Conservatism and Liberalism

Conservatism is by definition the preservation, maintenance, and protection of the status quo. It’s right there in the name CONSERVATism, the conservation of the way things are, keeping them the same way, it places tradition over progress, stagnantation over growth. Opposed to conservatism is liberalism, or more accurately, given the semantic subtlety of our current lexicon, progressivism. That political ethos strives for progress, the making of things better, as opposed to keeping them the same for the sake of sameness. It preaches improvement over dogma, growth over ritual. People are conservatives because they see change, any thusly, progress, as a negative, something to be protected against. They see any change as degradation. Governments and theological institutions rely on conservatism to maintain their hegemony. They are threatened by change; they feel it’s incompatible and contradictory to the corporations that give them meaning, the ones that they devote their lives to. All advancements in human history was brought about by liberals/progressives, and resisted and impeded by conservatives. Conservatives were on the side of the red coats during the revolutionary war; conservatives defended the genocidal institution of slavery, they supported segregation. Liberalism or progressivism is named because it wants to make things better, to improve society. The term liberal comes from the Latin “liber”, and doesn’t come from anything relating to wasteful. Liber means liberty or freedom, and liberalism has always been about bringing liberty to as wide a group as possible. What sounds more appealing, Liberalism or Conservatism?