(My answer on Quora).
Conservatism isn’t an ideology with strict doctrinal beliefs. It is a way of thinking that values prudence and pragmatism over a short-sighted yearning for the untested. What is considered conservative in one society is not necessarily the same in another. Even within a single national structure different types of conservatives exist that emphasize distinct aspects of the economic and cultural landscape. Fiscal Conservatives for example stress the former while social conservatives the latter. Fusionists incorporate both.
American conservatives differ from their continental counterparts in how they value the notion of Liberty. Historical context matters as it always does. However conservatives of all stripes do share a commonality that is grounded in empiricism and a reverence for their respective traditions.
Conservatives are not essentially opposed to change but they are suspicious of radical ideas that all too often have a history of being destructive. Its greatest strength is that it deflects to stability and in doing so provides a bulwark to mitigate against the all too often tendency of the nation’s institutions, to dive head first off the cliff of rationality.
It succeeds when it prevents such a debacle from happening. This hasn’t always been the case.
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