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Conservatism is a term used to describe political philosophies that favor tradition and gradual change, where tradition refers to religious, cultural, or nationally defined beliefs and customs. The term is derived from the Latin, com servare, to preserve; "to protect from loss or harm". Since different cultures have different established values, conservatives in different cultures have differing goals. Some conservatives seek to preserve the status quo or to reform society slowly, while others seek to return to the values of an earlier time, the status quo ante.
Conservatism as a political philosophy is difficult to define, encompassing numerous movements, and conservatives sometimes disagree about which parts of a culture are most worthy of preservation. Thus religious conservatives may be at odds with nationalist conservatives. Today, conservatives are considered right-wing, that is, anti-communist, may sometimes be contradictions between alternative conceptions of conservatism as the ideology of preserving the past, and the contemporary worldwide conception of conservatism as a right-wing political stance. But Martin Blinkhorn asks the question, "who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of modern conservatives such as Margaret Thatcher?"[1]
Samuel Francis defined authentic conservatism as “the survival and enhancement of a particular people and its institutionalized cultural expressions”[2]; Roger Scruton defines conservatism as the “maintenance of the social ecology” and “the politics of delay, the purpose of which is to maintain in being, for as long as possible, the life and health of a social organism”[3]; and Russell Kirk considered conservatism "the negation of ideology".[4]
n is a much sounder foundation than 'metaphysical abstractions.' Tradition draws on the wisdom of many generations and the tests of time, while "reason" may be a mask for the...
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