This basically boils down to the root of the impulse to remove a chesterton’s fence, doesn’t it?
Those who believe that these impulses come from genuinely good sources (eg. learned university professors) like to take down those fences. Those who believe that these impulses come from bad sources (eg. status jockeying, holiness signalling) would like to keep them.
The reactionary impulse comes from the basic idea that the practice of repeatedly taking down chesterton’s fences will inevitably auto-cannibalise and the system or the meta-system being used to defend all these previous demolitions will also fall prey to one such wave. The humans left after that catastrophe will be little better than animals, in some cases maybe even worse, lacking the ability and skills to survive.
This basically boils down to the root of the impulse to remove a chesterton’s fence, doesn’t it?
Not really. A lot of fences seem to have been taken down for bad or at least objectionable reasons, and to have turned out either fine or not to bad.
I’d point to a different distinction—effective fences tend to have more defenders than bad ones (on average). So by taking down a fence that’s easy to take down, you’re more likely to improve the situation. And what fences get taken down the most often? The easy ones.
So my “argument” can say that it’s ok to take down a fence, but that this might not apply to major/important ones that have remained untouched to date.
This basically boils down to the root of the impulse to remove a chesterton’s fence, doesn’t it?
Those who believe that these impulses come from genuinely good sources (eg. learned university professors) like to take down those fences. Those who believe that these impulses come from bad sources (eg. status jockeying, holiness signalling) would like to keep them.
The reactionary impulse comes from the basic idea that the practice of repeatedly taking down chesterton’s fences will inevitably auto-cannibalise and the system or the meta-system being used to defend all these previous demolitions will also fall prey to one such wave. The humans left after that catastrophe will be little better than animals, in some cases maybe even worse, lacking the ability and skills to survive.
Not really. A lot of fences seem to have been taken down for bad or at least objectionable reasons, and to have turned out either fine or not to bad.
I’d point to a different distinction—effective fences tend to have more defenders than bad ones (on average). So by taking down a fence that’s easy to take down, you’re more likely to improve the situation. And what fences get taken down the most often? The easy ones.
So my “argument” can say that it’s ok to take down a fence, but that this might not apply to major/important ones that have remained untouched to date.