system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What actually is "conservatism"?

Can someone for the love of God please tell me what conservatism is? I understand there's different flavors of it just like socialism, but atleast I could give you a solid umbrella definition of it. All I know about it, is Burke. I've heard about realism and such, but every single conservative has a different take or different values. Is there any cohesion between the different conservative ideologies? Or is it just an umbrella term for center right to far right ideologies?
gpt
Here are some general headings, themes, or dispositions characteristic of philosophical conservatism. It is not meant to be a list of necessary and sufficient conditions. There is *much* to unpack here, and each of these bulletpoints is not strictly orthogonal to the others.

* ***Emphasis on experience over abstract reason, systemization, and theory***
   * The thesis that there are certain kinds of knowledge that can only be gleaned through experience and practice, and cannot be learned from or codified in a book, and that moral and political knowledge is primarily of this kind. See Michael Oakeshott's *Rationalism in Politics.*
* ***Emphasis on historical embeddedness, contextualism, and particularism***
   * The thesis that there are few, if any, universal rules or principles, and that many things can only be judged on a case-by-case basis with reference to factors that obtain only within a particular context, time, or place.
* ***A general skepticism toward sudden change***
   * The idea that it is easier to destroy than to build, and that there is value in merely existing as is, or in such existential inertia. (See G.A. Cohen's "Rescuing Conservatism" for a good statement of this impulse.)
   * Belief in the accretion of wisdom, knowledge, or value in things that exist over time—such as traditions, institutions, elders, etc.—which underwrites a defeasible presumption in favor of continuity with the status quo.
* ***Sentimentalism*** **and** ***romanticism***
   * The view that aesthetic or spiritual considerations can or should be weighty in public deliberation.
   * The thesis that emotions are essential to morality, and to moral, social, and political life in general (cf. moral sentimentalism).
* ***A generally positive evaluation of hierarchies***
   * The thesis that hierarchies (unequal social arrangements) can and often are morally good and valuable.
* ***Emphasis on embodiment, natural essences, and teleology***
   * The thesis that things have intrinsic purposes, essences, or functions, against which "goodness" for those things can be defined.
   * An emphasis or embrace of facts about human beings qua human beings, and skepticism toward attempts to abstract, "perfect", or idealize away from such facts (e.g., abstract "persons" with free-floating preferences behind a veil of ignorance).
* ***Pluralistic axiology and "thick" moral concepts***
   * Appeals to a wide range of moral values and sentiments, including "thick" moral concepts such as honor, courage, etc.