Conservatism is essentially a response to liberalism, which built its foundation on the idea that every man is free to do whatever he or she wishes without infringing on other people's rights to do whatever they wish. Liberalists favor pure reason for deciding a political system while the conservatists believe that pure reason will never work on practice (with Edmund Burke going as far as claiming that pure reason belongs to god alone) so they believe that using history is far better than using something that can never quite see the big picture (the human mind) as the decider. History, they think, shows us what more or less worked, not necessarily in an ideal way, but it is safer than assuming that something new that was developed out of a reasoning that has no certainty of working in practice would work better. They view society as an organism, rather than the liberalist view of the society being a machine. For the liberals, every individual or group of individuals is a cog, their free-willed actions make the machine run; for conservatists, the society is an organism, with every individual or group of individuals having a task given to him (bkz: "ayaklar baş olursa bu iş yürümez"). So in this analogy, changes and improvements are a medicine, and the conservatists believe that if administered suddenly, all change and improvements will lead to an overdose, thus it should be spread slowly and carefully.
This is in line with their dependence to adhere to the status quo, but the problem here is that all of this seems like a giant and misguided rationalization for the very human wish of preserving power. Every source of power is one way or another conservatist, they might not necesarily be against change, but if that change is going to deprive them of their potency, then they oppose it. This is why they prefer slow, careful doses of changes/improvements, because if the differentiation is slow, it's controllable, but if it's sudden, a power shift becomes inevitable.
The idea that the society is an organism becomes even more apparent when you try to answer the question regarding the reason why some people are seen as the brains while some people are seen as the hands or the feet. The conservatists believe that there are certain qualities required for the act of ruling and those requirements can only be filled by someone who is born into them. For the conservatists, this meant that only the nobility was wise and prudent enough to override the faults created by the imperfections of the society. The noble man was a man of history and experience; thus he had to rule. He was also obliged to help the poor (bkz: "noblesse obligue") and take care of the unfortunate, because if not, they would bring about the end of the system and the traditional authority.
This, again, seems to support the idea that everything in conservatism is about the idea of preserving the power, rather than being opposed to progress. It seems like oppostion to change is a by-product of conservatism rather than the reason behind its emergence. They want the poor and the unfortunate to be in a position where they feel satisfied not because of altruistic reasons, they know that poverty and a dissatisfaction towards one's life would lead to a dissatisfaction towards the system, which would not necessarily bring about the end of system, but would definitely create a power shift. The idea that some people are just born more fit for the task of ruling seems like a concept created to keep the people who'd be called the feet in that analogy in check by implying that them being ruled instead of ruling is the only way to avoid total chaos.
So this creates the question of how to determine the difference between the ruler and the ruled in modern ages, because although this was as simple as what surname people had back in the early and late middle ages, nowadays, the concept of nobility does not have the meaning it had. It seems like modern conservatists determine that by using private property, in one way, shape or form. While the liberalists want private property because it's a birth-right, the conservatists seem to want it because of its help establishing a hierarchy. So the head of the organism in modern ages can only be the one with most neurons, rather than the one who was born as the head.
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