You’ve probably both heard and invented it; it’s one horn of what we might call the Progressive’s Trilemma: “If traditional structures are not optimal, they must be either a) insufficiently optimized, b) optimized for the wrong values, or c) optimized for the wrong conditions”. I doubt you’ll find many progressives who don’t believe some measure of each of these depending on the issue.
(EDIT: You could call it the Chesterton’s Fence trilemma: If the fence shouldn’t be there, then either it was put there by an idiot, it was put there by a bandit, or it was put there when the road ahead was flooded. Or something.)
a) is my point above and b) is related to OP’s Normative Assumption #1.
c) is a bit related to OP’s Descriptive Assumption #3, but might warrant its own statement:
There has been so much rapid change recently that something working in the premodern past is scant evidence that it will work today (prod) vs. the lessons of the past mostly hold true today (NR).
This one is fun because it lets you say ” was indeed wise to counsel thus, but is a fool to apply that advice today”. Perhaps ironically, this has a cultural-relativist-ish appeal to progressives.
(But having a motivation doesn’t make it a bad argument)
The sage does not [necessarily] seek to follow the ways of the ancients, nor does he establish any fixed standards for all times. He examines things in his age and prepares to deal with them.
A farmer from Sung was cultivating his field and came across a stump. One day, he noticed a rabbit running on the field that accidentally ran into the stump, causing it to break its neck and die. After seeing that, the farmer just put away his tools and observed the stump, expecting that he would get another rabbit through the same method. But he got no more rabbits that way, and was soon regarded with ridicule by the people of Sung.
People who expect to effectively govern people in modern times through the methods of ancient kings are acting like those people who are observing stumps.
Progs are somewhat biased in neglecting the combined possibilities that
1 the fence was placed there for a reason
2 it was well optimized for the reason
3 the reason is still valid
4 it is still well optimized
....but the NRs are much more biased, because they are assuming that all of 1..4 are correct. The odds are strongly in favour of the prog assumption that one went wrong.
You’ve probably both heard and invented it; it’s one horn of what we might call the Progressive’s Trilemma: “If traditional structures are not optimal, they must be either a) insufficiently optimized, b) optimized for the wrong values, or c) optimized for the wrong conditions”. I doubt you’ll find many progressives who don’t believe some measure of each of these depending on the issue.
(EDIT: You could call it the Chesterton’s Fence trilemma: If the fence shouldn’t be there, then either it was put there by an idiot, it was put there by a bandit, or it was put there when the road ahead was flooded. Or something.)
a) is my point above and b) is related to OP’s Normative Assumption #1. c) is a bit related to OP’s Descriptive Assumption #3, but might warrant its own statement: There has been so much rapid change recently that something working in the premodern past is scant evidence that it will work today (prod) vs. the lessons of the past mostly hold true today (NR).
This one is fun because it lets you say ” was indeed wise to counsel thus, but is a fool to apply that advice today”. Perhaps ironically, this has a cultural-relativist-ish appeal to progressives.
(But having a motivation doesn’t make it a bad argument)
cf. Han Feizi’s attack on the Confucians
Progs are somewhat biased in neglecting the combined possibilities that
1 the fence was placed there for a reason
2 it was well optimized for the reason
3 the reason is still valid
4 it is still well optimized
....but the NRs are much more biased, because they are assuming that all of 1..4 are correct. The odds are strongly in favour of the prog assumption that one went wrong.