It’s a Small World, But I Wouldn’t Want To Have To Rebuild Chesterton’s Fence Around It

Well, we chewed over and mangled Bastiat’s perfectly sensible parable the other day: That which is seen, and that which is not seen. We bent it and twisted into a poorly reasoned blog post to fit our warped worldview. That was the original purpose of the internet. You know, before all those girls showed up and turned it into a giant shoe store. Of course the internet could be Exhibit A if you’re arguing for obvious benefits and beaucoup hidden harms. But the point, that you have to take potential secondary effects into account when deciding on a course of action, has a nifty corollary, if you’re interested. Why only misread Bastiat when we can bollix up G.K. Chesterton‘s ideas, too?

Gilbert didn’t have a busted window. He had a fence someone wanted to demolish. Chesterton’s Fence is a somewhat more subtle, but perhaps more universal gloss on things unseen. Like a lot of his writing, it’s a lively, but formidable paean to respect for tradition.

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Chesterton’s “more modern type of reformer” is everywhere nowadays, desolating the landscape. Sometimes it’s as trivial as banning straws, other times the malignancy grows into banning farming. They’re one-note pianos, banging out their monotone destructive fugues. They’re not interested in that which is unseen, and they generally don’t have the intellectual horsepower to operate something as complicated as Chesterton’s fence latch.

I like using ideas like Silly Putty, and G.K.’s fence is no exception. The other, other day, we talked about movies a little bit. There was an hint of get off my lawn in it, but only a hint. I asked the rhetorical question, Why Does Hollywood Hate the American Revolution?  I touched on the same topic again here:

I like to listen to old pieces of music, and to video like this one, and try to put myself in the time and place it was presented. Adapt the mindset of the time to better understand how you’d react to it. Good movies are able to do that, but good movies are a very rare thing. Most movies just have modern people wielding modern mindsets tossed catch-as-catch-can into hoop dresses and drawing rooms.

Stick with me here. I think I can build Chesterton’s Fence around this whole mess.

The reason why the modern type of reformer pulls all sorts of things down without a second thought is their utter inability to put themselves in someone else’s place. They’re totally solipsistic. The past is another country, as they say, and they never go there. Tradition is simply a bad word, and that’s that. It exists only to be destroyed. It’s the reason why so much entertainment falls flat lately. They just can’t enter into the mindset of anybody from a decade ago, never mind two centuries. The people who made history are just dead white guys, and they don’t deserve to be judged on their merits in the context of their times. Or even understood, never mind judged. Hannibal shouldn’t have ridden on those elephants. That’s cruel. Why didn’t he just drive an electric car over the Alps like a normal person?

So Bastiat asks you to consider the unseen consequences of a course of action. Chesterton reminds you to understand the reason for the way things are before you start tearing things apart.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not enjoying the results of the more modern type of reformer burning Bastiat at the stake daily, using Chesterton’s demolished fence boards for fuel.