Conservatism

Some people don't like the word "conservatism", but I can give it a meaning that might be acceptable to some who find it distasteful.

In Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, the main character goes through stretches of his life, one time as a very serious ascetic, and then as a businessman-of-this-world, and on to other roles. It seems like he used up the "life energy" of each phase and then moved on -- perhaps if I re-read I'll see that he had to move on and had little to no choice.

We find ourselves bending toward pragmatic considerations, even believing things that help us to survive. The winds and the waves are very strong. But is there anything that we hold onto with persistent, sometimes unrewarded, even sometimes bitter effort? That would be one of our "conservatisms".

A man and woman might make each other their conservatisms, no matter what changed around them, their relationship a good thing they hold onto out of the past. They might have children and hold onto them (those links to the future) as conservatisms. The family might hold onto their allegiance to God all together, as things change. There could be other conservatisms than those -- vocations, hobbies, perspectives on the world, remembering past experiences or past relationships.

The energy for progressivism comes out of the far-reaching outworking of some conservatism. A conservatism plays itself out in how we live our lives and what our lives are, in the long term. You can sometimes see someone's conservatism written into their face.

Sometimes we are able to ask ourselves "Should we continue in this particular conservatism?" and choose one way or the other to keep it or let it go.