Of Custom, and not easily changing an accepted law is an interesting chapter for me after having previously been familiar with the works of Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Taleb first introduced me to the concept of having skin in the game (at least in a more formal, philosophical sense) and not being able to change things that will effect others without proportional consequence to yourself. And Montaigne covered much the same ground almost five centuries earlier. From the chapter:
"The legislator of the Thurians ordained, that whosoever would go about either to abolish an old law, or to establish a new, should present himself with a halter about his neck to the people, to the end, that if the innovation he would introduce should not be approved by every one, he might immediately be hanged[.]"
Think government and bureaucracy passing laws and amendments that will effect others whilst simultaneously evading the consequences when those decisions have negative effects; especially those who think they know what's better for others:
"There is a vast difference betwixt the case of one who follows the forms and laws of his country, and of another who will undertake to regulate and change them; of whom the first pleads simplicity, obedience, and example for his excuse, who, whatever he shall do, it cannot be imputed to malice; 'tis at the worst but misfortune: '[For who is there that antiquity, attested and confirmed by the fairest monuments, cannot move]?' Besides what Isocrates says, that defect is nearer allied to moderation than excess: the other is a much more ruffling gamester; for whosoever shall take upon him to choose and alter, usurps the authority of judging, and should look well about him, and make it his business to discern clearly the defect of what he would abolish, and the virtue of what he is about to introduce."
"It argues a strange self-love and great presumption to be so fond of one's own opinions, that a public peace must be overthrown to establish them, and to introduce so many inevitable mischiefs, and so dreadful a corruption of manners, as a civil war and the mutation of state consequence to it, always bring in their train, and to introduce them, in a thing of so high concern, into the bowels of one's own country."
Does this mean that things should never change? Of course not. But there is a strong case to be made for being far more cautious than we seem to be when it comes to passing what are, at best, only theoretically beneficial ideas that will inevitably have unexpected, if not flat-out unquantifiable, consequences.
After all that, how can society change? To add my own two cents, from what I've gathered reading others such as Jordan Peterson and Nassim Taleb change is best had at the level of the individual. Things seem to always go awry when beneficial change is enacted at any other level than that of the individual. People need to change for the better of their own volition at the level of the individual. Society can't help but benefit from the betterment of an individual by his own will.
What do you think?
"The best pretence for innovation is of very dangerous consequence: '[We are ever wrong in changing ancient ways.]'"
