Conservatism, Briefly Put

Americans tend to be confused about what conservatism really means. Russell Kirk devised an easy to understand definition.  I'm going to simplify and abbreviate it. As you read it please remember that conservatism is not a fixed ideology.  

(1)    A person who is a conservative believes humanity profits from a permanent moral order, that men and women who beleive in a permanent moral order have a strong sense of right and wrong, justice and honor, and naturally endeavor to be a good society.  Today, It is observed that our moral order is collapsing. Our entire society has become morally adrift, ignorant of norms, and intent on gratification of appetites. It will, if not corrected,  soon be a bad society.

(2)    Conservatives tend to adhere to custom, convention, and continuity.  They believe It is through convention that we endeavor  to avoid disputes about rights and duties. The law is a collection of conventions. Continutiy links generation to generation. 

(3)    Conservatives champion custom, convention, and continuity because they prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't know. Order, justice, and freedom, they believe, are the products of long social experience, but they believe necessary change ought to be gradual and discriminatory, never unfixing old interests at once.

(4)    Conservatives suggest that we are unlikely to make brave new discoveries in morals or politics or taste. We shouild recognize and consider carefully the wisdom of precedent and precept.

(5)    Conservatives consider prudence to be chief among virtues, and public measures ought to be judged by potential long range consequences, not by temporary advantage or popularity. Conservatives believe sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous. 

(6)    For the preservation of a healthy diversity in any civilization, there must be orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality. The only true forms of equality are equality at the last judgement and equality before a just court of law. All other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.

(7)    Conservatives understand that because man, being imperfect, can create a perfect social order. The conservative believes we can preserve and improve, but not perfect. 

(8)    Conservatives believe that freedom and property are closely linked and provide a  foundation for great civilizations to be built. Political economic leveling, conservatives maintain, is not economic progress.