It’s not really about that, sometimes conservatives also agree that a change is needed but they disagree on how to get there.

They see the current state as something that was built up naturally over a long period of time and everything has its place for a reason. Sometimes those reasons are not apparent immediately and making a sudden change will bite us in the long run in an unexpected way, maybe 100 years down the road.

They might agree that the status quo is bad but they think change should come gradually in small steps, allowing things to settle down a bit, and reflect on the consequences before moving forward. They might say that at least we understand the situation and the rules of what we have now, we shouldn’t stray too far ahead into the unknown.

For example, imagine that you live in a country under foreign rule. Should you start a war of independence and risk getting crushed or should you try to force concessions gradually over time and risk not getting anywhere? This is roughly the debate that took place in my home country in the 1800s.

While it’s true that the extremes are that conservatives want time to stay still while progressives want to burn the world down and reform everything in a single day, but most of the time people are somewhere in between, or even change their positions depending on the issue.