Friedrich --

One of my many rants-in-waiting is how eager I am to see more people get over their fear of the word "conservative." It's not just that it's OK to be conservative, it's that we're all conservative in many respects already. We have to be -- otherwise we'd die. Our bodies conserve heat; we instinctively take steps to protect ourselves, as well as the people and things we care about. Change and dynamism are parts of life, but so are continuity and rootedness. Why cheer one team and diss the other when both are necessary for the game (life, art, both and more) to go on?

The British conservative Roger Scruton often makes eye-opening (as well as humane and cultured) arguments in favor of conservatism. The Wall Street Journal online carried a good recent piece by him. Sample passage:

At the heart of every conservative endeavor is the effort to conserve a historically given community. In any conflict the conservative is the one who sides with "us" against "them"--not knowing, but trusting. He is the one who looks for the good in the institutions, customs and habits that he has inherited. He is the one who seeks to defend and perpetuate an instinctive sense of loyalty, and who is therefore suspicious of experiments and innovations that put loyalty at risk.

So defined, conservatism is less a philosophy than a temperament; but it is, I believe, a temperament that emerges naturally from the experience of society, and which is indeed necessary if societies are to endure. The conservative strives to diminish social entropy.

The piece can be read here.

Best,

Michael