I have come to the conclusion that nearly everyone is conservative. In fact, I estimate that upwards of 80% of humanity looks at change with a certain amount of wariness, if not outright suspicion.
Keep in mind, however, that conservatism as such is not and cannot be tied to a particular party or ideology. It is about resistance to change, whatever that change might happen to be.
Most people grow up in circumstances where they largely take on the politics of their parents, live in the same towns and share the same life experiences. It is a stable mindset, and when new points of view are encountered, they often are looked upon as either troubling or wrong; more particularly, they are looked upon as dangerous.
Many other individuals, particularly those people whose parents (and, perhaps, whose parent’s parents) grew up and attended college, get exposed to another variety of conservatism altogether, which, I grant, will appear to be counter-intuitive. When they go to college, they encounter the liberal academic mindset, which is stable and largely unchallenged at the university level. College professors and administrators primarily vote Democratic, and they are often ideologically to the left in that party. Whether one accepts this datum or not, what happens is that students, fresh from their parent’s houses and their high school experiences, encounter an academia that has a pervasive left wing point of view. It is not a strident point of view, nor is it rigorously enforced; it is simply subtext for the most part, but it does have an effect societally as more and more people attend college. This academic subculture, through prolonged and general exposure, became the primary culture that greater and greater numbers of our children experience, and as such, it is the general attitude towards society that most college educated professionals adopt and adhere to. It is their “normal.” They grew up with it, their friends share it, and they are comfortable with the world as they know it.
The news media as a whole is very much a part of this subculture, and the basic premises and predilections of news professionals are reflected in their coverage, both in what they choose to emphasize and what they choose not to report at all. So, too, the entertainment industry by and large shares these same premises, and what it projects onto the television screens of its viewers reflects the world as they see it.
So as these young professionals transit from college into industry, government, or, most pointedly, the media, they find that the people they meet there mostly share the same attitudes and expectations of behavior. Once accepted, this perspective is resistant to change, as such, because opposing points of view are generally not encountered (and those they do encounter appear to be unfounded, antithetical to logic, or just wrong).
This easy acceptance of perspective is why so many “educated” people look curiously at Republicans and other people on the right wing of the political spectrum and wonder what the hell is wrong with them. Why do they think as they do, vote as they do? Think the things they do. Don’t they understand that they are looking at the world incorrectly? It is at this point that one of two things occurs to them; people who are ideologically to the right, being incorrect in their point of view, have only two excuses for not sharing the appropriate view of the world: they are either stupid (and don’t get it) or evil (they understand it, but deny it for venal reasons of their own).
In part, this dichotomy of attitudes leads to an interesting dualism of perspective: a great deal of America looks at The New York Times and sees a left wing newspaper while another great deal of America looks at it as middle of the road, common sense reporting. Common sense is, in large part, defined by what you commonly encounter. And if you share the same sorts of education at college and the same suppositions about how politics work, the Times' news coverage will strike you as sensible, even centrist, while Fox News' coverage will strike you as hopelessly biased and to the right wing ideologically.
What things look like truly depends upon where you are looking from.
Think back to the Reagan Revolution; why was it called a “revolution” at all, except for the fact that it proposed to change the status quo? Reaganites were interested in profound societal transformation, and they had no interest in keeping things as they were, or, indeed, as they ever were. They were advocating profound changes in social, economic, and foreign policies, which is why the Democratic Party at the time viewed them, and the president, as dangerous, and why referring to people who are ideologically right as “conservative” is often highly fallacious. In that time, under those circumstances, those on the left who were unwilling to see the system in place change to accommodate those new right wing views were, by definition, conservative, i.e., resistant to change.
This is also why, if one uses the the government of the old Soviet Union as an example, one is struck by evidence of both “change” and “conservative” politics. Change politics focused on freedoms of various kinds, while conservative individuals were often hard line Communist true believers, unwilling to allow the proletariat any freedoms not envisioned by Marxism/Leninism. Within that left-right construct, the far left was conservative in that it did not countenance enhanced freedoms for anyone, and were, in fact, referred to as “conservative hardliners,” which was, specifically, the truth. It’s also true that the sorts of reforms the “change” politicians wanted there, i.e., property rights, sound money, a freer, market economy, were positions more closely associated in the right wing of American politics than otherwise.
Basically, change of whatever kind, in whichever direction, is usually opposed by conservative thought that prefers things as they are to how they might become. And most people anywhere in whatever walk of life, profession or avocation, want the world to make sense and continue to do so for as long as they care to pay attention. They do not want change. Change is the enemy. It is also, however, inevitable.
Now, it is also true that there is a strain of American thought called Progressivism, these days more closely associated with the left, but heretofore more closely associated with freer markets and individual rights. Progressivism, in this incarnation, advocates a move towards more government control and administration of, well, everything from labor relations and corporate administration to how one lives one’s life within the society, including what you can eat, where you can live, what you can drive, and how you can practice your religion. It isn’t conservatism, but it isn’t the sort of thing most Americans favor, either.
Also not conservative in nature are the Libertarians, who favor a government hands-off policy towards most things government has it hands IN these days, including corporate administration, labor relations, etc, etc.
Finally, there are some freethinkers on both sides of the spectrum who look at things as they exist and allow themselves to let their thoughts travel where they will, largely free of ideology, and search, pragmatically, for the solutions to our problems that might very well work and have broad support. These people are more commonly called troublemakers, and are largely ignored by everyone noted above (when they aren’t misrepresented in the press or shouted down in public debate).
Ultimately, as conservative as most people, most Americans, tend to be, we are arriving at a juncture in our history where conservatism isn’t going to save us, or even keep us from slipping farther into the abyss. The political gestalt at present is intent upon doing the same things that got us into this mess in the first place, and conservatism at this point would simply freeze that into stone. What we need now is a willingness to let business succeed and fail on its own merit, unprotected by government and unhindered, to the largest degree possible, by regulations. “Too big to fail” did not work for us, and crony capitalism, where ties with regulators and Congress pay off huge for businesses unable or unwilling to make it on their own, is something we can no longer afford.
It is time to clean house, but more importantly, it is time to listen – actually listen – to what some of the other voices in this society have to say.
It could save us all.
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