obscurantist

obscurantist n Obscurantist, philistine, barbarian denote one inaccessible or opposed to enlightenment.

An obscurantist is one who is precluded (as by prejudice, traditionalism, or bigotry) from intellectual candor and open-minded inquiry and who is opposed to the introduction of new and enlightened ideas and methods

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from this class of obscurantists who had hitherto resisted all Western innovations there now came young leaders eager to emulate Japan— Peace Handbooks

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if liberals have not always recognized this, their opponents— obscurantists, authoritarians, and enemies of enlightenment and scientific method—have amply done so— Cohen

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as soon as one begins to hint that the strain of wickedness in the human race ... is still with us, he is called an obscurantist and is disqualified from further public hearing— R. M. Weaver

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A philistine is one whose attention is centered on material or worldly things, and is indifferent or blind to whatever makes an appeal only to the mind or soul. The term usually implies obtuseness and insensitiveness

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it is only the Philistine who seeks to estimate a personality by the vulgar test of production— Wilde

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the Philistine wants to talk about morals, not to understand what is morally wrong— Farrell

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Barbarian seldom wholly loses the notion of incompletely civilized that so strongly characterizes the adjective barbarian. As a result the term may be applied aptly to one whose cultural deficiency suggests that befitting a lower or more remote stage of civilization

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teachers of freshman composition and mathematics search in vain for even an awareness of the recurring problem of each year's new invasion by lovable but illiterate barbarians who have to be taught the elements of grammar and arithmetic— Gideonse

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have him take his meals in the dining room .... Let him sit with me, or he'll grow up a barbarian, with no manners— Deland

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