Dangerous Corner

Chesterton’s Fence, named for G. K. Chesterton, the author of The Man Who Was Thursday, which is a book I highly recommend, and who was a friend of Shaw and H. G. Wells, is the principle that you don’t take down a fence until you know what it was put up for. We all want the pearl without the grit so we try to dispense with that which we perceive as unnecessary without noting that the Marx Brothers were funnier with Zeppo along and the Rolling Stones were never as good without Bill Wyman. We’re playing Jenga with reality here.