What's the point of being conservative?

[The Reasonable]

After discussing how there are so many left-wingers on NSG, I want to ask another question of you guys. If liberals and progressives always win in the long run (which I noticed very quickly when studying history), what's the point of being conservative on any issue, if you're going to lose anyways?

Just to tell you where I'm coming from, I'm an American, and I'm considered liberal in the US but very conservative by Europeans, and while on this site I've always felt this sense of guilt that whenever I take a stance that the leftists on NSG disagree with, I feel like I'm standing on the wrong side of history and that I'm holding back human progress.

More questions to consider for the progressives on this site: What, in your mind, will or should society eventually evolve to? What is the progressive ideal? Is it possible to attain something close to it, given reality and human nature? Can human nature as a whole be changed and if so, what should it be? I want well informed answers- I've already been alternately praised to the sky and called barbaric and cruel by the same people on different threads because I didn't always agree with the self-described progressive views of the majority of NSGers.

[Norsklow]

Festina lente sed fac omnia cauta mente

[Vetalia]

Because "progress" isn't necessarily always a good thing, it's beneficial to have people who resist change and question its virtue because it forces the proponents of "progress" to consider and defend their arguments that it is the right approach to take.

[Genivaria]

Conservatism is not a set ideology, it is an attitude of resisting change.
Today's liberals are tomorrows conservatives.

"Homosexual marriage? Yeah I'm cool with that. INTER-SPECIES MARRIAGE!? HELL NO GET THEM ALIEN PAWS OFF MY EARTH WOMEN!"

[Srboslavija]

Because some people on here are over the age of 15.

[Samuraikoku]

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

[Occupied Deutschland]

To go full-blown philosophical up in this hizzie, the point of being conservative even when progressives/liberals "always" win is because hopefully you will influence the idea that comes out of that 'win'. (This is assuming that progressives always do win, which though true possibly in a long-term abstract manner becomes rather dicey once specifics come up. I mean, public education was a progressive idea in the 1800s, it still hasn't fully brought around the entire populace).

Thesis --> Antithesis
---------V-------------
Synthesis

And so on...

[Samuraikoku]

Conservatism is not a set ideology, it is an attitude of resisting change.
Today's liberals are tomorrows conservatives.

"Homosexual marriage? Yeah I'm cool with that. INTER-SPECIES MARRIAGE!? HELL NO GET THEM ALIEN PAWS OFF MY EARTH WOMEN!"

Marrying a Dark Eldar has its purpose if you like that kind of thing.

[Saiwania]

Conservatism is a good movement to be a part of if you are intent on preserving the status quo.

[Priory Academy USSR]

Because "progress" isn't necessarily always a good thing, it's beneficial to have people who resist change and question its virtue because it forces the proponents of "progress" to consider and defend their arguments that it is the right approach to take.

Just wondering, but when has 'progress' been bad?

[Natovski]

Because the thought that the ideals espoused by so called 'progressives' are either inevitable or actually progress is silly.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Because "progress" isn't necessarily always a good thing, it's beneficial to have people who resist change and question its virtue because it forces the proponents of "progress" to consider and defend their arguments that it is the right approach to take.

Just wondering, but when has 'progress' been bad?

French Revolution comes to mind off the top of my head.

[Natovski]

Just wondering, but when has 'progress' been bad?

French Revolution comes to mind off the top of my head.

Really?

I would think when answering a guy with USSR in his name and a North Korean flag might bring to mind other cases where changing society wasn't a wholly good thing.

[Christian Democrats]

To be cautious and prudent when reforming society instead of being imprudent and reckless with people's lives.

[Samuraikoku]

To be cautious and prudent when reforming society instead of being imprudent and reckless with people's lives.

Reckless with people's lives? Enlighten me.

[Genivaria]

To be cautious and prudent when reforming society instead of being imprudent and reckless with people's lives.

The fact that your a Republican makes that endlessly amusing.

[Christian Democrats]

To be cautious and prudent when reforming society instead of being imprudent and reckless with people's lives.

Reckless with people's lives? Enlighten me.

The attempted reforms of the left are almost never gradual.

Going more slowly = making fewer mistakes.

[Norsklow]

I wonder if some Green offshoot will be the next conservatives.

[Enadail]

Because some people on here are over the age of 15.

Quite a few of us, yah. And quite a few of those over 15 are liberal.

I think having opposing views is important to finding solutions, thus I have nothing against conservatism in general. What I particularly dislike about American conservatives is the condescension. Its typically an older population who believes they're inherently right and anyone else is childish/stupid/etc.

[Genivaria]

Reckless with people's lives? Enlighten me.

The attempted reforms of the left are almost never gradual.

Going more slowly = making fewer mistakes.

Thats not what conservatives do. Conservatives take society BACK.

[Samuraikoku]

The attempted reforms of the left are almost never gradual.

Going more slowly = making fewer mistakes.

That has nothing inherent to liberalism or conservatism.

[Thanatttynia]

I don't know, what is the point of being a conservative?
This is a joke, right?

[Samuraikoku]

Thats not what conservatives do. Conservatives take society BACK.

They might want to incorporate Luddism into their views.

[Conserative Morality]

French Revolution comes to mind off the top of my head.

There were two "Reigns of Terror," if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could
hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-- that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

[TaQud]

IMO its seems like the classification type for people who are very religious...