The Hedgehog And The Fox
In one of those weird bursts of synchronicity, I was thinking about hedgehogs, foxes and education; moments later, I read Ariana Huffington's recent post on microtrends vs macrotrends, and why Barack Obama seems to be winning the Democratic nomination in the US Presidential Campaign.
Isaiah Berlin died more than a decade ago, just as I was completing my first year as an educational administrator in the black arts. He was famous, in particular, for an essay entitled The Hedgehog and the Fox. It was based on a poem by Archilochos – a Greek poet who wrote, πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα.
Poll' oid' alópéx, all' echinos hen mega is a complex little idea. It means, "The fox knows many things; but the hedgehog knows one great thing." Berlin used this as the basis for a division of human thinkers into two categories, those who look at the world as an irreducible mass of conflicting and ambiguous ideas, and those who think in terms of grand unified theories – the so-called Big Ideas.
In the end, of course, you need both. The hedgehog's single great idea might only bear fruit if coupled with the duplicity and guile of the fox and his many little cunning ways. But the cycle seems to work this way: a hedgehog-style big idea launches a revolution that picks up speed but may have little concrete application or systematic development; the foxes come in to pursue their own agenda and to make sure that small ideas hiding in the shadow of the big idea find their proper place. Eventually, a new big idea will come along, and the cycle repeats.
A problem arises when one of these two is in the ascendant for too long. An institution intent on leading a foxy, duplicitous, mendacious and misleading life will sometimes lose sight completely of any big idea at all. Instead, its 'big idea replacement programme' is to adopt the motto mundus vult decipi. The world wants to be deceived, and since we can do it, why not?
It all ties in with my musings on holism. The modern holism seems to be a foxlike one: if we think in many directions all at once, it is holism. But that is not holism; rather, it is pluralism wrapped in a neat blanket and masquerading as an integrated whole. The true holism is that of the hedgehog; there is one idea, and everything else serves it. The practice of education, for example, must lie somewhere between the two: we have classes, but individuals who must be respected as such; we have departments, but they exist to carry out the mission of the school. We are multicultural and multidisciplinary, but sometimes we forget the intercultural and the interdisciplinary, and we have never really known the transcultural and transdisciplinary.
Finally, we need to examine the fox and the hedgehog a little more closely. The former is a predator; its problem-solving is geared towards rapine and murder. The latter is prey, but well-defended with barbs in every direction except at the soft underbelly. Eventually, what we know of nature tells us that the fox will win, given enough time. The hedgehog's main salvation lies in the fact that the fox is impatient and choleric; it has a short attention span.
Now imagine what we could do to enhance the two. Give the hedgehog the ability to poison its spines, or even grow specialist spines with unusual abilities: narcotic effects, psychotropic effects, projectile capability. Give the fox the ability to make long-term plans and stay focussed for more than one period of time. I still suspect the hedgehog will win in the long run. If it were faster, there would be no foxes left. For the hedgehog is not only a unified agent, it is also a disruptive force par excellence just by being what it is. Then again, if the fox tried its hand at honest work, or evolved an opposable thumb, thus leading to the invention of tools, it would be the end of the hedgehog.
The last possibility is to combine the two. But nature has already done that, although the combination is not obvious. The answer to the hedgehog/fox dilemma is a simple one. Man is the animal that combines the two, and that is where we return, at last, to Berlin.
Isaiah Berlin died more than a decade ago, just as I was completing my first year as an educational administrator in the black arts. He was famous, in particular, for an essay entitled The Hedgehog and the Fox. It was based on a poem by Archilochos – a Greek poet who wrote, πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα.
Poll' oid' alópéx, all' echinos hen mega is a complex little idea. It means, "The fox knows many things; but the hedgehog knows one great thing." Berlin used this as the basis for a division of human thinkers into two categories, those who look at the world as an irreducible mass of conflicting and ambiguous ideas, and those who think in terms of grand unified theories – the so-called Big Ideas.
In the end, of course, you need both. The hedgehog's single great idea might only bear fruit if coupled with the duplicity and guile of the fox and his many little cunning ways. But the cycle seems to work this way: a hedgehog-style big idea launches a revolution that picks up speed but may have little concrete application or systematic development; the foxes come in to pursue their own agenda and to make sure that small ideas hiding in the shadow of the big idea find their proper place. Eventually, a new big idea will come along, and the cycle repeats.
A problem arises when one of these two is in the ascendant for too long. An institution intent on leading a foxy, duplicitous, mendacious and misleading life will sometimes lose sight completely of any big idea at all. Instead, its 'big idea replacement programme' is to adopt the motto mundus vult decipi. The world wants to be deceived, and since we can do it, why not?
It all ties in with my musings on holism. The modern holism seems to be a foxlike one: if we think in many directions all at once, it is holism. But that is not holism; rather, it is pluralism wrapped in a neat blanket and masquerading as an integrated whole. The true holism is that of the hedgehog; there is one idea, and everything else serves it. The practice of education, for example, must lie somewhere between the two: we have classes, but individuals who must be respected as such; we have departments, but they exist to carry out the mission of the school. We are multicultural and multidisciplinary, but sometimes we forget the intercultural and the interdisciplinary, and we have never really known the transcultural and transdisciplinary.
Finally, we need to examine the fox and the hedgehog a little more closely. The former is a predator; its problem-solving is geared towards rapine and murder. The latter is prey, but well-defended with barbs in every direction except at the soft underbelly. Eventually, what we know of nature tells us that the fox will win, given enough time. The hedgehog's main salvation lies in the fact that the fox is impatient and choleric; it has a short attention span.
Now imagine what we could do to enhance the two. Give the hedgehog the ability to poison its spines, or even grow specialist spines with unusual abilities: narcotic effects, psychotropic effects, projectile capability. Give the fox the ability to make long-term plans and stay focussed for more than one period of time. I still suspect the hedgehog will win in the long run. If it were faster, there would be no foxes left. For the hedgehog is not only a unified agent, it is also a disruptive force par excellence just by being what it is. Then again, if the fox tried its hand at honest work, or evolved an opposable thumb, thus leading to the invention of tools, it would be the end of the hedgehog.
The last possibility is to combine the two. But nature has already done that, although the combination is not obvious. The answer to the hedgehog/fox dilemma is a simple one. Man is the animal that combines the two, and that is where we return, at last, to Berlin.
Labels: Archilochus, Arms Race, Circular Thinking, Holism, Isaiah Berlin, Philosophy
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