"Habitually fighting anything new" is nonpolitical conservatism. It's not my stance but it's a pretty valid one, long recognized. There is social value in having people and groups who reject all changes regardless of their apparent merit or sophistication. You can't trick or swindle them, they can't be fooled or persuaded. It provides a counter to the incentives pushing us to change too fast, or without understanding enough of the possible consequences of broad social/technological changes.
I think a lot of the problems we have now is an unbalance on this, an insufficiently strong conservative force. "Conservative" political movements stopped filling this role a couple generations ago in favor of a sort of radical revanchism. They want to change everything too, just in a different way.
People who fight every change will always lose. But they are still valuable to us.
Honestly I don't think that's a valid stance to have ("habitually fighting anything new", not your view), to reject anything new entirely based on habit or principle.
It means you don't have a reason for rejecting the thing in question. Just crossing your arms with scowl and pretending things were better in years of yore.
Having a reason why you think the thing is bad, and should not be accepted is the better position to have.
Yeah, it's a case of "don't let the perfect be the enemy of good". The conservative stance is happy with the status quo. The progressive stance isn't. We probably need a bit of both. Finding the right balance being key.
To put another way, contrarianism is a survival adaptation for humans.
There are some options that are clearly 99% superior than other options. But that 1% happens enough to create an extinction event for humanity if everyone relies on it.
People are going to oppose good ideas from their very core for no discernable rhyme or reason. But at the same time, it's not necessarily irrational - our genetics are hardcoded to hedge collectively in weird ways.
I think a lot of the problems we have now is an unbalance on this, an insufficiently strong conservative force. "Conservative" political movements stopped filling this role a couple generations ago in favor of a sort of radical revanchism. They want to change everything too, just in a different way.
People who fight every change will always lose. But they are still valuable to us.