Chesterton Fences are for The Other Guy.

“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” – GK Chesterton.

Chestertons Fence is a bad argument..even in the opinion of those who occasionally use it. You can tell, because no one uses it when there is any better argument available. After all it doesn’t give a reason why some X was wrong or right;. Instead, it just suggests that there was a reason and a function and purpose for it at some point in time… because no one ever does anything without good reason, right?…and that the function persists…because, circumstances never change, right?

It is very hard to imagine someone conceding to a Chestertons’s Fence that affects them, personally.
“Stop doing that”. “Why?” “For a reason which has long been forgotten”

I encountered the Chesterton Fence, although not under that name, in an article by Melanie Phillips. Her topic was homosexuality. After noting that some of her best friends…yes, really…argued that homosexuality must be bad, because that is the teaching of the ancients. In true CF fashion, nothing specifically wrong about it is mentioned. Would she stop doing something, or change her lifestyle, if someone told her “X is wrong. I can’t say how, but it’s that’s what the traditional teachings hold”, Actually, that is not idle speculation. I don’t usually go in for ad hominem , but this one is relevant. Phillips is a childless career woman. According to some traditional teachings, that’s a no-no. She’s on the wrong side of a fence a few inches from the one that she’s on the right side of.

It perhaps isn’t impossible to be a consistent, non hypocritical user of Chestertons Fence…but you would need be a very serious and consistent reactionary…well to the right of Ms Phillips.

“Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.” – Ambrose Bierce, the Devils Dictionary.

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Conservativism as an Rational Strategy in the Face of Cognitive Limitation.

Distrust of change. If you are in a tolerable situation, and your cognitive resources are limited, it makes sense to oppose most changes, since some of them will make you worse off, and you won’t be able to tell which ones.

Insularity. Similarly, people who are similarity you will be easier to for you to predict.

Politicians are More Consistent.

Tags

hypocrisy, politics, rationality

Instrumentlal rationality and epistemic rationality aren’t the same. Epistemic rationality seeks to maxmise knowledge, truth and consistency. Instrumental rationality seeks to maximise efficiemcy, gain and personal utility.

One area they come apart is signalling, the implicit and explicit ways we tell others what kind of person we are.  The instrumentally rational way is to signal is to maximise your utility by sending out  agreeable signals to whichever individual or group you need something from. This Vicar-of-Bray style behaviour will lead to your making highly inconsistent statements in the limit. If you want to signal sincerity, you will need to believe them too.So you will end up with inconsistent beliefs. So,IR+signalling is inconsistent with ER.

 

However, all this assumes you won’t be found out. If you are scrutinised, in different siutations, by someone who cares about consistency, the benefit of inconsistent signalling vanishes.And noone is scrutinsed more than a politician in a healthy democracy. People read reports of politicians contradicting themselves and being inconsistent, and infer that politicians are unusually hypocritical. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence The ordinary persons hypocrisy is not publicised becausd the ordinary person does not have reporters following them round.

The ordinary person typically moves in a number of fairly disjoimt circles — the workplace, family, same-sex friends and so on — signaling different loyalties to each. The existence of Chinese walls is even humorously acknowledged: “what happens in X stays in X”.

Inconsisten.cy reaches a peak when communicating with completely unconnected individuals and groups. My go-to example is a telesales operative Iwho would ring various people during the crude of a day and agree with every word they said. Her customers were of course unknown to each other and in no position to compare notes,.

Myopia Makes Politicians Seem Worse ThanThey Are.

The job of a politician is to allocate resources between many competing interests.
Since there are limited resources, most people will have you wait for their particular problem to be fixed. (Resources tend to be scant because voters don’t like paying to much tax) If a thousand people need their drains fixed, the first ten or so might get them fixed on day one, the last ten or so will have to wait for weeks or months.

People don’t like generally notice politics when things are proceeding as normal. They notice when there is a specific problem. That specific problem is the only issue to them. They have an ants eye view. If they are number 875 on the drain fixing list,that is an intolerable delay to them. But, from the eagles eye view, someone has to be numbers 875.