What Is A Conservative?

Richard J. Bishirjian posits:

Ask that question of a British Tory and you’ll get a reply that is different from one given by an Americaneven if the Tory you query is a Thatcherite Conservative. And the same will be the case of Spanish, Italian, German and French conservatives. These differences tell us that conservatism is an attitudenot an “ism”and a disposition of mind toward government, politics, and tradition, not a philosophy of government or a systematic political theory. If not an ideology, a philosophy nor a political theory, then there is no universal conservatism about which to write. What we are discussing is an artifact, a cultural development, that in the case of those participating in this symposium began in America in response to the growth of the administrative state and which we can address by reflection on its history and the problems it addresses.