What is conservatism? Some signposts in the wilderness

Abstract

Attempts to define conservatism have hitherto steered an uncertain, zig‐zag course between over‐specificity and over generalization. The difficulty inheres in the very nature of what thinkers, unquestionably regarded as conservative, have argued. Their emphasis on developmental continuity within particular societies without reference to genesis or telos yields a protean body of ideas which changes according to circumstances. This paper suggests a variation of the configurationalist approach, focusing on situations such as the conquest of the ‘Wild West’, or the new states of modern times, where conservatives have been forced to design a society de novo: to consider elementary basic principles, as well as history and tradition in terms of the ‘specious present’. The analysis of conservatism in such conditions may hopefully serve the heuristic purpose of clarifying the essential attributes of conservatism uncolored by particular contexts.