I’m sure you’ve all heard the story. A man is doing a project in the woods when he comes across an old fence. It’s in his way. Should he tear it down or not?
Chesterton said (as I understand the story) this question divides liberals and conservatives. The conservative says, “don’t tear down the fence until you know why it’s there,” while the liberal says, “this fence was built by dead white males, get rid of it.”
I don’t agree with that characterization. (Or caricature.) I think understanding why the fence is there before you tear it down is something that both conservatives and liberals can agree to. It’s just common sense. Only a reckless ass would tear down a fence without knowing why it was there.
But I do believe the story exposes a difference in temperament.
The conservative is going to feel nervous about tearing down the fence. The fence represents the wisdom of the past. Even if he thinks he knows the reasons for the fence, he’ll have a nagging suspicion that he might not know all the reasons for the fence.
The liberal sees the fence as hemming him in. It restricts him. It embodies somebody else telling him what to do. It’s a restraint he wants to cast off so he can feel free to pursue his own life.
Both of them acknowledge the basic wisdom of understanding why the fence is there before tearing it down. But they have very different intuitions and feelings about tearing down the fence.
A fence, as far as I know, has certain purposes under normal circumstances. Two that come to mind immediately is: 1) to mark a division between the properties of two different owners, 2) to keep your livestock from running away. There may be some that I am not thinking of at the moment, but it would be reasonable to assume that it is there for normal purposes. If those purposes do not suit the new owner (as he owns the property on both sides of the fence and does not have livestock) and he finds no aesthetic value in the fence, it seems rational for him to tear it down. If a “conservative” is afraid that removing it might trigger an explosive device or something like that, let him go ahead and make spend the time and money to assure himself that it is not a Crazy Fence. But time is money (and money itself is money) and thus it is justifiable to assume that people do things for conventional reasons.
I don’t think that’s quite how it goes. Here’s the original:
” 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.”
The point is the liberal sees a fence and if he doesn’t effortlessly intuit the reason for it, and can imagine things would be better without it, is ready to remove it to achieve the improvement. The liberal starts with the assumption that the fewer fences around the better life will be, and also that all information necessary is available in the present and does not require any inquiry into the past. The conservative insists on knowing why the fence was put there in the first place, because there might be a good reason that still obtains, that the liberal has not considered, and discovering whether that is the case, requires taking the past seriously.
Whether or not that’s an accurate characterization, others may judge.
It is worse than I thought. Your reformer does not typically say, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” Rather, she says something more along the lines of: “This is a tool of oppression; let us clear it away.” The more radical the reformer, the more elaborate the narrative of oppression will be.
It is becoming increasingly common among a certain type of reformer to assume that all fences whose purposes are not immediately understood are by definition tools of oppression, and then to concoct a just-so story about why that is the case. The opposite also happens — some traditionalists are fond of their just-so stories for preserving the status quo.