8 ms·

Chesterton's Fence: > In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will proba

Chesterton's Fence: > 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.

carsongross 11y ago
OT: I love the crypt-conservative community here on HN.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
danr4 11y ago
Thanks for this.
HCIdivision17 11y ago
This philosophy is one of the cornerstones of my engineering practice. IFF you can describe why something is there - without using shortcuts/crutches like 'their dumb' - then we may be able to consider changing it. Otherwise, it's dangerous and risky to fool with it. Too many times did I see something absurd and paint myself into a corner trying to 'fix' it, when there really was a bizarre edge case that this covered. (And in plants, you usually only find these edge cases after enormously expensive production loss events!) And it's a fantastic principle in general, since it's like the technical equivalent of the Principle of Charity. ( http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html )
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  While that's entirely true, it's also true that any code covering an obscure corner case ought to document that corner case and why the code is needed. And similarly, any policy or law should be completely clear about what problem it wants to solve. That would make it far easier to maintain.
  - run4yourlives2 11y ago
    This is kind of irrelevant though. Sure it should be documented, and sure the fence should have a nice notice of purpose posted right at the gate for everyone to see, but life doesn't work like that.
    - Bartweiss 11y ago
      I'm not sure I'd go as far as irrelevant - rather, I would say that documentation is what you do to keep other people from needing the principle of charity. They're two directions on solving the same problem. As a maintainer you should assume good intentions, but as a creator you should work to clarify your intent.
      - run4yourlives2 11y ago
        Agreed, but irrelevant to this particular conversation, which is about how to handle a "fence" in the road where there is no obvious reason evident.
  - Bartweiss 11y ago
    Documentation is essentially the proactive version of the idea for which the principle of charity is the reactive version. Assume that those who came before you had good reasons for their actions, and assume that those after you will be unable to identify any motivation you don't state explicitly. I'd be curious to see a strong legislative version of this - enshrining the spirit of the law in the text, and giving courts explicit rights to strike down laws which no longer fulfill their original intent. Done well, it's the sort of change which could have worked wonders on our legal system's constant failure to adapt to technological change. The Aereo suit, for instance, shouldn't have happened under any kind of intent-based legal system.
ctdonath 11y ago
"I don't understand it" is an admission of ignorance, not wise authority justifying condemnation. Few seem to understand this. If you can't concoct a strong* argument favoring the opposing view, you don't understand the issue well enough. *Edit: as suggested, it's "strong" argument, not necessarily "convincing". If you can make a convincing argument for the other side but not for your own, perhaps you need reconsider your stance.
- mwfunk 11y ago
  This is the most concise expression I've heard of something I've felt was a fundamental truth for a long time, thank you!
- lotharbot 11y ago
  slight caveat: I think you can understand an issue very well and be able to concoct a strong argument in favor of the opposing view, which is nonetheless not very convincing. (Sometimes you may also be able to concoct a strong but unconvincing argument in favor of your own view. Some issues are like that -- the best arguments on both sides still aren't really convincing.)
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  > admission of ignorance And although "ignorance" has a negative connotation, I argue it's a neutral thing unless otherwise modified, ie. as opposed to "willful ignorance". The healthcare field uses the gentler term "knowledge deficit" regarding patients; I've taken to using that term in engineering contexts as well.
- tomjen3 11y ago
  I can't make a strong argument for the Earth being flat, does that mean I don't understand the question well enough? I can't come up with a single coherent good argument against gay marriage, does that mean I don't understand the question? I think your rule is very useful as a guide line, but please don't make it a rule. There really are policies and ideas that are one sided.
  - 11y ago
legulere 11y ago
Understanding is also important when instead of getting rid of something/not copying some tactic you want to copy it. I once was in some cheap cinema where instead of the heavy red curtains they had some structures they painted red on the wall. My guess is that you have the curtains on the wall for a better sound quality, the sound in this cinema was really bad because of reverberation. The only problem is that it's sometimes not possible anymore to find out why something is the way it is.
mechadock 11y ago
There's a very similar notion in negotiation; that you should understand why your opponent is willing to grant a specific position before you accept it.
mfringel 11y ago
The primary issue with Chesterton's long-revered fence is that puts the entire burden of proof on the person who desires to take it down. What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Those who would defend the fence, absent any documentation, would ascribe the most noble uses to it, as their desire is to maintain the status quo, or at least the status pro se. They would, to use Chesterton's term, 'go gaily up to it' and defend it with their lives, saying "clearly this fence always existed, and thus should always be." Chesterton's 'modern reformer' is a strawman as bald-faced as any, and it's all too easy to use "Chesterton's Fence" as a defense of mindless conservatism.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Isn't it just a nice little parable intended to clearly transmit the idea?
  - lmm 11y ago
    Parables are the lowest form of argument. A valuable principle should be stated directly. It is absolutely worth making the caveats explicit, because there will always be people who try to enforce the exact letter of the principle.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      Implicit in my comment was that it would be strange/tiresome to present it as a solid argument. I more or less don't believe that principles are actually possible to act on in a principled manner. If everyone all at once took a deep breath and started calling the things they call principles ideals, we could probably avoid a lot of bad discussions (because implicit in that labeling is the observation that compromise sometimes happens).
- fecklessyouth 11y ago
  >What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Answering that question is the very reason for pausing to investigate its purpose. Questioning past purposes before reforming is not equivalent to "defending the fence absent any documentation." Your own characterization of this "mindless conservatism" is itself a straw-man of the behavior Chesterton's fence recommends. The alternative is an endless cycle of deconstruction that impedes any progress, as every possible step or rational for it brings a possible mask to power. The Nietzschean project, though fun, has produced nothing besides criticism, and would never succeed in taking any kind of action about said fence.
fecklessyouth 11y ago
Anyone interested in the necessity of understanding history for philosophical and moral thinking ought to read MacIntyre's Whose Justice, Which Rationality. It argues that a "history-constituted tradition" is the inevitable system in which we make intellectual progress, and analyses the major movements in philosophy as support. http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-Macintyre/dp/0268019444/ http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-Mac...
_petronius 11y ago
I ran across a slightly more polemical phrasing of this principle once, while googling for something unrelated. I've long kept it in a file on my work desktop as a sort of reminder to myself: "There are often very valid (and even necessary) reasons for why certain things are done in certain ways; these reasons often become clear to us only after we have more deeply investigated into the full details of how things work, whereas our first, less than fully informed reaction may be to regard them as silly, or to attribute them to the wrong cause or agent, or to entirely misunderstand them." (John H Meyers)
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  This statement worries me. It's equivalent to small-c conservatism and sounds suspiciously like "You don't know enough to have an opinion" - which is perfectly fine when it's reality-based, but can also be an easy excuse for enforcing groupthink when it's not. There's also the implication that alternatives have already been tried. But what if they haven't? How are you supposed to tell? Clearly you can't, unless the alternatives have been documented historically. If there's no documentation you're firmly in the land of convention, tradition, and opinion - not effectiveness. I'd prefer a model that assumes running a start-up is like running an experiment on a market. You probe the market with a complete package of technology, marketing, networking, and funding. Then you assess the results. And then - the hard part - you try to work out which parts of the package aren't working, and design a new experiment. You absolute should examine competing models for validity, and you absolutely shouldn't assume they're wrong because you're just that awesome. But assuming they're a better market fit without reality-testing and evidence makes as little sense as assuming they're bad at what they're doing. If that were true, there would be no room to innovate at all.
  - _petronius 11y ago
    I didn't think about it that way -- valid criticism, and one that is strongly apparent when presented without context. In context (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.mac.apps/uWq5nUOa-1c/m1jE8315SSAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.mac.apps/uWq5nUOa-1...) it was more about someone coming to a big software system and going "ooh, this decision is stupid" without having done that reality-testing themselves. So I interpret it more as a "don't make snap judgements, analyse the situation carefully" than anything else.
ombudsperson 11y ago
Might depend a lot upon who erected the fence in the first place: is it a fence in your mind, after your considered opinion has decided the path it wants to take? By all means, tear the fence down in your mind first, you might get an inkling as to why the fence exists in the first place. Of course, if the law or institution emanates from the people who think others' thoughts, you may be able to figure out whether you need the fence there or not faster
wfo 11y ago
I've seen this very often here when the topic of regulation comes up. Some think that any regulation of any kind is literally evil and exists for no reason other than to get in the way of "innovation". They demand to repeal them (or just ignore them, breaking the law) without understanding what they are for, just because they don't fit a particular business model.
Confusion 11y ago
Problem: sometimes (often?) the reasons for the fence are so old and so far from relevant today that a cautious reformer cannot reasonably figure out why it's there (unless he first becomes an historian). If we insist he first understands the original reason, the result is that the fence remains, at much cost. If you've ever worked on legacy software, you know what I mean.

carsongross 11y ago

OT: I love the crypt-conservative community here on HN.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

danr4 11y ago

Thanks for this.

HCIdivision17 11y ago

This philosophy is one of the cornerstones of my engineering practice. IFF you can describe why something is there - without using shortcuts/crutches like 'their dumb' - then we may be able to consider changing it. Otherwise, it's dangerous and risky to fool with it. Too many times did I see something absurd and paint myself into a corner trying to 'fix' it, when there really was a bizarre edge case that this covered. (And in plants, you usually only find these edge cases after enormously expensive production loss events!) And it's a fantastic principle in general, since it's like the technical equivalent of the Principle of Charity. ( http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html )

JoshTriplett 11y ago
While that's entirely true, it's also true that any code covering an obscure corner case ought to document that corner case and why the code is needed. And similarly, any policy or law should be completely clear about what problem it wants to solve. That would make it far easier to maintain.
- run4yourlives2 11y ago
  This is kind of irrelevant though. Sure it should be documented, and sure the fence should have a nice notice of purpose posted right at the gate for everyone to see, but life doesn't work like that.
  - Bartweiss 11y ago
    I'm not sure I'd go as far as irrelevant - rather, I would say that documentation is what you do to keep other people from needing the principle of charity. They're two directions on solving the same problem. As a maintainer you should assume good intentions, but as a creator you should work to clarify your intent.
    - run4yourlives2 11y ago
      Agreed, but irrelevant to this particular conversation, which is about how to handle a "fence" in the road where there is no obvious reason evident.
- Bartweiss 11y ago
  Documentation is essentially the proactive version of the idea for which the principle of charity is the reactive version. Assume that those who came before you had good reasons for their actions, and assume that those after you will be unable to identify any motivation you don't state explicitly. I'd be curious to see a strong legislative version of this - enshrining the spirit of the law in the text, and giving courts explicit rights to strike down laws which no longer fulfill their original intent. Done well, it's the sort of change which could have worked wonders on our legal system's constant failure to adapt to technological change. The Aereo suit, for instance, shouldn't have happened under any kind of intent-based legal system.

ctdonath 11y ago

"I don't understand it" is an admission of ignorance, not wise authority justifying condemnation. Few seem to understand this. If you can't concoct a strong* argument favoring the opposing view, you don't understand the issue well enough. *Edit: as suggested, it's "strong" argument, not necessarily "convincing". If you can make a convincing argument for the other side but not for your own, perhaps you need reconsider your stance.

mwfunk 11y ago
This is the most concise expression I've heard of something I've felt was a fundamental truth for a long time, thank you!
lotharbot 11y ago
slight caveat: I think you can understand an issue very well and be able to concoct a strong argument in favor of the opposing view, which is nonetheless not very convincing. (Sometimes you may also be able to concoct a strong but unconvincing argument in favor of your own view. Some issues are like that -- the best arguments on both sides still aren't really convincing.)
Domenic_S 11y ago
> admission of ignorance And although "ignorance" has a negative connotation, I argue it's a neutral thing unless otherwise modified, ie. as opposed to "willful ignorance". The healthcare field uses the gentler term "knowledge deficit" regarding patients; I've taken to using that term in engineering contexts as well.
tomjen3 11y ago
I can't make a strong argument for the Earth being flat, does that mean I don't understand the question well enough? I can't come up with a single coherent good argument against gay marriage, does that mean I don't understand the question? I think your rule is very useful as a guide line, but please don't make it a rule. There really are policies and ideas that are one sided.
- 11y ago

legulere 11y ago

Understanding is also important when instead of getting rid of something/not copying some tactic you want to copy it. I once was in some cheap cinema where instead of the heavy red curtains they had some structures they painted red on the wall. My guess is that you have the curtains on the wall for a better sound quality, the sound in this cinema was really bad because of reverberation. The only problem is that it's sometimes not possible anymore to find out why something is the way it is.

mechadock 11y ago

There's a very similar notion in negotiation; that you should understand why your opponent is willing to grant a specific position before you accept it.

mfringel 11y ago

The primary issue with Chesterton's long-revered fence is that puts the entire burden of proof on the person who desires to take it down. What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Those who would defend the fence, absent any documentation, would ascribe the most noble uses to it, as their desire is to maintain the status quo, or at least the status pro se. They would, to use Chesterton's term, 'go gaily up to it' and defend it with their lives, saying "clearly this fence always existed, and thus should always be." Chesterton's 'modern reformer' is a strawman as bald-faced as any, and it's all too easy to use "Chesterton's Fence" as a defense of mindless conservatism.

maxerickson 11y ago
Isn't it just a nice little parable intended to clearly transmit the idea?
- lmm 11y ago
  Parables are the lowest form of argument. A valuable principle should be stated directly. It is absolutely worth making the caveats explicit, because there will always be people who try to enforce the exact letter of the principle.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Implicit in my comment was that it would be strange/tiresome to present it as a solid argument. I more or less don't believe that principles are actually possible to act on in a principled manner. If everyone all at once took a deep breath and started calling the things they call principles ideals, we could probably avoid a lot of bad discussions (because implicit in that labeling is the observation that compromise sometimes happens).
fecklessyouth 11y ago
>What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Answering that question is the very reason for pausing to investigate its purpose. Questioning past purposes before reforming is not equivalent to "defending the fence absent any documentation." Your own characterization of this "mindless conservatism" is itself a straw-man of the behavior Chesterton's fence recommends. The alternative is an endless cycle of deconstruction that impedes any progress, as every possible step or rational for it brings a possible mask to power. The Nietzschean project, though fun, has produced nothing besides criticism, and would never succeed in taking any kind of action about said fence.

fecklessyouth 11y ago

Anyone interested in the necessity of understanding history for philosophical and moral thinking ought to read MacIntyre's Whose Justice, Which Rationality. It argues that a "history-constituted tradition" is the inevitable system in which we make intellectual progress, and analyses the major movements in philosophy as support. http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-Macintyre/dp/0268019444/ http://www.amazon.com/Whose-Justice-Rationality-Alasdair-Mac...

_petronius 11y ago

I ran across a slightly more polemical phrasing of this principle once, while googling for something unrelated. I've long kept it in a file on my work desktop as a sort of reminder to myself: "There are often very valid (and even necessary) reasons for why certain things are done in certain ways; these reasons often become clear to us only after we have more deeply investigated into the full details of how things work, whereas our first, less than fully informed reaction may be to regard them as silly, or to attribute them to the wrong cause or agent, or to entirely misunderstand them." (John H Meyers)

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
This statement worries me. It's equivalent to small-c conservatism and sounds suspiciously like "You don't know enough to have an opinion" - which is perfectly fine when it's reality-based, but can also be an easy excuse for enforcing groupthink when it's not. There's also the implication that alternatives have already been tried. But what if they haven't? How are you supposed to tell? Clearly you can't, unless the alternatives have been documented historically. If there's no documentation you're firmly in the land of convention, tradition, and opinion - not effectiveness. I'd prefer a model that assumes running a start-up is like running an experiment on a market. You probe the market with a complete package of technology, marketing, networking, and funding. Then you assess the results. And then - the hard part - you try to work out which parts of the package aren't working, and design a new experiment. You absolute should examine competing models for validity, and you absolutely shouldn't assume they're wrong because you're just that awesome. But assuming they're a better market fit without reality-testing and evidence makes as little sense as assuming they're bad at what they're doing. If that were true, there would be no room to innovate at all.
- _petronius 11y ago
  I didn't think about it that way -- valid criticism, and one that is strongly apparent when presented without context. In context (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.mac.apps/uWq5nUOa-1c/m1jE8315SSAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.mac.apps/uWq5nUOa-1...) it was more about someone coming to a big software system and going "ooh, this decision is stupid" without having done that reality-testing themselves. So I interpret it more as a "don't make snap judgements, analyse the situation carefully" than anything else.

ombudsperson 11y ago

Might depend a lot upon who erected the fence in the first place: is it a fence in your mind, after your considered opinion has decided the path it wants to take? By all means, tear the fence down in your mind first, you might get an inkling as to why the fence exists in the first place. Of course, if the law or institution emanates from the people who think others' thoughts, you may be able to figure out whether you need the fence there or not faster

wfo 11y ago

I've seen this very often here when the topic of regulation comes up. Some think that any regulation of any kind is literally evil and exists for no reason other than to get in the way of "innovation". They demand to repeal them (or just ignore them, breaking the law) without understanding what they are for, just because they don't fit a particular business model.

Confusion 11y ago

Problem: sometimes (often?) the reasons for the fence are so old and so far from relevant today that a cautious reformer cannot reasonably figure out why it's there (unless he first becomes an historian). If we insist he first understands the original reason, the result is that the fence remains, at much cost. If you've ever worked on legacy software, you know what I mean.