Fences don’t maintain themselves, and I don’t think we should give either side a pass. The town should have a general tradition of tearing down unjustified fences and keeping documentation for the justification of fences. It shouldn’t be assumed there was a good reason, the party installing the fence should have presented an argument for the fence in the first place.
Chesterton’s argument is that we should assume there was a reason in the absence of an argument for the fence. This is only the case if there’s a proliferation of necessary, unjustified fences. We should not let that sort of situation emerge in the first place.
You don't seem to grasp the thrust of the article. Chesterton does not set up two sides. And I don't know what you mean by "necessary, unjustified fences." Those two words stand in juxtaposition. If a fence is necessary, it can be justified. If it's not necessary, it cannot be justified.
If the standard is that we maintain fences that don’t have an articulated justification, we will end up with fences that are necessary, but which don’t have an articulated justification. They may be justifiable, but without that justification articulated, we have don’t really have an easy way of telling which are justifiable.
Chesterton finds himself surrounded by fences which have no articulated justification, but which might be necessary/justifiable. This is a predicament of his own making. If he and everyone else in the town always bulldozed any fence they came across which doesn’t have a justification, people who want fences would start writing down why they’d put them there.
This would be helpful, because not only will it tell us which fences shouldn’t be torn down. It would tell us which fences we should actively maintain.
> Chesterton finds himself surrounded by fences which have no articulated justification, but which might be necessary/justifiable. This is a predicament of his own making. If he and everyone else in the town always bulldozed any fence they came across which doesn’t have a justification, people who want fences would start writing down why they’d put them there.
I think this falls down if the consequence of bulldozing a fence are high and if the original builders of the fence are no longer around.
The problem isn't Chesterton's own making. The problem Chesterton is trying to solve is when, for whatever reason, most likely due to many generations passing, the purpose of the fence isn't written down.
That also ignores the fact that some fences are built through an emergent and collaborative process, and so no one is such a co-creator to write down why it is there.
Chesterton’s argument is that we should assume there was a reason in the absence of an argument for the fence. This is only the case if there’s a proliferation of necessary, unjustified fences. We should not let that sort of situation emerge in the first place.