The Chromium Fence is a 1955 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

, first published in Imagination

Imagination (magazine)

Imagination was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in October 1950 by Raymond Palmer's Clark Publishing Company. The magazine was sold almost immediately to Greenleaf Publishing Company, owned by William Hamling, who published and edited it from the third issue,...

 magazine.

The story is set in a future where political differences have been reduced to trivialities, the purists are pitted against the naturalists. The purists wish to make the adoption of cosmetic changes (sweat glands removed, teeth fixed and so on) compulsory.
The purist and naturalist mantra in this story is shown as one extreme manifestation of the brain-washing. The central character, Don Walsh, seems the only sane man left and refuses to join either side. Eventually, however, he is forced to act and pays the ultimate price.

Notes:

• One of Dick's most obscure stories, never reprinted anywhere after its single appearance in the bottom-market Imagination (July 1955) - at least until the advent of Dick's collected stories in 1987.

• The agency attempted to sell the story at the New Yorker magazine by describing it as a 'New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
  story' set in the future.