The Love of Tradition: Or, “If it was good enough for Grandad…”
Conservatism begins with a deep respect for tradition. Stick to what works, keep your trousers ironed, and don’t go reinventing the wheel just because someone’s had three oat lattes and a sociology degree. There’s something charming about holding the line against chaos. Family, religion, patriotism, Sunday dinners — all the warm things that feel like home.
But the Nincompoop Mind is sneaky. It forgets that not everything “traditional” was good. Some of it was outright dreadful. Like asbestos, corporal punishment, and pretending your feelings don’t exist.
Conservatism’s blind spot? Confusing age with virtue. Just because an idea’s been kicking around for decades doesn’t mean it’s immune to scrutiny.
Fear of Change: The World’s Moving Too Fast and Frankly It’s Rude
There’s a quiet panic baked into conservatism: the sense that modern life is galloping off into absurdity, and someone needs to pull the reins. It’s not wrong to be cautious — social upheaval is messy.
Change, to a conservative nincompoop, feels like an attack. New pronouns? That’s the collapse of civilisation. Climate regulation? That’s communism in disguise. Public statues being reassessed? That’s historical erasure, not just accountability.
This reflexive dread turns practical caution into cultural paralysis. Instead of evaluating change, it’s automatically rejected. And when the default setting is set to “no”, progress tends to move on without you.
Hierarchy and Order: Know Your Place, Sit Down, and Be Grateful
Conservatism likes a tidy pecking order. There’s comfort in ranks, from the monarchy to middle management. Someone’s in charge, someone’s not, and ideally no one’s shouting. The problem is that hierarchy, once baked into the furniture, gets mistaken for morality. If someone’s at the top, they must deserve to be. If someone’s struggling, maybe they didn’t try hard enough.
This belief — that society is more or less as it should be — is a textbook case of status quo bias, one of the Nincompoop Mind’s favourite tricks. It assumes the present is correct simply because it’s familiar. If someone points out injustice, the conservative reflex isn’t curiosity — it’s defensiveness. “Why are you trying to ruin everything?” Sometimes, everything needs a bit of ruin. Especially when the system’s only working for the people who designed it.
The Morality Panic Button
Conservatism tends to believe in a moral compass — one passed down, presumably, from a stern-faced clergyman with strong opinions about skirts. There’s a comfort in clear values. But morality becomes less about actual behaviour and more about surface respectability. Don’t be kind — be proper. Don’t ask questions — mind your manners.
Hence why some conservative factions panic about “declining standards” while conveniently ignoring corporate greed, war crimes, or elected officials having the moral compass of a greased ferret. It’s the appearance of virtue that matters. A well-dressed bigot still gets invited to dinner, but a blue-haired activist is treated like a threat to the realm.
What Conservatism Gets Right — And Where Nincompoop Could Help
Conservatism understands that humans need anchors. That identity matters. That rapid change without reflection leads to chaos. It values patience, structure, and humility in the face of tradition.
Nincompoop says: don’t confuse comfort with correctness. Don’t mistake stillness for wisdom. And above all, remember that resisting change isn’t the same as understanding it.
If Conservatism could take a good, long look in the mirror and admit it sometimes prefers nostalgia to truth — and sentiment to growth — it might still have something vital to offer. But as it stands, it’s too often a polite way of saying, “I’ve stopped listening.”