I had a tough time determining how to choose a graphic for this post. There is not an abundance of photography or graphic design available to show a neophiliac specifically. Is it any wonder? Who wants their picture taken to define an obsession with new things to the point of being labeled? A neophiliac is not exactly a listing in the American Psychological Association’s publication…not yet. That means that it is a personality type which is emerging, but which hasn’t presented itself as problematic to date.
Wikipedia lists it, however, and posts an article by Robert Anton Wilson, who they describe as a cult writer. When I went to his website I found several books listed which explain their categorization. However, his article is helpful. He lists several characteristics of the person who might be determined to be a neophiliac:
- The ability to adapt rapidly to extreme change
- A distaste or downright loathing of tradition, repetition, and routine
- A tendency to become bored quickly with old things
- A desire, bordering on obsession in some cases, to experience novelty
- A corresponding and related desire to create novelty by creating or achieving something and/or by stirring social or other forms of unrest.
I think the characteristic which makes this personality type odd is that it is a compulsion. It is clearly more than the “throw out the baby with the bathwater” phenomenon which is used frequently to identify someone who is willing to embrace a new concept even if it means that some revered tradition is disrupted. It’s a common political accusation from both ends of the political spectrum.
We live in an age which embraces the new pretty rapidly. I have absolutely lost track of the instruments of the social media and confuse them all the time. They are appearing with such rapidity that I can’t keep the names straight. When I bought a BlackBerry cell phone recently I thought I was safe in mentioning it in public. But when I began to get questions about “which one?” I knew I was in trouble. You mean there are different kinds of BlackBerrys? It turns out that its a Curve. But then I discovered that there are several generations of the Curve! Someone told me that I’m old fashioned to have a BlackBerry and that if I didn’t have an iPhone I was a dinosaur. I give up. Now I just refer to my “cell phone.”
But that’s how rapidly change is taking place. We live in a society which is governed by the economic rule of supply and demand. If the public requires something, it is created. That’s why I don’t understand why we are a country which is diminishing in the manufacturing industry. There is so much demand for new products that it would seem that we would be starting companies all the time to produce that which the public seems to require. I suspect that global economics has something to do with it, however. Other countries are faster and are able to produce these products at a less costly rate. Our costs of labor and related manufacturing costs (like taxes) take us out of the competitive circle, in spite of the demand. It’s one form of Catch 22.
In any case, neophiliac is a word to be recognized. I suspect it will become a more common word in our national lexicon as time moves on…rapidly.
