Well, yes, but if we actually cared about the etymology of the labels we use for our primitive monkey cliques, we’d say:
Conservatives are unwilling to stop using methods that work, even if some other method might work much better. Knowledge of traditional systems, and conservation of resources (especially non-renewable resources) is their hallmark.
Liberals are always willing to try new ideas to solve old problems, even if some people are already being well served by old solutions. Innovation and free thought, and a certain disrespect for (and ignorance of) tradition, is their hallmark.
Note how these two are not diametrically opposed, and thus could conceivably form a working consensus far more functional than either one alone. But obviously, we can’t have that - modern politics is merely a systematic organization of hatreds (quoting Bronowski, I think, or maybe Maslow) to keep the plebs at each other’s throats, and the characteristics and positions of the labeled groups shift daily to serve the needs of the powerful.
Edit: Whoops! “Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds, and Massachusetts politics had been as harsh as the climate.” – Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
