SMALL "c", BIG "C":

I put the case that there is a small "c" conservatism that denotes an aversion to change, and the desire to hold on to familiar things and ways for the comfort and security they bring. There is also a large "C" Conservatism that denotes a political tradition rather than a character trait. 

That political tradition does not oppose all change, but is against attempts to impose deliberate change to remake society into a preconceived order. Instead it wants such change as takes place to be spontaneous and organic, the product of people interacting, and perhaps reacting to changing circumstances. It opposes utopian attempts to make society correspond with one dreamed-up in theory, as opposed to one that develops naturally in practice. 

What the political tradition of Conservatism seeks to conserve is not any given state of society, but rather the process by which society changes. It seeks to conserve a process, not an outcome. Crucially, I pointed out that Conservatives seek not only to preserve that spontaneity, but to restore it if it has been lost. This brings Margaret Thatcher into their ranks. She managed to restore a degree of spontaneity that had been lost by decades of state controls and central direction. 

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