If there’s any single word that I think defines conservative philosophy—as opposed to simply being reactionary, which I personally like to differentiate—it would be stasis. Conservatives want things to fundamentally remain the same, because they believe that any significant change would lead to society being worse off than it was before; some even say that the society was better at some point in the past and wish to take us back to that point. They may be more or less open to reforms here and there, but they’ll balk at large-scale, structural changes in society. And it’s easy to understand why. Change is a scary thing, and if you see no tangible benefit to yourself or your in-group regardless of its successful implementation, what reason do you have to invest your time and energy into it?
Progressives, on the other hand, have their own single word that defines their philosophy—change. Progressives of all stripes believe that society can and should change for the better—whatever “better” means is up for debate, of course—and are more open to structural reforms in that vein. There are, however, a million different views within the progressive left on what kind of structural reforms are optimal; any conservative saying that the left is just a single-minded mob have no idea what they’re talking about.
Conservatives in this day and age like to portray themselves as knowing and accepting of nature and the real world “as it is,” in contrast with the left, which they see as pie-in-the-sky dreamers seeking the impossible. However, the implicit assumption being made here is that the real world is at least relatively, if not mostly, static and unchanging. And sure, there are some fundamental aspects of reality for which that’s true—no one’s breaking the laws of physics anytime soon, for example. But in other ways, both within society and without, the real world changes—sometimes at a very fast pace. A society that can’t or won’t adapt to those changes is a society that will become dysfunctional and unsustainable in the long term.
This is an aspect of reality that I think progressives understand far better than conservatives—that at least in a societal context, change is reality’s only constant, and the will to improve the human condition is the primary driving force of human history. Even conservatives are driven by this instinct—as I stated, they believe any significant change to the status quo would make things worse rather than better, and the best way to make things better is to simply stay the course or go back to a point in time where they thought things were better.
And again, there may be some questions for which staying the course is the right answer. Even as someone who at least somewhat answers to the label of “socialist,” I think having a relatively free market—at least for private goods—is indispensable in a society that’s both free and equitable, although I differ on some details that are nonetheless beside the point. This is because I think free markets are, well, adaptable in a way that I don’t think planned economies can be. Similarly, strong free speech rights are also indispensable for similar reasons. You’ve probably heard a lot of talk about the free marketplace of ideas, so I won’t spend too much time on it, but the freer that marketplace is, the more dynamic and flexible people are able to be in their thought processes and worldviews. If they find that an idea or belief that they hold is wrong, they can adapt their worldview—and perhaps their way of life—accordingly.
All of this is to say that conservatism has its merits in some regards—our society does have features that need to be conserved and protected, because those features are what enable our society to grow and change in the first place. The values of liberty and justice for all that our country was founded upon are not the least of them. At the end of the day, however, striving towards the actualization of those values—and the improvement of the human condition that would result from that—is a progressive calling. Mistakes have been made in that process and will be made again. But without partaking in that process, we wouldn’t be where we are today.