resistentialism
📖 Definitions
noun
The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior toward us.
💬 Usage Examples
“Scornful and uncooperative objects -- pianos that mock our sausage fingers; computers that develop transient but alarming hypochondria; keys, socks, and teaspoons that scurry off to their secret covens and never return. There are certainly days when resistentialism seems the only explanation.” Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan; Bozo Sapiens: Why to Err Is Human; Bloomsbury; 2009. “Resistentialism also has a long history in our literature.
In his ‘Ode (Inscribed to W.H. Channing)’ (1846), Ralph Waldo Emerson saw the resistentialist writing on the wall and proclaimed that ‘Things are in the saddle, / And ride mankind.’” Charles Harrington Elster; Are Things Sometimes Against Us?; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania); Sep 21, 2003.