flwyd | A Conservative on Conservatism (Reply)

Conservatism, in my view, begins with an understanding of the world as a broken place always at risk of spinning out of control. A conservative, then, is pleasantly surprised to find so much good in the world. He or she responds in profound gratitude for the gifts we've received and consequently aims to conserve or preserve those blessings, and to steward an order under which those blessings might be shared with even more people, all of whom are possessed of inexhaustible dignity and inalienable rights. Conservatism is, therefore, antithetical to an attitude that says to "burn it all down." Because conservatism is in part a disposition of gratitude, it is opposed to a culture of grievance or universal victimhood.
— Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Them: Why we hate each other—and how to heal, footnote page 120 in the section "Conservatism Doesn't Make Good Radio"

Maybe this is why, despite deeply valuing conservation of resources, environments, and cultures, I've rarely found resonance in the conservative worldview. I don't see the world as broken at all. Rather, I think of it as profoundly ordered, with dynamic systems well-adapted to their environments, whether that happened over a generation or over a billion years.