Reply #: Pure conservatism harbors within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

[Berry Cool]

The natural movement of all living things is toward evolution, toward progress, toward becoming hardier and better able to survive by adapting to accommodate changes in its environment. Conservatism, in its purest sense, is all about not changing, about keeping everything exactly as it is, or reverting to exactly as things were in some real or oftentimes imagined past, because that past is perceived as being safer, better, more virtuous, less scary than the present and future. It is about trying to stop or even turn back the clock. And as we all know, that is impossible.

Despite the huge backwards steps a civilization sometimes makes in the name of preserving what is supposedly worthwhile from the past, progressive thoughts and ideas always win in the end.

The trick, for all of us, is managing to survive those terrible times when conservative ideas temporarily take over and delude the majority of the civilization in which we live, causing painful and sometimes fatal lapses in its ability to carry on.

The way I see it, we've just gotten through one of those periods. If we can hang on a little longer, things will get better and it will be a long time before the majority is once again temporarily deluded into thinking conservatism is the way to go. And even when they do, it will be a different degree of conservatism, because its perpretrators won't be old enough to remember what the old conservatism was really like. They may have a nostalgic affection for it, but that affection will be deadly if they ever try to implement it. The majority won't let them.

So there you have it. We take a step back once in a while, but most of the steps we take are forward. Those who ignore this, who believe that the time we're in now is a mere hiccup or anomaly in the lifespan of a civilization that really and truly just wants things to revert to some never-existed "good old days" of their own conception are fools.