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Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking
Chesterton’s Fence is not an admonishment of anyone who tries to make improvements; it is a call to be aware of second-order thinking before intervening. It reminds us that we don’t always know better than those who made decisions before us, and we can’t see all the nuances to a situation until we’re intimate with it. Unless we know why someone mad
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The initial choice or decision could have been absolutely terrible, insignificant, great, whatever it doesn’t really matter. What matters is even if it was a terrible decision, it may have a significant impact if it is changed. We must consider impact or consequences before blinding changing things. Chesterton’s fence. You have to know or at least consider why the fence was there in the first place before removing it.
A core component of making great decisions is understanding the rationale behind previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse.
Second-order thinking • Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking
To understand exactly why this is the case, let’s consider Chesterton’s Fence, described by G. K. Chesterton himself as follows:
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 o... See more
Second-order thinking • Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking
Don’t remove a fence until you’ve understood why someone put it up in the first place