What is an objective definition of conservatism?

[Matty]

Growing up, I was always taught that conservatism meant opposition to improving society, while liberalism meant improving society through individual rights, equality, etc.

I think these two definitions are too simple, but I struggle to find a clear answer as to what conservatism actually is. Does anyone have a good answer? Please don't say things that are subjective/biased, if that is possible.

[King]

Nostalgia in action.

[anvi]

In the broadest general sense, I've always thought of a "conservative" as someone who wants to conserve traditional norms of one kind or another, whether they be political, social or cultural.  What this is going to mean or entail is going to be different in different places.  Whether such inclinations to conserve traditional cultural norms are "good" or "bad" for society depends, I think, on what's at issue. 

[The Mikado]

Probably more so than any other political term, even the ever-malleable "liberal," conservative has had so many different meanings over the last two centuries that it's hard to point to only one as the correct or accepted one.

Once upon a time, conservative had a Burkean connotation of support for existing pillars of society as the bulwark of civilization and that without them society would disintegrate into mob chaos.  Support the monarchy, aristocracy, established state church.  Oppose the newly-wealthy, whether of the industrial-capitalist cohort or the colonial exploiter cohort (Burke hated the "get rich on a sugar plantation in the Caribbean or in India, come home and go into Parliament" types because they undermined the aristocracy), oppose the masses (the "swinish multitude,"), oppose any doctrine of political thoughts that believes in inherent rights rather than bestowed privileges, oppose any popular role in government.

By the mid-19th century, conservatism had to shift away from defense of aristocrats as politics became a mass phenomenon.  In the USA even the pro-business Whigs also supported tariffs and internal improvements to widen their vote net, while the British Tories pioneered a conservatism of the middle classes based on protectionism and opposition to the out-of-touch nature of the Liberals.

In most of the 20th century, conservatism had to retreat from affiliation to the old order as it ceased to exist.  In the USA it dabbled with the discarded liberal toy of lassiez faire economics only to retreat from it for a good half century into paternalistic protectionism, while the British and other conservative movements never fell for the siren song of lassiez faire.  It would only be in the last 30  years that the embrace of lassiez faire economics along with a profoundly...rural/moralistic social policy became the tell-tale order of the day in US policy, and that particular cocktail hasn't seen much success abroad.

[DemPGH]

The goal posts move through the ages. Conservatism is always about satisfying, respecting, and favoring traditional institutions of power. It's money and religion, to put it broadly and succinctly. Currently, conservatism can cross over to regression for this reason.

I think modern liberalism can be traced back to Milton and others in the 17th century. Conservatism can go back far beyond that, and that's part of the problem in defining it.

[CatoMinor]

In the American sense at least, liberal-democrats (not the party obviously) who feel we have moved far enough with liberalism, or at least are moving too fast.

[The Mikado]

I think modern liberalism can be traced back to Milton and others in the 17th century. Conservatism can go back far beyond that, and that's part of the problem in defining it.

Yes and no.  Charles Loyseau might be called a conservative in retrospect, but what he was writing in 1610 wasn't an advocacy for a state of affairs, it was his explanation for how things were.  Conservatism can be thought to not exist until after liberalism is formed, as prior to that the old order had little need for an ideological defense.  Until you reach the days of people like Edmund Burke or, on a more extreme note, the Prince von Metternich, no one really needed to defend the old regime as a positive good, it simply...existed.  In that sense, conservatism as an intellectual tradition devoted to the defense of privilege and the old regime was born of the challenge to said old regime by the French Revolutionaries.