Conservatism and Gradualism

The Execution of Robespierre

​I recently had to mute a thread that had followed on me making the observation that there were a lot of good things about conservatism.
 
My main point was thinking of conservatism as an impulse of caution, but read more specifically as principled positions, to which I must have been arguing the existence of which were good.
 
My intent was to take a deeper view, as conservative positions (as have those of progressives) have always changed, and so the best-faith position would be to think of the almost psychological political disposition, and principles that follow most immediately as such.
 
Specific positions such as low taxes, deregulation, pro-life, anti-LGBTQ, etc. are easy for a progressive to identify as wrong.  But if the impulse is caution, and then critiques of progressive over-reach, one can easily find positions that progressives would stop short of, and thus might be thought of as conservative.  Cautious, yes, but in practicality following a logic that I think could be described as conservative.  To illustrate, from a hard left position, the liberal position would be "more conservative", even if not exactly a conservative position per-say.  For instance, the ACA is a liberal approach to health care policy, but quite conservative compared to single payer.  Indeed, it was a position that had previously been advocated a conservative position in the past.  The same could be said for carbon taxes, or 3rd trimester abortion.
 
Many conservative principles, such as limited government, tradition, or free markets, are generally the basis for downstream policies.  However, it may be difficult to determine whether policies are in fact downstream from principles, as policy outcomes may be primary preferences that in turn lead to larger principles.  This is exemplified in historical examples of conservatives arguing for policies in bad faith, citing higher principles as a way of hiding social outcomes that they are otherwise loath to honestly advocate.  One thinks of States' Rights: a preference for segregation was morally difficult to support publicly, and so an appeal to States' Rights was a way of determining such outcomes by an appeal to republicanism and limited government.  Progressives have learned to be skeptical of supposed conservative principles for just this reason, as true policy outcome preferences seem to have a history of being hidden by broader appeals to principles that seem offered up post hoc.  Another example, a progressive might say, is pro-life conservatives advocating state-enforced pregnancy, which would seem antithetical to the notion of limited government.  Of course, the pro-life view of the fetal personhood would be argued as a superior ethic consideration of individual freedom (that of the unborn) that trumps limits on state power.
 
Thinking back - and I'm out of my depth here - but to the origins I believe of modern conservatism versus progressivism falling along the split over how best to deal with European aristocracy.  Conservatives felt the French Revolution went too far too fast, and as such were more comfortable or sympathetic to the status quo and favored a measured winding down towards something like egalitarianism.  They professed a belief in human rights and individual freedom, but stopped somewhere short - in the progressive view - of truly challenging structures of power and wealth that would continue to be the source of debate ever since.
 
The question then becomes one of principal versus pleasure - how much does a measured approach actually signify a preference for social outcomes that preserve hierarchies in which one's own position is more secure?  The rights of the traditionally marginalized, by definition on the oppressed rung of hierarchy, must be sacrificed to gradualism.

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