"Conservative" is good in the sense that it refers
to people valuing the wisdom handed down to them and not bending with the
fashions of the day simply because they are the fashions of the day. They cling
rather to ideas which have stood the test of time in preference to those which
are trending on twitter this week. That permits moral and intellectual
consistency.
On the other hand, there is a mutation of conservatism which
is not good. It is a belligerent resistance to the idea that one still has
anything to learn or change their mind about. It is not open to new ideas on any basis, even fact or reason. It cherishes what is not because it has proven
the test of time, but simply because that is the way we have always done it or
always believed. This is the opposite extreme and in a different way is just as
destructive as the liberal extreme of casting out ancient traditions and values
without proper reflection or reason- just based on a reflex action that somehow
the new ideas their generation has must be better than that of prior ones.
The fair mind will see that the mutations of both liberal and
conservative thought are based on the same arrogant premises that we have
nothing to learn, to the extreme liberal there is nothing to learn from the
past, to the extreme conservative there is nothing to learn from the present. Arrogance and insecurity are not mutually exclusive- there may even be a positive correlation. And these are the traits which produce and are exacerbated by these mutations strains on either side of the political spectrum.
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