Status quo and conservatism (uni work)

‘Status quo’ is a Latin phrase which when translated means the existing state of affairs (https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/status-quo/). In a political landscape it often translates in the same sense, with the phrase representing the current policies or attitudes taken by decision makers. As progressive parties and movements, such as those of the left-wing, are often characterised as standing against the status quo, it is common to conflate opposition to these parties or movements, often the ring-wing, as upholding the status quo. However this is misleading and may undermine what conservatives stand for. Due to a ‘status quo bias’ (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457289.2019.1698048#d1e220) individuals “tend to prefer the option that represents the state of the world over a possible alternative, even when they would personally benefit from changing the state of the world (Jost, Banaji, and Nosek, 2004)”. (https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3792282.pdf and https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17457289.2019.1698048#d1e220)
This bias, as shown by the research demonstrated in Jost, Banaji and Nosek’s paper, suggests that the status quo is regarded as “common sense”, aligning with F J C Hearnshaw’s theorised 12 values of conservatism (https://archive.org/details/conservatisminen0000hear/mode/2up) which states common sense as a key principle of conservative ideology. The order and stability, which the status quo is perceived to hold, aligns with conservative values, further suggesting that conservatism is the upholding of the status quo. However, if conservatism is the ideology which solely supports the upholding of the status quo, this theory is a relativist one. As the political landscape shifts through time and space, the conservative ideology ends up believing in everything and nothing as it transforms to uphold the status quo. This leads one to believe that any and all passion for change discredits one from being a conservative.