The primary issue with Chesterton's long-revered fence is that puts the entire burden of proof on the person who desires to take it down.
What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Those who would defend the fence, absent any documentation, would ascribe the most noble uses to it, as their desire is to maintain the status quo, or at least the status pro se. They would, to use Chesterton's term, 'go gaily up to it' and defend it with their lives, saying "clearly this fence always existed, and thus should always be."
Chesterton's 'modern reformer' is a strawman as bald-faced as any, and it's all too easy to use "Chesterton's Fence" as a defense of mindless conservatism.
What if the fence was put there for purposes of adverse posession? Those who would defend the fence, absent any documentation, would ascribe the most noble uses to it, as their desire is to maintain the status quo, or at least the status pro se. They would, to use Chesterton's term, 'go gaily up to it' and defend it with their lives, saying "clearly this fence always existed, and thus should always be."
Chesterton's 'modern reformer' is a strawman as bald-faced as any, and it's all too easy to use "Chesterton's Fence" as a defense of mindless conservatism.