's therapeutic, liberal model of art education — whether its purpose is empowerment or pacification of the excluded.

Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, loc. 117