Conservatism might be described as a disposition rather than political ideology because at its heart it describes a desire for incremental change - regardless of the issue. Some famous writing on Conservatism would be Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, written following the French Revolution and commenting on the chaos (from the perspective of a British Member of Parliament) that was engulfing the continent during the Reign of Terror. The French Revolution, like the American Revolution decades prior, was an abrupt change in politics that had global reverberations. Unlike the American Revolution, the French Revolution spread significant violence to its neighbors in the form of the Napoleonic Wars. Both, however, had critics domestic and especially in Great Britain that the revolutionaries would be worse off than they were before.
The terms "conservative" and "liberal" have specific meanings in contexts in the United States and elsewhere. For North American popular discourse, "liberal" is the antithesis of "conservative". "Liberal" is a term used to describe left-wing political stances, which are defined by the Liberal and Democratic parties of Canada and the United States respectively. Alternatively, "conservative" is the term used to describe right-wing political stances, which are defined by the Conservative and Republican parties of Canada and the United States respectively. Neither is philosophically rigorous when it comes to parsing out the assumptions and views of the philosophy. At its heart, "liberalism" as a political philosophy is about freeing an individual from authority (the Latin term liber meaning to free). Today North American "liberals" would not, by their own description or their opponents, put themselves into that category. The Libertarian parties of North America would describe themselves as most closely adhering to "liberalism", but not all political philosophers would agree that that is accurate. On the other hand, self-described "conservatives" today see themselves as wanting to radically change the status quo of politics and culture, which is not in line with the classical use of the term "conservatism". In other words, the political philosophical use of the terms and the North American popular discourse are disjoined from one another.
In general popular discourse, however, the term "conservative" favors limited governments, incremental change, values "tradition" (although which traditions are contested), and values submission to a controlled, limited government. In contrast, the term "liberal" favors strong, central governments, revolutionary change, communitarian values and submission to a strong, central authority. Of note is that the North American political discourse is a narrow band of values and views when compared to many ideologies around the world. In general there is (for now) a commitment to democracy, civil liberties (although the definition of this is highly contested) and free and fair elections. Both the "conservatives" and the "liberals" would claim to support all three of these institutions. The same is not said for many people in history and around the world. So, calling yourself a liberal in the United States in 2022 would not necessarily mean you share many values with a liberal in Belgium in 1840, or a liberal in Russia in 2005, or a liberal in South Africa in 1995. Similarly, "conservatives" in the United States today retain a strong adherence to traditional "Revolutionary values" of the founding of the country. However, inherently that revolution was violent and sudden. It would hardly be called conservative in 1776. Indeed, the Loyalists were persecuted by the Revolutionaries in the United States during the Revolution for their desire to remain loyal Great Britain.
