hodiecentrism means the practice of viewing today's problems as natural and eternal. It carries an Arena rating of 1335, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hodiecentrism ranks #529 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #1,319 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #2,349 of 17,163 for Funniest Words, #4,297 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
Why “hodiecentrism” is a great word
The assumption that the conditions, attitudes, and moral frameworks of one's own time are natural, inevitable, and the ultimate standard for judging all previous eras. From the Latin hodie ("today") + the English combining form -centrism (from Greek kentron, "center"), thus meaning "today-centeredness"; coined in 1977 by sociologist Johan Goudsblom. Unlike "presentism," which specifically critiques the anachronistic projection of modern concepts onto historical analysis, or "chronocentrism," the broader prejudice for one's own era, hodiecentrism is the subtler act of taking the present not as a point of view but as the point of arrival. It is the unshakable conviction that our anxieties are unprecedented, our social arrangements immutable, and our ethics self-evident—the dull hum of the air conditioner mistaken for the sound of the universe, the glow of the screen for permanent daylight, the quiet assumption that the river has finally stopped here, at our feet, and will flow no farther.
Etymology
Hodie + -centrism
noun
- the practice of viewing today's problems as natural and eternal
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.