I was going to make a longer post about how conservative ideology is defined by being resistant to change, and how that is irrational because the only constant in life is change, but decided not to elaborate.
There are many fears besides the fear of death. The fear you live in is the fear of being wrong.
Actually I'm quite confused as to what the essence of 'conservatism' actually is. For starters, what you 'conserve' depends on what you currently have or have recently lost. In China the 'conservatives' seem to be the die-hard Maoists, wanting to return to the 'good old days' pre-market-reforms. That US conservatives are so pro-capitalism is also odd, in that capitalism changed everything (many European conservatives are quite skeptical about capitalism).
I also don't get why they don't tend to demand the restoration of the successors of George III. Or why they are so uninterested in environmentalism, given that it's all about conserving things. Instead US conservatives seem to favour uncontrolled change when it comes to things like climate. I suppose because what they want to 'conserve' is that process of uncontrolled change itself - which seems a mite paradoxical.
Philosphically-minded conservative thinkers in Europe do at least seem to make some effort to be consistent...but maybe that's easier to do in a context where things haven't changed so drastically as they have in North America? I don't really see what there is to 'conserve' over there, apart from that natural environment that conservatives seem for the most part to be happy to see drastically changed if not wrecked.
(I don't like that amygdala claim, because I don't like attempts to reduce social and political arguments to some supposed biological factor...I'd need a lot of convincing, plus they'd have to show which way the causation runs)