philistinism

Call it inverse philistinism: the use of intentionally bad imagery, perhaps with a wink, to create an “us-them” dynamic.

Not that I think the movies are dying, any more than they have been dying for the past 90 years or so, as they were fatally menaced by sound, television, corporate greed and audience philistinism.

That’s a little wordy; Marx summarizes it thusly with a rather blunt bit of philistinism: “Art should avoid being for art’s sake when social equity is at stake.”

The Kennedy Center has become a repository of philistinism, much to my regret.

Attacks on books occupy a special place among the signposts of philistinism and anti-democratic suppression.