Why I am a conservative?

 Many people around me think I am a socialist. After all, I laugh at the late night TS posts from Donald Trump, talk about the follies of regime change wars and generally foo-foo right wing propaganda. I work in democratising access to education, believe in public provision of health and schooling, and think technology is leaving too many people behind. I failed to support Hinduvta and its new god in my homeland; I broke ranks with my friends in London and didn't vote for Brexit or Boris Johnson. My right-thinking associates consider me to be beyond redemption, perhaps a red!

But apart from my sartorial preference for red T-shirts, there is nothing red in me. I believe that from the 'crooked timber' of human nature nothing straight can ever arise. I believe that history works with timespans much longer than our lifetime and we have imperfect knowledge about the world, and therefore, neither we can change our society intentionally nor can predict the future. Not just regime change, I am against all forms of social engineering. 'Changing the world' is typical American brag for me: I don't think anyone can do it. 

I don't think what we have is perfect - far from it - and neither do I subscribe to doing nothing. I am painfully aware, as I go through one of the most challenging periods in my life, how important society is: I have now learnt this in hospital corridors and waiting rooms. The more aware we become about the fragility of our lives, the more we appreciate the value of not being alone. And, therefore, all my endeavours are focused on being a part of a good society, one that is kind, open and has a sense of solidarity. I believe this is my point of departure, why I am considered a communist: I fail to subscribe to the creed of self-interest that sustains the zealots!

But this makes me a conservative. They are in a hurry to tear down the society, monetise everything, turn everything into a transaction, judge a person's worth by their possession and not contribution, run their businesses with the justification of caveat emptor, dismantle conventions and institutions with whataboutery - all attempts at changing the world, revolutionary practices. Against it, I am only offering respect and care for people in our lives, a business that exists to create value for its customers, employees and shareholders (in that order), and grudging acceptance of the institutions and the laws as along as I am able to question them and make my argument: I stand for change, but gradual and incremental ones, which makes me anti-utopian.

This also makes me out of fashion, I am aware. But the revolutions are flitting, and realism always makes a comeback. Things change, but only very slowly. History, the humanist's equivalent of what scientists call Time, operates in spans bigger than our lifetimes, or even our cognitive horizons. I am content to accept my smallness - a speck - but also my place, a link in a chain, and its significance. Perhaps I shall never see the world I am working for, but my work isn't futile. Just as I am building on someone else's ideas, some may build on mine, and in the fullness of time, human practices may turn again. Even if I, we, have no hope of bringing change about, change needs us to work towards it. 

We don't build roads. We make the path by walking.