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"There’s a certain kind of person who likes to talk about Chesterton’s Fence, and who will tell you that you should obey tradition because, being the distillation of centuries of human experience, it encodes tacit knowledge and gives you truths you couldn’t possibly reach on your own. This person, whom we may call the utilitrad, is rarely from a society that burns its widows."

#JanePsmith

Touché.

https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-sick-societies-by-robert-b

#traditionalism #anthropology #maladaptation #GKChesterton
#ThePsmiths
utilitrad haah
In the past I've made precisely the argument that tradition is a form of cultural adaptation [0] and we should therefore treat it respectfully -- and I've argued that some some cultures are superior to others. I'm glad I read this essay pointing out the (obvious really) tension between the two arguments.

[0] For examples of cultural adaptation, see this review of *The Secret of Our Success* https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/

#SlateStarCodex
I wrote a short piece about customs in my lived experience of co-organizing a collective https://dougwebb.site/posts/custom-is-consent/