My interpretations of this reading is that Leavis talks about how at the time of the theorist Matthew Arnold's work, culture and where certain classes of people fit into it, was more clearly defined. There were certain segregations between cultures and clear boundaries as to what was High culture and what was Low culture. However in a more modern society, it's much harder to pinpoint and categorise.
Leavis bases his argument more around literacy and language aspects to explain his conclusions about cultural divides in a 'modern society', this might have something to do with his academic literacy background, and he uses famous writers and their works to justify the points he makes about different levels of cultural understanding and cultural backgrounds.
He argues that it is wrong to view 'mass culture' as completely wrong but it shouldn't be viewed as 'utterly new', because then it 'surrenders everything that can interest us'. He believes we can't deny the future. We can't hang on to traditionalist ideas of what culture and we should 'keep open our communications with the future'.
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