While the word may serve a dual purpose, I think it has a legitimate side in denoting a state of mind that is hostile to change and gravitates strongly to security and predictability and comformity, and looks to Authority for the answers.

Where this "hostile to change" theory--where "conservative" comes from--breaks down is that some of the worst tyrannies in the past century resulted from movements that completely threw out the old ways of doing things and marched into a "new future."

To attach only "conservatism" to the phenomonon of totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and collectivism is to ignore an entire school of thought whose hallmarks have been the words "revolutionary" and "radical."

The rule of the Czars in Russia can be properly classified as "conservative" authoritarianism. Same with the rulers of old China.

The rule of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others can not, although with enough passage of time, it could of course evolve into this.

Ayn Rand had no trouble dealing with the roots of the problem with the term "collectivism," which is a root feature of all authoritarian/totalitarian societies.

My theory on religion is still kind of half-baked, but I notice that most successful Western European democracies seemed to have religions where God tended to mind his own business for the most part, and religion was something that stayed in its own compartment of people's lives. Yet, the authority figure was there to satisfy the primal need to have Someone In Charge, or, if you take it past a personal deity, some underlying order to the universe. I've noticed that many Hindu and Buddhist societies--two more religions that tend to not lean too heavily on one's life yet create a sense of order to things--also seem to be successful. Again, I've done no serious crunching on this, but it seems that "King Log" as an authority figure is just as effective in filling this need as "King Stork."

Do societies that have kings, queens, and emperors, even if they have little real power, tend to be more stable because of this heirarchical symbol?

Look at how much our own society invests in the figure of the President. Look at how people act toward our presidents. What they expect. The credit and blame that fall to them. Good Lord, we don't elect a chief executive every four years--psychologically we're electing a king.

Look at how far people have to go to convince themselves that "Someone" is running things out there. It's no coincidence that many people who are proudly atheist or pagan seem to be vulnerable to belief in some hidden human authority that's turning all the wheels behind the scenes. The need for heirarchy is so strong in humans that they would rather believe the world is controlled by evil, than to believe in the chaos of normal reality.

For most of our history, almost every human society seems to have been ruled by a strong man of one form or another. Democracies, Parliaments, and other such things are radical exceptions in the march of time. When kings were good, things were good. When they were bad, they were very bad.

Where things seem to start to work best is when the strong man is still there, but isn't so strong any more. Where he can focus the need for heirarchy, but not do so much damage. In this view, Magna Carta is even more of a significant step in Western society than it seems.

Again, this is a limited analysis, but a word of advice to the Brits: don't ditch your royalty just yet. And the pomp and circumstance around the U.S. president and other world leaders? Maybe it serves a real need.

In the religious part of this theory, this heirarchy impulse is redirected to a non-corporeal element. If the religion is a benign and passive form, this works pretty well. If the religion is an activist, "jihad/crusader" form, not so well.

In this theory, the intense conflicts between king and church through much of Western history becomes more interesting. When England traded the Pope for the Church of England, and then mostly for the local parish church, I think progress was made.

Islam is currently characterized by a belief in a strong, activist god, combined with powerful leaders that are perfectly in alignment with this religion. "King Stork" both in heaven, and on Earth. The king and church are often aligned in jihad, instead of in conflict. Herein may lie the basic problem.

This is kind of rambling, but hope it's something useful.