“Liberalism, contrary to popular belief, is facing backward in considering the injustice of its ancestors. Conservatism, contrary to popular belief, is facing forward in considering the psychology of its descendants. Definitively, it seems in the modern world that neither side really knows which direction it's facing, and men of the sharpest judgment are simply turned off from picking either of the poisons.” KnowsMenWorldSeemsBeliefSidesPsychologyModernJudgmentInjusticeContraryPoisonLiberalismAncestorConsideringModern WorldConservatismDescendantsTurned OffContrary To Popular Belief Author:Criss Jami
“Conservatism is sometimes a symptom of sterility. Those who have nothing in them that can grow and develop must cling to what they have in beliefs, ideas and possessions. The sterile radical, too, is basically conservative. He is afraid to let go of the ideas and beliefs he picked up in his youth lest his life be seen as empty and wasted.” IdeasSometimesLife IsBeliefGrowsSocietyYouthLetting GoEmptyConservativePossessionRadicalSymptomsConservatism Book:The Passionate State of Mind Source: The Passionate State of Mind
“Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.” PeopleIfsShouldRunningPastBeliefCausesStepsRiskTroubleChangedRegretNormalTradeHistorianMistakenVocationConservatism Author:A. J. P. Taylor
“Unlike liberalism, with its fundamental belief in the long-range power of ideas, conservatism is bound by the stock of ideas inherited at a given time. And since it does not really believe in the power of argument, its last resort is generally a claim to superior wisdom, based on some self-arrogated superior quality.” BelieveLongDoeIdeasSelfLastsBeliefGivenQualityAuthorityArgumentClaimsFundamentalsBoundsSuperiorsRangeLiberalismResortsConservatismPower Of Ideas Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
“The degree of confirmation assigned to any given hypothesis is sensitive to properties of the entire belief system... simplicity, plausibility, and conservatism are properties that theories have in virtue of their relation to the whole structure of scientific beliefs taken collectively. A measure of conservatism or simplicity would be a metric over global properties of belief systems.” WholeWould BeBeliefGivenVirtueTakenTheoryDegreesRelationStructurePropertySimplicitySensitiveHypothesisConservatismBelief SystemsConfirmationMetrics Author:Jerry Fodor
“William Graebner's brilliant analysis of America's struggles over the meaning of Patty Hearst gives us not only new perspectives on the 1970s, on Americans' fundamental understandings of their world in a bicentennial year that offered little to celebrate, but also on the longing for heroism and the desire for belief in free will that Graebner believes structured the rise of Reagan-era conservatism. This is a masterful work of cultural history.” WorldGivingYearsBelieveLittlesAmericaDesireBeliefUnderstandingStrugglePerspectiveFundamentalsLongingBrilliantCelebrateErasAnalysisFree WillHeroismConservatismNew Perspective Author:Beth Bailey