[UnusuallyUsual]

Is it fair to basically view political Conservatism as not even its own "ideology" at all? It feels to me that Conservatism is just a label attached to all reactions against proposals made by other political thinkers/advocates. Any kind of a new idea which has opposition, the opposition to the new idea is called "Conservative" as though it has some kind of intrinsic independent meaning to it. But in fact "Conservative" applies to such a wide hodge podge of actual situations over the course of human history, it really seems incoherent to even attempt tying it all together. In addition I would describe the "Conservative Mindset" as being a real thing, and a fact of psychology: it has to do with how some people have difficulty adapting or innovating, and maybe relates to a low ability to empathize with others. Again, not really a political ideology so much...

[One Degree]

I have never had any interest in labels.
People are either sane and agree with me or they are insane and their opinions don't matter.

[UnusuallyUsual]

I have never had any interest in labels.
People are either sane and agree with me or they are insane and their opinions don't matter.

Lol. Well that is one approach but, I mean, don't you think it can be helpful to attempt to categorize things generally speaking? After all that is essentially what language is all about.

[Noob]

It depends what is being conserved.

Conservatism, as you appear describe it, is a subset of liberalism - 'status quo conservatism'.

Other conservatisms include national conservatism and social conservatism. Today, there is something of an overlap between all three.

[UnusuallyUsual]

It depends what is being conserved.

Conservatism, as you appear describe it, is a subset of liberalism - 'status quo conservatism'.

Other conservatisms include national conservatism and social conservatism. Today, there is something of an overlap between all three.

Would you care to describe those two other types? In the USA "social conservativism" is pretty similar to what I described, I am not totally familiar with "national conservativism" though unless that is a form of low-level Fascism perhaps?

[Noob]

Social conservatism relates to preserving traditional attitudes, customs, culture. Opposing it is social progressivism, which refers to the liberalisation of social attitudes, which are typically deemed undesirable for whatever reason (obstacle to 'progress') and/or archaic and so need to be done away with by progressives. The thing that is being conserved changes from place to place and epoch to epoch, naturally.

National conservatism, insofar as it appeared alongside fascism, could be said to have been 'fascistic'. One can point to Germany's 'Conservative Revolution' school of thought in the interwar period, and to various parties and leaders from that era across Europe, one being Antonescu of Romania, for instance. These movements and leaders didn't identify as fascists themselves, though their ideological opponents often apply that label to them readily when looking back at history. Today in Europe however it refers to liberal-nationalist movements: UKIP, Alternative for Germany, and so on. These parties tend to be economically liberal, Eurosceptic (against European Union control of domestic law-making for fear of breaches of national sovereignty), right-wing populists, who sometimes make allowances for social conservatism ('traditional family values').

[koby-p]

Today's US Conservatism is actually Classical Liberalism as defined by Thomas Jefferson and his political idols such as John Locke. "Conservatism" is just a label made to show that we are "conserving" classical liberalism from modern liberalism.