4 ms·

I always understood it as a progressive wants to change things and a conservative wants things to stay the same.

annabellish 9y ago
Kind of, but it's more nuanced than that. A traditionally conservative ideology isn't opposed to change, but rather states that revolutionary changes are extremely likely to have unintended and unpredictable concequences, and so we should be extremely sparing with that. If change is necessary, it's better to to let it arise organically through societal pressures or the invisible hand of the free market, which can happen in a slower way with more controlled self-corrective measures. Both "conservative" and "progressive" ideologies generally allow for change, but in different ways. I don't subscribe to conservative ideology myself, but traditional conservatism is an understandable outlook.
- incompatible 9y ago
  I think in practice it has differed a lot between different groups that call themselves "conservative" in different time periods and locations. I suppose winding back recent changes (back to the "good old days") is also an aspect of conservatism. It's also a far too simplistic way of looking at politics: usually groups will be in favour of same changes and opposed to others, regardless of what they call themselves. There are also issues where it's not even clear what a "conservative" approach would be. Should action be taken against global warming, to prevent potentially undesirable climate change, or resist taking action, to prevent changes to the economic status quo? For some reason, modern conservatives generally seem to prefer the latter.
fyi1183 9y ago
Those would be the literal meanings of the words, yes. In practice, the fundamental difference is probably more about a person's radius of empathy (progressives tend to apply their empathy to a larger group of people), and then lots of vaguely related things flow from that, e.g. different outlooks on power (conservatives prefer a strong man - obviously only assuming he's from their own "tribe" - and therefore strongly tend towards authoritarianism) and economics (empathy with more people tends to make one prefer more equal distributions of wealth and income). The terms progressive and conservative simply arose at a time when the world was largely shaped the way conservatives like. Since then, the world has changed more towards the progressive vision, so today conservatives do want to change creating things.

Kind of, but it's more nuanced than that. A traditionally conservative ideology isn't opposed to change, but rather states that revolutionary changes are extremely likely to have unintended and unpredictable concequences, and so we should be extremely sparing with that. If change is necessary, it's better to to let it arise organically through societal pressures or the invisible hand of the free market, which can happen in a slower way with more controlled self-corrective measures. Both "conservative" and "progressive" ideologies generally allow for change, but in different ways. I don't subscribe to conservative ideology myself, but traditional conservatism is an understandable outlook.

incompatible 9y ago
I think in practice it has differed a lot between different groups that call themselves "conservative" in different time periods and locations. I suppose winding back recent changes (back to the "good old days") is also an aspect of conservatism. It's also a far too simplistic way of looking at politics: usually groups will be in favour of same changes and opposed to others, regardless of what they call themselves. There are also issues where it's not even clear what a "conservative" approach would be. Should action be taken against global warming, to prevent potentially undesirable climate change, or resist taking action, to prevent changes to the economic status quo? For some reason, modern conservatives generally seem to prefer the latter.

fyi1183 9y ago

Those would be the literal meanings of the words, yes. In practice, the fundamental difference is probably more about a person's radius of empathy (progressives tend to apply their empathy to a larger group of people), and then lots of vaguely related things flow from that, e.g. different outlooks on power (conservatives prefer a strong man - obviously only assuming he's from their own "tribe" - and therefore strongly tend towards authoritarianism) and economics (empathy with more people tends to make one prefer more equal distributions of wealth and income). The terms progressive and conservative simply arose at a time when the world was largely shaped the way conservatives like. Since then, the world has changed more towards the progressive vision, so today conservatives do want to change creating things.