Discussion: The Conservative Culture Is Inherently Meaningful

This chapter discusses the central results from the previous chapter being dedicated to the central topoi of a conservative culture. As such, I conclude in this section that the conservative wants to preserve meaningfulness not only for oneself but for one’s very own little cosmos. Here, the conservative-minded person needs to be active—rather than passive—in order to make something preservable. That’s why we need to define the conservative-minded person as homo activus. Yet, the conservative person knows that s/he is not an isolated island in the sea but that s/he needs to align her drive for meaningfulness with the one of his/her significant social other. This is the reason why the conservative person can be operationalized as homo socialis. Yet, the conservative is also deeply aware of the progress of its time and is in constant reflection when a specific attitude needs to be abandoned because it has become obsolete. Here, the conservative is not a homo ideologicus. Further, I juxtapose this actualized definition with the research of the last decades coming to the conclusion that conservativism was poorly operationalized in previous times.