ABSTRACT
Today philistinism has acquired a new content, a new set of conditioned reflexes. Ever since Matthew Arnold borrowed from Heinrich Heine the word "philistine" to describe an insensitive, cliche-addicted conformism, the word has had certain indefinable but readily recognizable connotations for the English-speaking world. The main activity of the new-style philistine has become the facile game of philistine-baiting. The essence of all Babbittry, senior or junior, is stereotypes. The stereotypes of Gaylord Babbitt Senior are the following words and connotations: solid, reliable, sound, businesslike, wholesome, and knows-how-to-meet-a-payroll. Junior's stereotyped words and connotations are: vital, dynamic, functional, unpuritanical, forward-looking, the masses, and the common man. Perhaps every twenty years, the eternal Babbitt dons a new name and a new disguise. The avant-garde mandarin is still revolting against a too crude clarity, a too insensitive communication in literature.
