I just started reading S&R and I keep coming across the concept of "philistine/philistinism." I looked up what that meant bc I had a lackluster education and don't know words good, and Google came up with something like a "lack of appreciation for the arts," which didn't really fit but I kept digging and ended up seeing that he could've meant something like "unacademic."
So just to confirm (at risk of being reductive), to put it into Layman's terms, is he talking about grillpillers? Or just common folk who don't wanna "get political" about anything? Or instead, is he talking about the Tucker types, or the sector of the bourgeois who purposely peddle misinformation or anti-intellectualism and populism under the guise of "thinking for the common people" or whateverthefuck? Or is he talking about something entirely different that I'm missing?
If it's the former, I propose we adopt the term "grillistine" :grillman:
Edit: apologies if this is a dumb question or it's been asked before please don't hurt me
He called Kautsky a philistine, also the Cadets (Constitutional monarch liberal party in pre-revolutionary Russia.) The Cadets were what we'd call professional managerial class now, a bunch of professors, number crunchers, and finance people who were tricked by the prospect of capitalism and so were liberal centrists. Lenin called them philistines because even if they have academic learning, they were still bozos who were in effect anti-intellectual.
We still have these types of people now, they've got a PhD and work at a think tank in DC, and yet they're complete clowns who can't even describe what socialism is. They think it's when the government does stuff. And yet they get fancy book deals and do talks at conventions. They're all high on their own supply and don't know what they're talking about beyond surface level platitudes. Philistines.
Okay, that's understandable, thank you. I kinda had an idea of this but now I think I get it :)
To side step axont's post. Philister as Lenin uses it was from the German phrase of Philister, which in the language room of the German-phone swiz, Austria and what is now Germany was in the general and not specific sense of the meaning the duality of the following things:
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a boomer, a petit borgeosie, surface-level analytic, conformists, reactionaries against change in German also: Spießer
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a person who is part of a Burschenschaft (think nationalist association with militancy and toxic masculinity, mostly academics, not interested in socialism) but finished studies and now does work. Big industrial companies in Germany in the 1930s would be controlled by those people. The reaction also was plentiful with them (even though the Nazis did take over some Burschenschaften).
Lenin was fluent in German and as such knew the cultural meaning and usage which enhances axont's answer slightly.
Of course the meaning of the term shifted slightly and doesn't shoot against conformist petit bourgeosie anymore as it once did.
Okay, hell yeah that's really helpful, thank you. I had no idea about the origin of the term.
Glad to help. Though of course the term has also older meaning, but those I think are less important. In German learned society texts even today the term is still used in much the same way :heated-gamer-moment: use "noob" or "feeder".
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Thank you, I just get intimidated by shit that I don't get even though it seems like common knowledge lol. Brainworms from my past on :reddit-logo:
This is a great question and I'm glad you asked! Be loud and proud about reading theory, and always feel free to ask for clarification. This is how we learn.
I see from the thread you feel you get it so I won't pile on with another answer, just solidarity and encouragement :Care-Comrade:
God thank you :') yeah lmao I have a tendency to be overly conscious of when I am out of the loop and ask questions that might be obvious to some people, so the solidarity and encouragement is much appreciated :soviet-heart:
We're all comrades here, and we're all learning. Never be afraid to be an active student. There's no shame in wanting to know more, and frequently, simply asking is the best way to find out!
Plus, it's a pleasure to help people learn, one which I'm sure you'll experience yourself as you work towards your political education and begin to help educate others as well.
Yeah that's kind of how I see it, after further explanation. People who are so brainwashed by the capitalist narrative that they start convulsing at anything that challenges that, and dismiss it as "not how it works;" they adopt this narrative as gospel and refuse to think critically about it.
Looks like you got your answer, but always love to suggest the podcast Red Menace (co-hosted by Breht from RevLeft) as a good companion to the works they cover. I have had a hard time with reading theory but they do an excellent job of providing context and unpacking a lot of the necessary background information that usually goes over my head
Yeah I ended up understanding that connotation for philistine, I was just lost on how any of this was related to "the arts." I think I get it now tho
The modern philistines are the anti-intellectuals and anti-education crowd of educated people. In essence, the fools that write as if they're an authority on topics while being intensely unwilling to learn anything and having no real intellectual curiosity.
:funny-clown-hammer: is a phillistine for example, as are all the liberals that want to debate you but don't actually want to learn because they've decided that they either already know everything or that learning is for chumps.
I hate that high school conception of debate as competition. My stock response has become that I'm happy to discuss [x] if everyone is prepared to reconsider their positions in good faith in order to arrive at a better understanding of one another, but not if anyone just wants to score points so they can think they've won. Since I started making that stipulation, I've had far fewer challenges from certain individuals. I guess insistence on a certain level of effort puts some folk off.
Jordan Peterson "debating" ZeizekSlavoj Žižek, where the only reading he had done about Communism was the pamphlet by Marx, "The Communist Manifesto."
Would be an example.
