What is another word for philistinism?

Pronunciation: [fˈɪlɪstˌɪnɪzəm] (IPA)

Philistinism refers to an individual's lack of appreciation or understanding of culture, art, and intellectual pursuits. There are several synonyms that can be used in place of "philistinism," including anti-intellectualism, ignorance, lack of sophistication, uncouthness, and philistinery. Other synonyms for the same word could include boorishness, vulgarity, and mundanity. Regardless of what you call it, philistinism is a rejection of intellectualism, cultural pursuits, and appreciation of the arts. It is a mindset that has no regard for learning, and that sees no value in the arts, culture, and education. Those who embrace philistinism tend to be focused on material possessions and the pursuit of wealth.

What are the opposite words for philistinism?

Philistinism is defined as a lack of appreciation for culture or the arts. Therefore, antonyms for this word would include terms that describe an appreciation for and understanding of cultural pursuits. These antonyms might include words like sophistication, culture, education, enlightenment, refinement, and artistry. These terms all denote a deep respect for the arts and a desire to engage with culture and beauty. Conversely, words that might be considered synonyms for philistinism might include ignorance, coarseness, boorishness, and vulgarity. While these terms might be used to describe the traits of someone who is philistine, they are not true antonyms for the term or the concept it represents.

What are the antonyms for Philistinism?

Usage examples for Philistinism

A certain impersonal detachment she had used, choosing her words with careful discretion, to throw as much veil as might be over the maternal philistinism.
"The Furnace"
Rose Macaulay
With the loss of that pride it blundered, and it remained for du Maurier to show that the height of philistinism in a Philistine is to pretend not to be a Philistine.
"George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians"
T. Martin Wood
She was abashed at her philistinism, and begged me not to tell her father-he would make such fun of her!
"The Greater Inclination"
Edith Wharton

Famous quotes with Philistinism

  • I have respect for mother nature's methods of robustness (billions of years allow most of what is fragile to break); classical thought is more robust (in its respect for the unknown, the epistemic humility) than the modern post-Enlightenment naïve pseudoscientific autism. Thus my classical values make me advocate the triplet of erudition, elegance, and courage; against modernity’s phoniness, nerdiness and philistinism.
    Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • Whether the French were better colonists than the British is an academic question, but at least such Frenchmen as were planting in Malaya (Pierre Boulle, for instance, and Henri Fauconnier) were kept sane by their own culture and some of them (those two, anyway) produced memorable novels based on their Malayan experiences. The British were mostly philistines, and they left behind a heritage of philistinism. Kampung culture is dying, and a metropolitan culture of art galleries and orchestras seems unlikely to arise. What there is, and flourishing too, is a materialist consumerism that is threatened from the north by the communists and from the west by the militant Islam of the ayatollahs. Mr Butcher’s book deals with a race of people who may well be surveyed in terms of anthropological generalities. There was no room for the brilliant or the eccentric. British Malaya was created by courageous and suffering mediocrities. The building of Singapore in 1819 was a rather different affair.
    Anthony Burgess
  • The noble Nazarene ... who raged against "the world," against the philistinism, the halfheartedness, the lack of ideals—if he had guessed that he was forging a weapon for the hands of exactly "this world"—he who sensed the misfortune of humanity so deeply that he didn't find any other solution to its enigma than to entirely reject and turn his back on all that is earthly, would see his name dragged into the service of an intense philistine optimism.
    Vilhelm Ekelund
  • To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck.Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.
    Susan Sontag
  • The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.
    Vladimir Nabokov

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