I've been trying to research conservatism - and I found this fair point and challenge:
when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle - Edmund Burke, classic conservative thinker
from (according to Wikipedia) Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
Feb 6, 2011
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'Conservativism' is an interesting concept. Were you mainly focused on conservatives in the sense that Burke was a conservative? I tend to see conservativism as simply requiring a higher amount of evidence before one abandons an old hypothesis in exchange for a new, unknown one. Conversely a 'liberal' is someone who requires less evidence before they make the switch to a new, unknown theory.
ReplyDeleteThe conservative perhaps a little unfairly gets called a pessimist...presumably their estimate of the new unknown hypothesis is lower than the conservative's estimate of the same. Of course there's a time for being cautious, and a time to be a little more experimental. The trick, and much of the debate, is when and where those times are.
I'm socially conservative and economically open to suggestions. Socially conservative insofar as what's being 'conserved' are broadly Judaeo-Christian values. In things like education and economics, I tend to take the conservative line over that which is more socialistic, but there must (presumably) be a 'third' option in some of these cases - I just haven't heard it advocated. I guess the political 'centre' has plenty of options in it in fields I'm happy to see explored.
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