Dear Network,

A thought at the dawn of a new week, which I will begin with a question: "What, in fact, is Conservatism?"

As a former Latin learner, I remember that there are two distinct words at the base of the term: "conservare" and "servare." The meaning of the first is "preserve," while the second means "to be at the service of." One will first think of service to the collective state, an idea developed by Rousseau. Each words has its history, sometimes obscured by linguistic developments and the lack of sources, be it original artifacts or secondary material, or else the distanced nature of related languages (which often serve as a reference for reconstructive efforts).

For the purpose of this short text, I would like to take a rather philosophical route: history is immutably marked by change, or rather the plural, changes. What then is the deeper signification of Convervatism?

Conservatism does not mean forcing things back to a static, former or contemporary state of affairs, but rather salvaging into new stages of local to global reality what is positive and letting go of what is possibly negative, as proves the prefix -con, which always carries the meaning of part-contributing - never fully achieving a result in the process of changes that occur. Suffice it to say that this necessitates, in the case of Conservatism, being constructive in two ways:

- forging and welcoming the the new and positive,

- rendering both the new elements and those that will overcome compatible, streamlining them, when there is a relationship between them.

However, it also means

- engaging in a mental, emotional, technical, economic, and political litigation with respect to what will cease as well as

- coming to terms with the loss of cultural items which ultimately cannot survive.

All of this is not always easily achieved but is inevitable, as we always have been subject to change. It would lead too far to explain in how far Moore's Law, which in 1965 stated that transistors on a chip would double every year, did not turn out to be exact, as developments are never evenly linear. It would also lead too far to explain how transitional processes can lead to the necessity of alleviating and managing conflicts, e.g. cultural ones, which have to be carried out in society all too often.

What comes to mind, in closing, is that is a prerequisite to render development, as fast-paced as it may be, sustainable and continually operational.

Sincerely,

Thorsten Koch, MA, PgDip

Policyinstitute.net

21 July 2025