This is perfect. I’ve never heard of Chesterton’s Fence, but I sure have stories that match the phenomenon. Unfortunately, some of them were from my own decisions early on as a superintendent.
Chesterson’s fence reminds me of an idea that stuck in my mind from an old talk by the school headmaster. He told of a calf with a lame leg walking through a pasture crooked, which turned into a path, a road, a city street, right up to a modern time when someone got the idea to straighten it. The lesson was that tradition was often based on foolishness. As a young person I lapped that up.
After a longer life, I see the idea of Chesterson’s fence as being more reasonable, and perhaps more dangerous. My father opposed the 1964 Civil Right Act for reasons that were ultimately a logical Chesterson’s Fence defense of tradition. But in my own field, as a high school teacher, I experienced the positive aspects of stability, and then the horrible effects of all the destabilization that were the years since Nation at Risk (aka Nation lied to).
I have come to the point of being a true conservative. A true conservative believes in slow and deliberate change so that violent paroxysmal change is soaked up by bandaging wounds to society. Ironically, education reformers seem to exist among the political leaders who claim the title of conservative even as they promote dynamited education reformers. Just blow it all up. They are not conservatives. They are just shysters. They want to run their snouts into the lucrative pool of money hat they see in public education. Since we live in an environment of political corruption, they have thus far been successful.
This is perfect. I’ve never heard of Chesterton’s Fence, but I sure have stories that match the phenomenon. Unfortunately, some of them were from my own decisions early on as a superintendent.
Chesterson’s fence reminds me of an idea that stuck in my mind from an old talk by the school headmaster. He told of a calf with a lame leg walking through a pasture crooked, which turned into a path, a road, a city street, right up to a modern time when someone got the idea to straighten it. The lesson was that tradition was often based on foolishness. As a young person I lapped that up.
After a longer life, I see the idea of Chesterson’s fence as being more reasonable, and perhaps more dangerous. My father opposed the 1964 Civil Right Act for reasons that were ultimately a logical Chesterson’s Fence defense of tradition. But in my own field, as a high school teacher, I experienced the positive aspects of stability, and then the horrible effects of all the destabilization that were the years since Nation at Risk (aka Nation lied to).
I have come to the point of being a true conservative. A true conservative believes in slow and deliberate change so that violent paroxysmal change is soaked up by bandaging wounds to society. Ironically, education reformers seem to exist among the political leaders who claim the title of conservative even as they promote dynamited education reformers. Just blow it all up. They are not conservatives. They are just shysters. They want to run their snouts into the lucrative pool of money hat they see in public education. Since we live in an environment of political corruption, they have thus far been successful.
Spot on.