This article proposes a psychoanalytic reading of ‘radical philistinism’ in museum contexts. Radical philistinism in the museum is defined as the proposition that curatorship can continue while civilisation falls and cultivation fails. The participation of museums in a cultural game that produces contingent bodily trauma in dominated groups, is contrasted with examples in which a psychoanalysis of the museum allows for a focus on curatorial acts that bring about a worsening or deterioration of the games of culture and civilisation in which the museum is enmeshed.