misoneism

plural misoneisms

1. uncountableusuallyThe distrust or hatred of new ideas or things.

   What really got his attention was the Lombrosian concept of “misoneism”. Radicals, militants, revolutionaries, however they styled themselves, all sinned against this deep organic human principle, which Lombroso had named after the Greek for “hatred of anything new.”

   1990, Thomas Pynchon, Vineland

   2 more examples

   In politics this type of philistine has more than once denounced the "golden rule" as an "iridescent dream" of a lunatic. Such philistinism pleases the misoneism of the mediocre, whence the enthusiasm over platitudes and the reign of the philistine in newspaper art, literature and science.

   1923 May, “Pornolagny and Realism”, in The Urologic and Cutaneous Review, volume XXVII, number 5, St. Louis, Mo.: Urologic and Cutaneous Press, →OCLC, page 322, column 2

   Perché non mi adeguo all'introduzione di tali progressi anche nel calcolo delle probabilità, già universalmente accettata portando anche ivi grandiosi progressi? Si tratta di incomprensione? di misoneismo? di civetteria nel preferire utensili artigianali nell'era dell'automazione che permette la confezione in serie perfino di cervelli sia elettronici che umani?

   1974, Bruno de Finetti, translated by Antonio Machí and Adrian Smith, Theory of Probability, volume 1, New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1.2.2

   Synonyms: neophobia, neophobism · Antonyms: neophilia, neophilism, philoneism