For the non-political -
To just give one example (and I could easily put up dozens of specific areas, but I think it would be boring) A "conservative investor" wouldn't mortgage his house to buy short term options or penny stocks but wouldn't oppose change generally, and may not even be opposed to, or reluctant to work with new types of investments once he has sufficient information about and understanding of them.
Being conservative is more "look before you leap", then it is "oppose all changes", also someone who is conservative in one area isn't necessarily conservative anywhere else.
Moving to the political -
Well here, at least in terms of the conservative movement in the US, "resistance to change" is a particularly poor definition. Lowering taxes is a change, reducing gun control is change, invading Iraq is change (although some would argue that it isn't conservative), invading Afghanistan is change (and yes it got support from all over the political spectrum, but its well connected to one of the central ideas of conservatism), overturning Roe vs Wade would be a change, the free market which conservatives tend to support, brings about all sorts of changes, and again I could think of many examples easily but no one wants to read a really long list.
Which doesn't mean I think that "resistance to change" is an idea with no connection at all to conservatism, certainly conservatism doesn't mean the opposite, but "resistant to change" or "opposes change" is rather pathetic as a definition of or description of, the American conservative movement, or its ideas. |
