From the OED:
3. = PHILISTER, applied by German students to one not a student at a university.
1824 J. RUSSELL Tour Germ. (1828) I. iii. 128 The citizens he denominates Philistines. 1826 BEDDOES Let. Poems (1851) p. lix, A little inn with a tea-garden, whither students and Philistines (i.e. townsmen who are not students) resort on Sundays. 1840 Blackw. Mag. XLVIII. 757 The people read it with great interest, from the fiery youths to the cautious old Philistines. [1863 M. ARNOLD Ess. Crit., Heine (1865) 157 Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term equivalent to Philister or épicier: Mr. Carlyle has..'respectability with its thousand gigs',..well, the occupant of every one of those gigs is, Mr. Carlyle means, a Philistine.]
4. Hence: A person deficient in liberal culture and enlightenment, whose interests are chiefly bounded by material and commonplace things. But often applied contemptuously by connoisseurs of any particular art or department of learning to one who has no knowledge or appreciation of it; sometimes a mere term of dislike for those whom the speaker considers 'bourgeois'.
1827 CARLYLE Misc. Ess. (1872) I. 58 [The partisans of Illuminism] received the nickname of Philistern (Philistines) which the few scattered remnants of them still bear. 1827 Examiner 70/2 If Germans require that species of assistance, the obtuseness of a mere English Philistine we trust is pardonable. 1831 [see PHILISTINISM]. 1839 A. H. EVERETT Addr. Germ. Lit. at Hanover, U.S.A. 40 Released from the importunity of this Philistine [Wagner],to use an expressive German term,Faust relapses into his former gloom. 1851 CARLYLE Sterling I. vii. (1872) 41 At other times, Philistines would enter, what we call bores, dullards, Children of Darkness. 1864 FROUDE Short Stud., Sci. Hist. 31 A professor at Oxford..spoke of Luther as a Philistine..meaning an.. enemy of men of culture or intelligence such as the professor himself. 1869 M. ARNOLD Cult. & An. 20 The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. 1879 L. STEPHEN Hours in Library III. 306 In common phraseology he [Macaulay] is a Philistinea word which I understand properly to mean indifference to the higher intellectual interests. 1890 T. B. SAUNDERS tr. Schopenhauer's Wisd. Life (1891) 44 A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, a philistine..one who is not a son of the Muses.
And here is _Philistinism_
The opinions, aims, and habits of social Philistines (see prec. A. 4); the condition of being a social Philistine.
1831 CARLYLE Sart. Res. II. v, One 'Philistine'; who even now, to the general weariness, was dominantly pouring~forth Philistinism (Philistriositäten). 1856 R. A. VAUGHAN Mystics (1860) II. 248 The Romanticists were..the sworn foes..of that low-minded, prosaic narrowness which Germany calls Philistinism. 1863 M. ARNOLD Ess. Crit., Heine (1865) 157 Philistinism! we have not the expression in English. Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing. 1890 Spectator 29 Nov. 760/2 British Philistinism is extremely overbearing. 1899 Q. Rev. Apr. 438 'Philistinism', after all, stands for two great habits, decency and order.
So philistinize (flst-, flstnaz) v. trans., to render Philistine; to imbue with the tastes, habits, and opinions of those termed Philistines.
1880 G. MEREDITH Tragic Com. xvi. (1892) 224 Children..are secretly Philistinizing the demagogue,..turning him into a slow-stepping Liberal. 1891 ZANGWILL Bachelors' Club 164 She has not been philistinised by a refined education.
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Probably the instance that popularized it in English was 1869 M. ARNOLD Cult. & An. 20 The people who believe most that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being very rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, are just the very people whom we call the Philistines.
_Culture and Anarchy_, considered historically, is both an important and a somewhat complex work. The sentence just quoted to the contrary, the work is in practice highlty supportive of "the rich," since its whole thrust is that it is through education and decidedly NOT political action that the "philisitinism" of the rich is to be corrected. Arnold was horrifed by the sight of a workers' demonstration i Hyde Park and thought they all ought to be shot.
Carrol