The book by E. I. Kukushkina is regarded here as a research of the anti-philistine nature of intelligentsia, its anti-philistinism ethics. This stance has determined the direction of socio-political search of intelligentsia, the character of its practices. This search is actual because the effects of social and cultural activity of the intelligentsia, as history has shown, are extremely contradictory. In this vein a retrospective analysis of the philistines’ social stratum and philistinism as an ideology is carried out. The emergence and formation of this stratum in Russia is connected with its formation in the West, as well as the emergence and rooting of the antagonism between philistinism and the intelligentsia. Meanwhile the causes and forms of their mimicry in post-revolutionary Russia, the sources of the expanded reproduction of the philistines in the XX century are specific. Development of anti-philistinism ethics assumed the creation of new forms for the comprehensive liberation of the individual, in order to overcome internal and external philistinism as a limitation. But this limitation did not disappear, as well as acceptance of violence while moving toward the goal of anti-philistine improving of society. Although it is among the intelligentsia where the task of adherence to non-violence, pacifism as a border was re-formulated, which allows to determine acceptable forms of struggle for the ideal, strategy of implementation of anti-philistinism. The solution of this problem becomes particularly actual in today’s global community that has set itself the task of transition to sustainable development.