Everyone knows the story—a dubious claim in this age of superabundant access to knowledge and a superabundance of the woefully uninformed—of David and Goliath. The latter was that UFC heavyweight of his time who approached the sling-carrying bantam weight brash kid. As the story goes, Goliath lost in short order, one of those record-setting first-round knockouts that elicit cries of “Fixed!” from the disappointed high-paying crowd who, in shepherd’s words, got fleeced.
Goliath was a Philistine. The Philistines had settled on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean a little north of the Nile Delta, basically, in today’s Gaza strip. There they built some towns (cities?). That they did build permanent settlements seems to counter claims that they were—what should I say?—Philistines. You know, uncultured brutes, Troglodytes of the lowest order, fighters for fighting’s sake, an invasive people whom the Egyptians and Israelis had to fight off to keep them from overrunning their lands—Samson and David come to mind (all this occurring about 3,000 years ago). Eventually, they became less cohesive, mixing in, I would guess, with the various other groups that settled or conquered Palestine.
But maybe they weren’t brutish. The people who dig up stuff for a living (Mom, when I grow up, I want to excavate old buildings and stuff, maybe find some pottery and bones, and, if I’m lucky, make some astonishing find of a treasure) have discovered Mycenaean style pottery at Philistine sites in Ashdod, Ekron, and Tel Qasile. One town, Tell es-Safi (a “tell” is a mound), might have been Goliath’s hometown of Gath (or Gat, or Geth). You can just picture little Goli running around its streets as a child, playing with a sword-stick when he should have been at school learning how to use a slingshot. Anyway, the Philistines, for all their supposed brutishness, were an Aegean people who migrated just as we see Mediterranean-Middle East migrations today. Maybe they were pushed form their original Aegean homes on some island like Crete—who knows? But in moving and invading, they did carry a culture and a now-lost language with them. So, they weren’t completely philistine even though they were Philistines.
How did the name of an entire people become associated with deficiency in culture? According to the etymological dictionary, Thomas Carlyle and then Matthew Arnold popularized the term in English, though it had been in use more or less from Shakespeare’s time. And the dictionary further tells us that German students used the word to describe “townies” in that now long-standing tradition that pits those in the university society from those in the local town society, the educated derisively condescending upon the uneducated locals. The town-gown (for those academic robes) problem persists, but today, somehow, it has been adopted by a self-proclaimed famous elite against any they deem to be “philistine.” What comes to mind as an example is the recent claim by a congresswoman with an undergraduate sociology degree who called a former neurosurgeon-turned-HUD Director “too stupid to run HUD” and an extremely popular rock star and member of the Beatles suggesting about a decade ago that a previous President who had an Ivy League MBA and who had successfully run a large sports franchise was one unfamiliar with a library—even though that President was a voracious consumer of books and his wife was a former librarian. Typically, the Left-leaning wealthy (even those without more than a HS diploma) who self-proclaim their elitism describe as bumbling the uninformed “red-neck” Right-leaning, regardless of the latter’s level of education or reasons for adopting various political positions or social philosophies.
In other words, calling people “philistine” doesn’t make them so. No doubt the actual historical Philistines probably had their share of Philistines, but they also had their ship builders (how else did they sail to a new land), their armor-makers, their builders, city-planners (someone had to figure out where a bunch of people poop in Gath), military leaders (though equipping soldiers with slings didn’t cross their minds), and their potters.
People have always used ad hominem and ad populum arguments to protect their own intellectual weaknesses. It’s easy just to dismiss by calling someone a Philistine. It’s easy to be condescending. But with the advent of social media, an almost unified Press, and control of the entertainment industry, labeling someone or some group “philistine” has become not just easier, but easier to broadcast. What seems interesting to me is that only mental Philistines would readily accept the argument that someone else is philistine.
Goliath was a Philistine. The Philistines had settled on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean a little north of the Nile Delta, basically, in today’s Gaza strip. There they built some towns (cities?). That they did build permanent settlements seems to counter claims that they were—what should I say?—Philistines. You know, uncultured brutes, Troglodytes of the lowest order, fighters for fighting’s sake, an invasive people whom the Egyptians and Israelis had to fight off to keep them from overrunning their lands—Samson and David come to mind (all this occurring about 3,000 years ago). Eventually, they became less cohesive, mixing in, I would guess, with the various other groups that settled or conquered Palestine.
But maybe they weren’t brutish. The people who dig up stuff for a living (Mom, when I grow up, I want to excavate old buildings and stuff, maybe find some pottery and bones, and, if I’m lucky, make some astonishing find of a treasure) have discovered Mycenaean style pottery at Philistine sites in Ashdod, Ekron, and Tel Qasile. One town, Tell es-Safi (a “tell” is a mound), might have been Goliath’s hometown of Gath (or Gat, or Geth). You can just picture little Goli running around its streets as a child, playing with a sword-stick when he should have been at school learning how to use a slingshot. Anyway, the Philistines, for all their supposed brutishness, were an Aegean people who migrated just as we see Mediterranean-Middle East migrations today. Maybe they were pushed form their original Aegean homes on some island like Crete—who knows? But in moving and invading, they did carry a culture and a now-lost language with them. So, they weren’t completely philistine even though they were Philistines.
How did the name of an entire people become associated with deficiency in culture? According to the etymological dictionary, Thomas Carlyle and then Matthew Arnold popularized the term in English, though it had been in use more or less from Shakespeare’s time. And the dictionary further tells us that German students used the word to describe “townies” in that now long-standing tradition that pits those in the university society from those in the local town society, the educated derisively condescending upon the uneducated locals. The town-gown (for those academic robes) problem persists, but today, somehow, it has been adopted by a self-proclaimed famous elite against any they deem to be “philistine.” What comes to mind as an example is the recent claim by a congresswoman with an undergraduate sociology degree who called a former neurosurgeon-turned-HUD Director “too stupid to run HUD” and an extremely popular rock star and member of the Beatles suggesting about a decade ago that a previous President who had an Ivy League MBA and who had successfully run a large sports franchise was one unfamiliar with a library—even though that President was a voracious consumer of books and his wife was a former librarian. Typically, the Left-leaning wealthy (even those without more than a HS diploma) who self-proclaim their elitism describe as bumbling the uninformed “red-neck” Right-leaning, regardless of the latter’s level of education or reasons for adopting various political positions or social philosophies.
In other words, calling people “philistine” doesn’t make them so. No doubt the actual historical Philistines probably had their share of Philistines, but they also had their ship builders (how else did they sail to a new land), their armor-makers, their builders, city-planners (someone had to figure out where a bunch of people poop in Gath), military leaders (though equipping soldiers with slings didn’t cross their minds), and their potters.
People have always used ad hominem and ad populum arguments to protect their own intellectual weaknesses. It’s easy just to dismiss by calling someone a Philistine. It’s easy to be condescending. But with the advent of social media, an almost unified Press, and control of the entertainment industry, labeling someone or some group “philistine” has become not just easier, but easier to broadcast. What seems interesting to me is that only mental Philistines would readily accept the argument that someone else is philistine.
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