Conservatism

Conservatism is a concept of political theory used as a shortcut to refer to a wide swath of people who allegedly hold similar values. The conservative ideal does not really exist, as no two people would likely define it exactly the same. As a stand-alone word, conservatism refers to someone who wishes to maintain the status quo, or is at least cautious about deviating from it too radically. Thus, one can say that a guess is conservative, meaning it is expected to be pretty close to the mark.

In the political sphere, the term conservatism has taken on extra baggage. Some of the political generalizations that people make about conservatives include that they may wish to limit social change, preserve traditional family values, revere the military and exhibit staunch patriotism for their country, believe in fiscal restraint, are highly religious and thus dislike homosexuality or trans-sexuality, decry foreign immigration, and do not wish to fund support for people in need on grounds that they must be lazy.

People ascribed conservative values may also be described as being "right-wing", generally in opposition to the "left-wing" which is said to be comprised of people grouped together and labelled as "liberals" or "progressives".

Such shortcut words as conservative or liberal are often wielded as weapons in political rhetoric, but due to the overall vagueness of their meaning, they do not help bring people together in making decisions but rather serve more often to cause people to think of themselves as belonging to opposing factions.