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Comment by BurningFrog | Hacker News Reader

Maybe, like myself, you're just aging into being a bit of a conservative.

Let's not label ourselves. Once we do it, we have this tendency to think in black and white terms. Like, I wish people didn't divorce, so kids could have stable families, does this make me a conservative? Maybe yes, or maybe no, because I don't want to FORCE people to stay married.

But once I label myself a conservative, I am stuck, and now have a new set of friends with the same label, because I am labeled myself, and they have all those radical ideas, and then I have to pretend to believe and ending up believing them too.

Of course, the same applies when you label yourself a progressive.

Eh, I don’t think not wanting gambling and amoral behavior to consume society makes me a conservative in any real sense of the word. More just common sense pragmatism, is how I’d put it.

Amoral by what standard? That’s where the conservatism comes in.

Amoral, not immoral.

The Chesterton’s Fence argument is an argument against progressive social changes, no?

No, it’s an argument against removing rules / making changes without deeply understanding why those rules exist in the first place, and what might happen when they are removed.

It’s perfectly fine to be for progressive social changes, as long as those criteria are met.

I’d call that a pragmatic approach, not a conservative one.

> I’d call that a pragmatic approach, not a conservative one.

The other meaning of "conservative", the one that's opposite "reckless".

It should in theory be possible to take a conservative approach to being progressive.

"It should in theory be possible to take a conservative approach to being progressive"

That's likely how most of the middle see themselves (if not in those words) - open to new changes but only if they're fully understood and not drastic.

No, sometimes social change is putting up a fence. And if social change is sometimes putting up fences, that would mean that not all fences are supposed to be torn down.

Chesterton’s fence has a specific definition. It’s not supposed to mean restrictions on social conduct or mores like you seem to be implying.

Social conduct is the context, not the definition. Chesterton's fence is just about not touching things you dont understand.

Think of it as grift and not gambling.

Maybe you mean in any modern sense of the word, but I'm pretty sure that is indeed a large part of what it used to mean.

Sure, but Chesterton's Fence is a pretty foundational argument among many conservatives.

Conservatives think societies are hard to understand, which makes them hard to engineer, and replacing institutions that work with new inventions needs to be done carefully and slowly.

IMO, the world simply functions better when we strive for virtue.

I think most serious left-wing people also hold a strong aversion to gambling on the grounds that it's financially exploitative and can be viewed as a regressive tax on the poor/uneducated.

Conservatives don't have a monopoly on morality.

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