Was Matthew Arnold RIght?

The brilliant Matthew Arnold wrote in his phenomenal work Culture and Anarchy, that Americans were going to be possessed of vulgar comportment and terrible manners forever.
I try to deny his prediction, made over one hundred years ago, and yet, the more I travel and the more I observe human behavior, the more I am inclined to resign myself to the fact he was one of the greatest of prophets of the nineteenth century (I mean think of Dover Beach!).
The sad fact is, when one attempts to attire himself classically, timelessly, when one uses his gentlemanly manners, and when one speaks well naturally, he is often accused of being a snob, of putting on airs or of being pretentious. At this moment there is literally pressure to be substandard, to be mediocre. I know that this cult of mediocrity had always existed, and yet now I observe amongst my students a sort of pride in being ignorant, in being crude and in being plain. Why then attend a university?
This leads me to consider one of the causes of mediocrity; the American desire to attain only information which will make him money instantly and his desire to be satisfied at once with little effort on his part. Any sort of of literature, literary theory, poetry, plays or novels not related to the crude pleasures of instant gratification or guaranteed to make them more utile in the workplace (middle-class wage slave jobs) are disdained.
It is no longer considered necessary to be the well-rounded gentleman, to be a dilettante athlete, historian, traveler, and conversationalist.
We, we rare few, we happy few, we band of brothers must not allow this idiocracy to overtake us entirely; we must join and do all in out power to maintain these last bastions of culture.
According to Arnold, the only thing which can save us from our present condition is "culture", that very same thing which most equate with frivolity and uselessness.
Good taste demands that we elevate ourselves up to it, that we study, experience and discuss. We must not allow our appetites to fall into the gutter.