Brexit & Chesterton
Like many, I’ve been struck by Brexit’s ugliness. Both sides stained UK politics. Both pulled grubby levers — scaremongering and torturing statistics — in the name of winning. Leave’s 350-million message was bull, Remain’s claim of economic end-times not much better. Plausibly, both sides have moved us towards a post-factual politics.
This is not a good move I think. The added spin and lies, marking post-factual politics, would likely be regrettable.
One reason for this is that such politics threatens a valuable principle — Chesterton’s fence.
The core idea behind Chesterton’s fence is simple enough: it’s that you should reform an institution, if at all, only after grasping why it exists. If you want to level a fence, first figure out why it stands, basically. Most fences exist for a reason. So you should discover this reason, before wielding your axe. History strains with examples where harm was done through failing to heed Chesterton’s words.
Here you might object: “but not all fences are good!” True. Some are rotten. Some redundant. Institutions don’t always embody wisdom of the ages. In fact, sometimes they embody just prejudice of the ages. Policies can be hangovers of dead or vile beliefs. And here the axe should likely drop — but still, not before thinking. Chesterton’s idea isn’t to never reform; it’s to reform only after considering the facts.
Which is why Brexit concerns me.
It seems people voted without facts needed for rational judgement. Google — tellingly — shows a post hoc spike in searches on EU basics. As a nation, we appear to have chopped a big fence not on the basis of reason but largely error and affect.
Of course, in a sense this doesn’t surprise: voter knowledge of politics is generally poor. People have lives! What does surprise, however, is that Brexit shows much of the liberal elite is fine stoking this ignorance. Increasingly, they seem indifferent to good decision-making. Instead, they look to be merchants of ignorance: they seek a post-factual politics.
If they get their wish, my guess is that many more fences will be smashed, mindlessly, as Chesterton’s principle becomes harder to respect. Perhaps good will flow from this. But equally, perhaps it won’t.
In any case, those elites should be careful what they wish for. Because bulls have horns. And history tells us they’re sharp.
