The idea that people were more culturally aware, more intellectual, or less materialistic at any time in our past compared to now is naive. If you don't think

The idea that people were more culturally aware, more intellectual, or less materialistic at any time in our past compared to now is naive. If you don't think there were economic or social/political ambitions in the hearts of the young, wealthy men reciting Homer at Oxford a few hundred years ago, or even in those of young, wealthy Athenian boys lucky enough to attend secondary school, then I think you've succumbed to the Golden Age Fallacy (not to imply any sort of deductive or formal fallacy). Furthermore, the idea that an engineering major is in any way less intellectual than an English major is ridiculous. And if that's not what you meant by the term "Philistine", then I suggest you pay more attention to the spirit of its definition less to the letter. A Philistine was once upon a time a person who had never studied philosophy, but this as only the case because every student once studied philosophy.