Before you tear down the fence, ask why it's there

A rule for anyone who wants to change things.

Imagine you are walking down a road and you come across a fence.

It runs across the path for no reason you can see. It is inconvenient. It seems pointless.

The obvious move is to tear it down. Who needs a fence in the middle of nowhere?

A writer named G.K. Chesterton had a warning about exactly this.

Do not remove the fence, he said, until you know why it was put there.

His point was simple. Someone built that fence. They had a reason. The fact that you cannot see the reason does not mean there is not one. It means you have not found it yet.

Go and find out, Chesterton said. Then, if the reason turns out to be gone or foolish, take the fence down. But not before.

This is a strange thing to read in a publication about thinking for yourself. Are we not supposed to question the old rules?

Yes. But questioning is not the same as bulldozing.

There is a lazy kind of rebellion that treats everything old as obviously dumb. If I do not understand it, it must be pointless. That is not independent thinking. It is just a different kind of laziness, wearing a leather jacket.

Real independent thinking is harder. It means understanding why something exists before you decide it should not.

The traditions, the rules, the habits you find baffling, most of them were answers to a problem.

Sometimes the problem is long gone, and the answer can go too. Tear the fence down with a clear conscience.

And sometimes the problem is still there, quietly being solved by the very fence you were about to remove.

Question everything. Just do the homework first.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.

A paraphrase of G.K. Chesterton, 1929.